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Dear friend,
I am writing to you today to address our relationship for the past 10 years, which I feel has been rather strained. I loved you when we were kids. You were always there for me no matter what. We grew together. We laughed, we cried, we played, and we danced. You helped me discover who I was in this world.
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It can be difficult, at this time of year, to keep a balanced perspective. The holidays are chaotic, full of opportunities for criticism, self-directed or otherwise, and it is hard to resist the pull to begin January full of judgment. Whether you are the type to scoff at resolutions, or to earnestly face the New Year hoping that you can be a better self than you were in the past in some small way, for those of us who keep ourselves at a distance - the sick self and the well self - the urge to reflect and resolve is fraught.
For the longest time I felt like I was trapped in a box. I felt isolated and it felt like the life that I always wanted to live was so far out of reach.
I have always wanted to travel; I wanted to see what was beyond the comfort of my backyard and experience everything this world has to offer. However, between my eating disorder, anxiety and depression, the idea of travelling seemed unimaginable. Living with such illnesses, I would say, feels like you are carrying around a ton of extra weight.
The Objective of Life: In my opinion, it is to live a fulfilled life free of pain and suffering. Having said that, hardships are often inevitable. However, I do believe that we can sometimes manifest our own problems in our lives, specifically relating to our bodies. Through my own personal experiences, I have recognized my own body concerns as being tied to preoccupations of my mind. The culture of the mind can play a major role in the organization of one’s life, including the perception of the self. Negative thinking pathways in our minds, like negative self-talk, can lead you to feel like a prisoner in your own body, which I experienced before finding the pathway of recovery and happiness.
“You look healthy.”
I heard this often when I first recovered from anorexia nervosa, and it sent my head whirling with thoughts such as: “What do they mean? How bad did I look before? Am I too healthy?” A simple, seemingly positive remark made me feel confused and irrational. I knew people were trying to make me feel good, tell me in their own ways that they were relieved I had changed my life for the better, but it was hard to accept my changing body; never mind what others thought.
Dear 2005 Me,
I have been fighting anorexia for more than 10 years. It was getting to the point where I thought anorexia was going to be present for the rest of my life. If you are where I was, fighting and falling and wanting to give up, have hope. Recovery is possible.
Many individuals will reach a point where they decide that they are “recovered enough” from anorexia and choose to stop there. The following are three lies that your eating disorder may say to convince you to stay in the state of partial-recovery, along with my counter-arguments.
Believe it or not, the first time I saw this image above was on an episode of Girls on HBO. It’s a great show and, for sure, one of my not-so-guilty pleasures. I can't recall the exact scenario for how it came up but I remember the main character, played by Lena Dunham, sitting in some sort of job interview and seeing a poster with "Where the magic happens" in a big circle with a much smaller circle off to the side which was labeled, "Your comfort zone." I recall from that episode how Dunham's character just sat there and stared at the poster on the wall, contemplating the meaning.
In Western society, the idea of gaining weight is often viewed as the ultimate sin. We associate weight gain with failure, while we view weight loss as a sign of strength. For me, I wanted to get smaller, because I craved acceptance, even though it was acceptance from a superficial place.
“When it finally hit my how sick our daughter was, I almost collapsed. We had just come home from a doctor’s appointment (the second in eight days) and it was suddenly crystal clear how rapid and uncontrolled her weight loss was… By the time I got home, I was shaking uncontrollably, my lips were numb, I couldn’t feel my fingertips and I wasn’t sure if my legs would carry me up the steps.”
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