The 'perfect' recovery doesn't exist!
Lonely, hopeless, and isolated; that’s how I’ve felt today. Actually, that’s how I’ve felt over the past three days now. I know why, it’s because I’ve been giving into anorexia, I’ve let her take control again and now things that I had overcome and things that were routine scare me again.
*Ergh SHUT UP!*
Sorry, I’m not shouting that at you, but at my eating disorder. I wish it would just shut up, it’s so loud every single second of the day. I think people think it just relentlessly goes on about food; what I can/cannot have, but that’s just the one aspect of this illness. You’re not wrong, from the moment I wake it’s THERE, right away thoughts racing a million miles an hour; ‘What time is it? Is it too late for breakfast? What are you meant to be doing today? Will that interfere with your meal times? What will you have to eat today? Who will you be around? What if you have to eat this/do that? Are you even hungry? You feel full already. You ate that last night, so can’t have that today. You ate way too much yesterday so must have less today. If you eat that later you have to compensate. Don’t wear that as it’ll feel too tight’, and it goes on, and on, ceaselessly bellowing in my ear. Really, it’s like having a devil on your shoulder; one side is the anorexia, and the other side is the real Mima, the one whose yearning to feel well again.
The thoughts that plague my brain aren’t just about food. This illness is all encompassing, it wants to take everything from me; not just my health, but my family, friends and social life too. This leaves me having to contest against anorexia in almost every decision in my day as it permanently tries to persuade me to cancel this or that, to isolate myself further, so that I restrict socially as well as nutritionally… until I’m left with nothing. That’s what anorexia ultimately wants, and that’s why I’ve felt so rubbish over the past three days, because I’ve allowed her to dictate my decisions (because yes, you heard me anorexia, they are MY DECISIONS, I DO have a choice!). Getting this illness wasn’t a choice, however recovering from it is.
Anorexia is so vindictive. Because I managed to fight it hard last week and go out lots, be social, eat well, not let it ruin the Easter weekend, when Monday rolled around it came back even more full-on and furious, determined that this week ‘it’ would regain control; Mima had had ‘enough fun’. So Monday’s plans were written off, as were Tuesday’s, as were today’s, resulting in me bursting into tears with Midge this evening for the first time since leaving hospital. What does this prove? That listening to anorexia NEVER MAKES YOU HAPPY MIMA. It NEVER solves anything! So why the hell do I still fall into the trap of obeying it? Why’s this so hard? Why can’t I just think normally again, why can’t I be the old gregarious, outgoing, care-free Mima? I’m left here, awake, at nearly midnight questioning if I’ll ever manage to get the old Mima back? I’m such a failure.
Ergh! There you go again… I’ve fallen into that black-and-white thinking. My perfectionism is unsustainable and is what’s keeping me ill. Last week my therapist explained that I need to learn to float in the middle, feeling ‘good enough’, not perfect, as, let’s face it ‘perfect’ doesn’t actually exist. This toxic perfectionism filters through all aspects of my life, stupid though it may sound, I even strive for the ‘perfect recovery’, so when I have one slip up in the day, that day is soon written off, and once again, I’ve ‘failed’. You can never win with anorexia though; it berates me if I’m succeeding in recovery, and berates me if I’m failing at recovery: ‘see I told you that you couldn’t do it, why do you keep trying, just give up, you fail at everything’. This whole illness is such a toxic trap, and once you’ve fallen into it it’s so, so hard to navigate out of, take it from me, get help early on, before it takes everything. I’m lucky - somehow the people around me continue to care, support and love me, however if I’m thirty, skeletal and chronic, I’ll have lost all of that too because people can only stay by you so much when you continue to push them away.
I need to hold onto that spark of hope that my life won’t always be this hard, I CAN beat this, because if I lose hope I’ll lose fight, and if I stop fighting, it wins, easy. Come on Mima, you have to keep going.
