The Ugly Cycle

There are many ugly cycles involved in anorexia, but this particular ugly cycle references when I reach my tipping point in recovery, the point of no return. The cycle is as follows: I find the strength to recover, I start recovering, I get extremely triggered by something, I lose the motivation to recover, and I relapse. I manage a lot of triggers day-to-day, but this type of trigger is a nasty breed of trigger, something that affects me on another level, and a point that everyone around me stands in complete whilpash when they hear of it, for they too know it will be something I won't recover from. The ugly cycle is not just ugly for me to experience; it's ugly to look at as they watch the downfall of a girl who had so much in front of her.

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Even contemplating recovery and the term 'recovery' was a battle I faced for years, as I only had the desire to stay stuck in my eating disorder. So each time I decide to face the immense hurdle of undergoing recovery, there is a lot of pressure on the fragility of the situation. We, as a family, treat every day like it is going to be the last day of using that word and putting its wheels into motion. Each day, everybody is tippy-toing on eggshells, trying not to say or do the one thing that will change everything: the trigger point. We all work so hard not to be that thing; we're careful of the people we speak to, the words we use, and the places we go. We put our everything into making recovery possible. Which is why when the trigger point comes, everything unravels, and we see everything we've worked for rapidly go down a dirty drain; it feels like somebody has sliced our guts open and left everything to fall out before us. That point is a point that breaks our hearts, all over again, in the way it always, eventually, does.

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What goes up must come down; the sad circumstance my parents became accustomed to. I have had countless admissions, and despite a different approach for every one to try and create a different outcome, the outcome in which I didn't respond to treatment repeated itself. At first, the response to a new idea presenting itself was one of exceptional delight; there was hope after a period of decline, denial, dismissal, decline, denial, dismissal. But each new time after the first promise, that hope became tainted with the breath that got held waiting for the castle to come tumbling down. It was just a matter of time. Now, when I start to do well, it's as though I can see the sadness in mum's eyes begin to swell like little pools of anxiety and despair. I can see that she wants to say 'congratulations', 'thank you', 'I love you', and 'good job', but the words choke in her throat because it's just a matter of time before her daughter slips away into the darkness again.

It's too painful for her to let herself believe again that this time it will be different. It's far too painful, and I understand that.

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It’s so sad how many people suffer from anorexia. It’s so sad how many people want to recover but don’t have the support. It’s so sad how many people try to recover and don’t make it out the other end. But what’s saddest of all is how many people die from this illness, little angels, leaving their light behind on Earth with their friends and families. So I write this post in the hopes that if you know someone who is recovering, you are more mindful of what you say, think, and do. Be supportive, don’t comment on their bodies, and be their reason to fight, not the reason they don’t. And I write this post in the hopes that if you are recovering, you do your best to keep your head up despite the triggers. Keep going. I believe in you. And finally, I write this post for my Mum, to tell her that I don’t know if this time it will be different. I can’t promise that. But what I can promise is that no matter what age I am, I will die trying.

Kisses,

COS x