Dear Ana,
I’m breaking up with you.
We’re done. We’re through.
It is not your choice if you get an eating disorder, which is part of what makes them so cruel and unfair. However, you have the power to decide whether you will fight to recover from your illness to get your life back.
I guess the truth is that I am only at the very beginning of my recovery, and whilst I am doing really well, it almost feels harder than ever.
I remember being around 10 years old and admiring an older (probably by three or four years) girl in my dance class for her thin physique. When I look back at it now, I realise that was one of the first indicators of my eating disorder journey.
Eating disorders come in many different shapes and sizes. Some people have it their entire life, some people limit themselves so much that their bodies starve, some people have binge eating disorder.
We didn’t speak about it at the time, about what it was like for Kate, or what it was like for her, going through this thing that we were both going through: Alex’s eating disorder.
When I was suffering from anorexia, I was striving for what I believed to be the perfect life.
There are hundreds, thousands maybe, of stereotypes surrounding anorexia. And some of them might be true. For some people.
Recovery... Everyone is always told “to choose recovery” but we are never told exactly how to achieve this or what this even really means.
Recovery is a long road. Sometimes there will be bumps and hills and the occasional spiral, but you learn to make yourself stronger each time you are set back.
Any recovery takes time. There’s no set pace or step-by-step guide and everyone will have a different experience going through recovery.
On the surface, I do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING – no full-time job, no university studies, no running, no dance classes, no responsibilities. I can lounge around all day, take nap after nap and am not expected to be ‘productive’.