My mind’s having a bit of a stress over life today, because I want to recover so much & itâs painful to still be constantly fighting it, but if that wasnât already stressful enough…these flipping TV programmes that are being aired have left me feeling even more frustrated! I want to tell someone off for encouraging such disordered behaviours & for ânormalisingâ dangerous eating! It annoys me a lot that we focus so much on obesity…that people just donât care about the damage theyâre causing or how much more difficult theyâre making recovery from eating disorders, so yeah… Iâm venting my frustrations because I canât have a conversation with the makers of the show or with the prime minister! đđ€Šââïžđ And Iâm also venting my frustrations at myself because recovery feels really tough lately! Itâs not going to end with me losing my battle to Anorexia…that is not where my story is heading, but if it was possible to kick my bottom myself…I would! đ Because I need to up my game!
I havenât lost a lot of weight quickly like I have done in the past, but over the past 2 years⊠Iâve lost consistently & when you add it up⊠itâs quite a lot. Iâm down 20% of what I was 2years ago & it may not seem like a lot (or it might? Iâm too disordered to really know), but itâs quite a bit when I was only ever in the âhealthyâ range in the first instance, so potentially didnât âneedâ to.
I hated getting to that point because the weight gain didnât happen in a healthy way (so it was never something to be congratulated over), but this weight loss also hasnât happened in a healthy way either. Youâd think I might manage being heavier because Iâve been heavier before & coped with it to a degree.. I was actually at my heaviest at 17 but my heavier, âhealthy weightâ was never maintained by a healthy diet or with healthy thoughts & behaviours.
Despite knowing that Iâm physically underweight right now⊠it still never makes weight restoration any less scary. Even after living at a healthy weight for a while.. once the numbers have been going down.. the thought of seeing them go up again is absolutely terrifying, especially when the eating disorder is desperately craving a lower number. I havenât had to deal with seeing consistent increases for 2 years now, so just the concept of that altering seems odd purely because I’m not used to another way.
Itâs also difficult with this illness because your eating disorder is constantly reminding you that youâve âbeen worseâ or that youâve âlost more beforeâ. It tells you that you donât âneedâ to restore weight because youâre not âill enoughâ, because youâve weighed much less & because âyouâre not that underweightâ .. so it doesnât matter. My team brought up my weight loss when my BMI was still healthy a few Kgâs ago & my doctorâs always raised concerns with the âgrey areaâ (18.5-20) for all the years that Iâve spoken to her anyway, because the grey area doesnât leave you with reserves if you were to fall ill for whatever reason & despite it still being categorised as âhealthyââŠyou actually do score marks on the malnutrition index if youâre in that grey zone. Most teams also like you above the magic â20â marker for the reason that very few people would naturally be below that anyway & the âJ curveâ shows optimum health/lowest mortality risk being at the highest end of the healthy range anyway (despite what society tells you âhealthyâ is). I know they all had a point that I needed to stop it from falling further, but in my head.. all my mind was telling me was that I needed to lose just a bit more, so I was âill enoughâ to deserve to put the energy into recovering. It makes no sense at all, but Anorexia never does make sense! Itâs also something that Iâd never say to anybody else, but yet still apply to myself. Nothing is ever good enough for Anorexia. Itâs all a massive trick & you believe the same lies over & over.
Here I am again⊠under where I ought to be, under the magical number & lower than that grey area & do I feel like I deserve to restore weight now?⊠no. Of course I donât. I donât feel anymore deserving now than I did a few kilograms ago. I never feel that way, because no weight will ever be low enough. Anorexia will, of course, tell you that it will be enough, but each time you get to the number she asked you to get toâŠshe resets the barâŠconstantly lowering that bar.
Now?âŠmy brainâs more undernourished & so itâs even more difficult again to fight than it already was. Itâs difficult feeling as though I even need to be doing better than where Iâm currently at because your mind constantly tells you that youâre fine. Even society does, because we see images of people all of the time where theyâre either a bit underweight or at least on the low side of âhealthyâ (usually with airbrushed flat stomachs & so forth) & so⊠how can you possibly recognise that you need to restore weight when thinness is always being promoted & encouraged?
Itâs difficult in a world where we have diet & weight loss being shoved in our faces all of the time with the never ending stream of TV programmes encouraging dangerous dieting. Our country (and the ‘western world’) in particular is so obsessed with trying to âtackle obesityâ that it literally doesnât give a fuck about the smaller percentage of people who itâs going to hit the mostâŠthey donât care if thereâs a few deaths along the way because they hide behind saying âadvice was aimed at the overweight populationâ, as though it makes any kind of difference & also failing to recognise that overweight people can have eating disorders too, whilst also failing to recognise how disordered theyâre even making the non-ED population because much of the advice is actually rather harmful. Itâs one thing to recognise disordered thoughts & a disordered society, but itâs another thing then being able to do something about your own disorder. How do you restore weight when you donât actually believe or see that youâre underweight? How do you do it when everybody else is giving one another a pat on the back for weight loss, as though itâs the most amazing achievement they could ever make in life? Itâs flipping tough!
I know I want to do all of the things I need to & I honestly just want to do exactly what the ED team suggests, but it still doesnât make it easy to do so because thereâs this powerful disorder thatâs so strong that it makes you feel completely powerless & hopeless. Losing weight isnât always a sign of strengthâŠfor some of us itâs a sign of weakness because we feel too weak to fight.
Nonetheless⊠I still go on. Iâll still work with the amazing help Iâm being given right now, but never underestimate how difficult a thing an illness like this is. If it was as simple as to âjust eatââŠwe would. Iâd order from the âjust eatâ flipping app & be done with it! People say it as though we havenât tried that option or as though we donât like food. We have tried to âjust eatâ & we do like the taste of food. Thank you for being patronising though, because itâs obviously just so helpful!
Funnily enough though⊠this thing isnât in any way, shape or formâŠeasy.
My Twin Within 