Total failure...

I haven’t posted in a while... why? Because life has been very up in the air, and getting through each day is a bit of a mission right now.

I feel like a failure; a complete and utter failure. People try to defend my situation: “it’s an illness, it’s not your fault!”... regardless, it feels totally like it’s my fault; there’s no one else to blame is there.

My doctors have said I’m too unwell to return to Norland at the moment. People often say you have to hit rock bottom in order to accept that something must change, and, well, I’ve hit rock bottom. I’m going into my fifth year battling this bloody illness, and only now have I reached a place where I can accept that I really do need an inpatient admission.

Denial’s a very big part of this illness and I’ve spent the past few years refusing to admit to myself that I can’t share my life with anorexia; life and anorexia are incompatible. Regardless of health professionals’ advice over the years, I discharged myself from The Priory, I did various jobs on my gap year, I travelled, went to study at St Andrews, and most recently went off to Norland, in the hope of a ‘new chapter’. Did anorexia budge? Nope. Why? Because anything I put before my recovery will fail. That is the solid truth of the matter, and that’s what I can’t keep running from.

So, I have agreed to do the very thing that scares me the most; I’ve agreed to an inpatient admission.

How I wish it was that simple though. I now have to wait who knows how long for a bed to become available. Meanwhile, each day that passes provides anorexia with more time to convince me that “I’m not really that sick, I don’t need the help, I can do it alone” etc. Nothing’s simple with this illness; if it was as easy as to “just EAT”, I would’ve beaten this by now.

So, as everyone else starts term two at Norland today, I can’t. However, instead of wallowing in regret and self hatred (as anorexia would love)... I’m trying to see this admission (rock bottom), as “the solid foundation on which I rebuild my life”. Emphasis on the word ‘trying’!