The new year…

Over the past five years I’ve kept diaries that I’ve written in daily, and today I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but have been very reluctant to… I dug out some of my old diaries and re-read parts of them. Unsurprisingly on the 31st of December each year the same resounding themes of hope and disappointment were echoed in each diary. 

31st December 2015 – “Let 2016 be the year that I get the real and happy Mima back, don’t let it be another year I’m unhappy and discontent. Don’t let me have to go back into hospital ever again, or see another psychiatrist about it. My biggest hope for 2016 is that I’ll recover from anorexia. I HAVE to.” 

 31st December 2016 – “I’m praying next year will be better, that it’s the year I manage to recover from anorexia. I want to re-read this in a years time and be better, full of life, the ‘old’ Mima again. Thing is I still don’t feel ready to recover, I don’t know when I will though? Will I ever get better? I’m learning to live with anorexia and that’s not okay”. 

 31st December 2017 – “Now. In this moment. Here. Marks Mima trying to make a real change. I’ve now been plagued by anorexic thoughts for 3 years. I need to have a life again, not a mere existence. I don’t want to read this entering 2018 with no better health or happiness. My goal for 2017 is to DO THIS.” 

31st December 2018 – “So, it’s finally the last day of 2018… I got through another year, just! I feel low today, kind of numb really. I so want to be one of those people who can look back on their year and feel proud and happy; but I don’t, if anything I feel lower than ever and more disappointed in myself that I’m still ill. I know I pray this every year, please let 2019 be MY year. The year I get my health back and feel better than ever.” 

 … see what I mean? The same hopes for each year, followed by recurring frustration that I’ve let another year pass by and have failed once again. 

 “Failed, failure, selfish, let-down”… I keep berating myself for not having made the progress that I swore to myself I would make this year, but where’s that getting me? Shame and self-hatred are what fuel anorexia, by continuing to berate myself I’m only really perpetuating the pain that’s kept me trapped.

 Instead I’m trying to turn my frustration into determination to prevent 2020 playing out the same way. I’m also trying to be more self-compassionate, as according to my therapist that’s the antithesis of anorexia. For starters, to believe that I can beat something that I’ve now been fighting for 5 years in the space of 12 months is totally unrealistic. Yes, in a years time I could be in a very different place, but will I be anorexia-free… it’s unlikely. Not impossible, but unlikely. This illness is known to be one of the hardest to treat, and even harder to beat… why do you think it has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness? 

 Anorexia is a killer, and to be totally honest the very fact that I’m still alive and here writing this today should be something I hold onto. Yes I may not be where I hoped I would be a year ago, but at various times throughout this year I’ve not felt able to go on; I’ve wanted it to all end, and that’s a very scary place to be.

 But I am here, I have got through it, and maybe that’s what 2019 was about for me, just getting through it, because if I can get through a year like this, I know I can get through anything 2020 throws at me. 

 Thank you to everyone whose supported me throughout this year, and all those who continue to hold hope for me when at times I loose it.

 Here’s to 2020…