I’ve been struggling. I’ve been struggling with my mind, my body, my weight, and my wanting to recover. I want recovery. I really do, but I can’t seem to get myself to care enough to try. All I wan…
I’m the body and weight of an anorexic who started bingeing. What I am NOT is a body at a healthy weight. There’s a difference.
(Source: strengthtodance)
Fake Smiles
The birds they sing.
The wind it howls.
The girl sits down and smiles.
Two Words
the worst
two words
disordered people
will ever
hear whispered
deep in
their mind:
“I’m back”
Pretend
I need help
I’m not okay
I don’t know what to say
.
I can’t ask for help
No one hears my screams
I’m buried deep inside my cries
.
My eyes stay dry
My voice is still
I pretend the world is fine
(Source: strengthtodance)
Why all of a sudden has this wave of depression swooped down over me so hard that it’s just pulling me under with no remorse?
Untitled
I don’t want to remember.
I don’t want the sadness.
I don’t want the world to see me.
I don’t want to cry.
I don’t want to hurt anymore.
I just want it to stop.
(Source: strengthtodance)
The Story of a Girl Told in Many Parts: Part XVIII
She wakes up and everything hurts. She’s sick again and doesn’t want to move. She remembers how she used to love being sick. Being sick meant that she didn’t have to eat. She knows she should though because she hasn’t eaten in days.
“I just really don’t want to feel this terrible right now.”
She gets up to answer the door and has to sit down again. She sends the visitor off and closes the door. It comes over her like waves crashing into rocks. She feels the buzz and darkness throughout her whole body. The hallway to her room gets longer and she doesn’t think she will make it. She pushes open the door and falls onto her bed just missing the floor. Her heart is pounding.
She wakes up and her head is killing her. She knows she needs to eat. She goes to the kitchen and opens the fridge. There is nothing she can consume. She tries to eat some fruit, but doesn’t manage to eat very much.
She goes back to sit on her bed with her head in her knees, pulling her legs in tight.
“I can’t do this. I feel horrible and there is nothing I can get myself to eat. I can’t eat anything. Everything scares me. I’m afraid of how afraid I am of food. What am I going to do?”
As the day goes on she gets sicker and sicker. She calls her father.
“Dad, I think I need to go to the hospital.”
She arrives in the emergency room and everything is hot. She’s sweating and dizzy. The nurse takes her pressure and heart rate. 164 bpm. Her heart rate keeps spiking higher.
“My heart feels like it’s pounding”
“Come over to the stretcher dear and lie down”
They pull her into ambulatory care. She gets connected to machines, her blood is taken, an EKG is ordered and she sees a doctor within minutes.
“They brought you back here because your heart rate is too high and we need to bring it down now. You said you’ve been sick for two weeks. Have you been eating?”
“I’ve been eating but not much. I haven’t had an appetite.”
She is only telling a partial lie. She has been too afraid to eat. She’s afraid of almost everything now. She panics if she has to eat anything other than toast and crackers. She doesn’t tell them that.
“It’s likely you are very dehydrated so we’re going to put you on fluids and check back with you when we get your test results.”
Her mind is racing. She was never supposed to be in the emergency room for anything that had to do with her eating disorder. It was her eating disorder that exacerbated everything else. She would have been fine if she had nourished herself back to health.
You fat pig. Look at yourself. Are you happy now? All these doctors know you have an eating disorder, but when they look at you all they see is fat. They are laughing at you and you can’t even see it. They are going to put bags and bags of saline in you. They are going to swell you up like a balloon and make you fatter. Stupid, stupid girl. You should be smarter next time.
She drops her head and whispers ”I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
(Source: strengthtodance)
"It is not a sudden leap from sick to well. It is a slow, strange meander from sick to mostly well. The misconception that eating disorders are a medical disease in the traditional sense is not helpful here. There is no ‘cure’. A pill will not fix it, though it may help. Ditto therapy, ditto food, ditto endless support from family and friends. You fix it yourself. It is the hardest thing that I have ever done, and I found myself stronger for doing it. Much stronger."
—
Marya Hornbacher
(Source: strengthtodance)
Cold Arms
Silent whispers whirl around
Others tread on fragile ground
Cold arms begin to suffocate
Once they do there is no escape
Words of others with no meaning
Makes it hard to keep on eating
Sadness steals what was regained
Crushing anything that still remained
(Source: strengthtodance)
Return
And again it begins.
It returns without a care in the world.
To destroy what was left.
(Source: strengthtodance)
Today
Today … I don’t know whether I should be proud or not of myself today. I ate a clif bar and some rice pudding. I barely drank anything. I’m not hungry. I don’t want to eat, yet I feel so guilty. I’ve been lying to my treatment team. Although I am dizzy all the time (even when I’m not restricting), and have been on the verge of fainting, I haven’t eaten much the past two days. I’m lying to everyone telling them that I’m eating a lot and that there is no reason for my dizziness because it’s not the eating. How do you explain that it isn’t the eating, when on a few of the days I haven’t eaten? It’s been three weeks. I’ve restricted maybe four days in those three weeks. It’s not the eating. Something else is wrong. Am I wrong to lie? Should I be telling them?
On the other hand I don’t want them to know. If they know then they might try to stop me. I’ve gained so much weight I can’t even explain to you guys how much it is hurting me inside. I’m crashing. I’m not sure what to do. I feel so terrible for not having eaten today and I feel horrible and guilty for lying. I’m such a terrible person. What should I be doing?
Why is this happening? What is wrong with me?
The Story of a Girl Told in Many Parts: Part XVII
The nurse is an hour late. She sits in a waiting room thinking. She thinks about how she would get out of being weighed if the nurse asked. She thinks about how everyone says she’s better and that they only wanted to help so they could make her fat.
“That’s all they wanted. That’s all they ever wanted. I’m fat now. I’m recovered - cured- there is nothing wrong. I’m just a fat person who needs to lose weight.”
*phone rings*
“Hello,” she answered.
“Hi, I’m calling from the eating disorders clinic. We have an appointment slot open. Are you still in need of our services?”
She cannot believe this is happening. After all this time.
“… yes”
“Are you free January 15th?”
“Yes, that works for me.”
“The appointment will be two hours. If for some reason you can’t make the appointment or no longer require our services, call us. You aren’t the only one who’s been waiting.”
“Okay, thank you.”
*hangs up*
She wonders if the secretary said that because her psychiatrist had called them insisting she start at the clinic. She didn’t even know if she wanted to go. She was better.
“They’re just going to make me fatter.”
