Don’t let it come to the confines of hospital again, Mima…

What if I’m stuck like this forever? What then? 

These questions are constantly pulsating through my brain at the moment; what if I never manage to recover, what then?

I don’t want to be thirty and living alone, or still stuck at home; no job, no life, every morsel controlled, every ounce restricted.

Want the honest truth? I’ve not been doing so well. In fact, I haven’t been for quite some time. It’s easy to put on a front, the calm, smiley, gregarious person that you meet masks quite the opposite. 

There’s ‘fake it until you make it’, then there’s faking it whilst never really making it. Unfortunately, I’ve been doing the latter. I’ve not been doing well since, well, leaving hospital back in April. You would think such a horrid, traumatic experience would cajole me into never indulging in restriction ever again, but the mind’s a very complex thing. I feel almost back at square one… but it’s harder this time around as in my eyes, at least, I don’t even look unwell so can’t possibly warrant an inpatient bed.

However, that’s exactly what my team are suggesting. They’ve seen me struggling more and more each week – I’ve had to push back returning to Norland even further, and despite my new goal of trying to return in January, I’m still finding it incredibly hard to move things forward, and get that positive trajectory that I so yearn for. 

I’m stuck in a rut. No, actually it’s more like a hole, a very deep one, one that I can see no way out of. I feel consumed, alone, and incredibly angry with myself. I know what you’ll say, ‘stop being so hard on yourself’. But in my eyes I’m not, I’m just being honest, and realistic. 

The fact I couldn’t return to Norland to start the new term on Monday wasn’t anyone’s fault but my own. I knew my goal, all I needed to do was eat; to take the medicine. Heck, to most having unlimited food as medicine must sound the dream. My reality: it’s a bloody nightmare!

It’s a bloody nightmare because anorexia’s screwed up my neural pathways, this means I see food as a threat and something to be avoided at all costs. Why? Because that’s what I’ve trained it to think, through repeated actions and associations over five long years. So, each day when I’m trying to will myself to eat more, I’m having to go against every impulse of my body (and brain). The only way out through is to do the now alien thing, and eat the food. But, doing so comes packed with intense guilt and hampering anxiety.

Both these are things any human would want to avoid, hence why most days I end up giving in and doing as anorexia wants, because to my brain it’s the safe thing, the ‘right’ thing to do, although in reality it’s quite the contrary.

Sorry… these are just my night time ramblings… sleep has become hard again too; another effect of starvation.

Funny… as I just typed that anorexia piped up, ‘So they say! Ha. Starved? You’re nothing like it! Look at you, you’re fine!’.

It never stops, 12am, 4am, 12pm. It’s there endlessly scouring me, but if I keep listening to anorexia I’ll never recover, as I’ll never be ill enough, that is, not until I’m 6ft under and it’s all too late.

When will this stop? When will I get over myself. Come on Mima, you need to get a grip. Don’t let it come to the confines of inpatient again.