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Trapped in a cage wanting to be free

This Is a message for Anorexia.

When I was around 17 I felt you grew stronger and mightier while I grew smaller and weaker. My mind, body and soul were in a cage you made especially for me. You consumed me! Once my friend who helped me when I was alone, told me you were all I need, but now my enemy.

When the doctors said if I carried on the way I were going in a couple of months I could have been in intensive care or could have died. I didn’t believe them; I felt this was just a joke and that they are over-exaggerating. But that wasn`t me thinking, that was you. Planting these poisonous thoughts in my mind. You controlled my life, you put the essence of who I was in a cage and made me like a puppet. No words can describe how you made my life: making me turn on the people that I love, making me scream and shout whenever things didn’t go your way; at times you made me lose my mind thinking what real and what`s not. Making me miss out on opportunities, forcing me to eat specific food, and if I ate too much, making me exercise, making me feel so alone at college and home to make me just focus on you every day and every moment.

I was told that I had osteoporosis and osteopenia. I felt scared and frightened, but despite this I still felt obsessed with counting calories, thinking and worrying about food and body checking etc.

There are times even now when I can’t and feel like I don’t want to escape. I thought you were the only one in this world that gets me but I was wrong. I didn’t choose you; you chose me. There has been so many difficult, tough, uncontrollable times when I just wanted to give up as you created me to feel so weak and uncomfortable. Letting go of you has been one of the hardest times for me. However, I realise that you have brought nothing good in my life and have tried to destroy who and what I am. I am exhausted of your tricks and listening to your lies.

Receiving help from those around me such as my family and my therapist has aided and increased my chance of recovery.

Nearly a year has gone by and I’m still in recovery. There have been many moments where you have been this dark part always at the back of my mind, hovering over me, yet with each step I take by eating food, being confident and so forth I get my mind, heart and soul back and I get stronger and stronger to escape the cage you once trapped and locked me away in.

Did you really think you could trap me away forever? My faith was one of the biggest things to help me fight against you. God saved me from you when I thought I was all alone, and gives me hope, guidance and courage to battle you every step of the way.

I believe no matter how hard it may be there will always be a way out. You don’t need anorexia to define who you are. It okay to let it go. It will be easier. I am still in recovery from anorexia now but I know that making myself recover is one of the best decisions that I have made and that I would never want to go back. “Everything is possible if you believe!”

Contributed by Olivia

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