“Admitting your weaknesses doesn’t diminish your strength’s: It shows your courage”

I’ve been a bit quiet since I came home last weekend. I haven’t known whether to blog or not. On the one hand, I am really struggling and I know it will help to write things down. On the other hand, I am under the same roof as my parents, my sister and D… All of who will receive a copy of this post after I hit ‘publish’… It is times like this that I wish they were not subscribers.

I am worried that if they know how I am really feeling, they will all be staring at me, checking on me, watching me, making sure I’m ok. If I am struggling whilst I am at university, all my parents can do is send me a text or give me a call to see if I am ok. I don’t want my parents to start worrying about me, trying to fix it and treating me like a child.

Over the Easter weekend I did well. I enjoyed family meals and ate chocolate and didn’t feel bad about it. Since then, things have been going downhill.

Ed is loud. Deafening. Screaming in my ear. However, the worst thing about it is that I am letting him. I feel as though, despite how much I hate, detest and loathe my eating disorder, this week we are holding hands and living life together.

Despite the countless hours of therapy and treatment I have had over the last year and a half to try and understand my eating disorder, it is during weeks like these that I have no answers. I hate the person I become when I am listening to Ed, and yet I find it so hard to let it go. Part of me wants to be Ed’s friend this week. I want to use it a bit to loose the odd pound. I seem to think that I can just dip in and out when I please.

According to my BMI Index, I am ‘normal’ now. As a result, I find it hard to believe that I still need a certain number of snacks, carbs in every meal and a pudding every day. Normal people don’t have a dessert every day so why do I need to?

Lunchtime today was a particularly bad meal. Trying to choose what to have was painful. I didn’t succeed in choosing what I ‘wanted’. I had what was safest… what Ed would like. Although it wasn’t particularly restrictive, I’m not sure choosing something you don’t want to eat is what a normal person would do? Plus, because Ed’s voice was so loud during my meal, I was unable to lift my eyes from my plate. I couldn’t speak to D or my sister. It was me vs the plate. At least I won.

I hate the person I become when I listen to Ed. I am not a relaxing person to be around. I am not a chatty, fun person to be around. I am anxious, tetchy, distracted. People act differently around me when they know Ed is around. I find that really hard to deal with because sometimes I feel as though it isn’t my fault. I can’t help it if Ed turns me into a difficult person.

Also I might be going to D’s house next week for 4 days to revise. It will be the first time in about two years that I have had that long eating in someone else’s house. D obviously knows a lot about Ed and his parents know about my eating disorder (not that I have ever discussed it with them). Since I have been struggling this week, D was obviously concerned about how I would cope with the food at his house. He rang his parents and they said they were more than happy for me to stay and they asked what kind of meals I would like.

It is very kind of them to be looking out for me and I really appreciate it. However, I can’t help but get upset that I am still, to some extent, defined as the ‘anorexic’. Normal people wouldn’t need to ensure that certain foods were in the house and know in advance what kind of meals would be served. Especially not for four days. It upset me that I couldn’t just go round and be comfortable with whatever was given to me.

So all in all, the past few days haven’t been great. I always said I would never blog unless I was posting something positive about how my journey to recovery is giving me a new life. This post doesn’t seem to be particularly positive. It’s more of a muddled, rambling mess of a shitty week listening to Ed.

However, the positive thing about this post is the fact I have written it. I am admitting the last week has been hard. Although some twisted part of me wants to carry on listening to Ed, I know that isn’t a good decision. By keeping all these thoughts and feelings to myself, I am pleasing Ed.

So this post is a reminder that although I am the only one who can recover, perhaps I can’t do it alone. Maybe people need to know about my struggles and difficult days. 

As I once said myself in my Divorce Letter to Ed, “I’m worth more than anorexia. I’m worth more than Ed. I deserve to start living”. It’s about time I listened to myself. I know better than Ed.