A Tragic Romance: Institutionalised
I often write to my loyal Shopaholics about the struggles and difficulties of living with an eating disorder. I write about the hardships of that lifestyle, and also the hardships encountered when one approaches recovery and receives treatment. However, I haven't discussed what it feels like when the places you've received treatment from are the places that become your second home. I haven't discussed what it feels like when the nursing staff become your family and other patients become your friends. I will confess to you what it feels like, but before I do, please ask yourself, Dolls, how do you think it would feel for you?
When I was initially admitted to hospital/ facilities, the eating disorder became fuelled... I was being told that I was 'sick enough' to be so starved that I needed to be re-fed and underweight 'enough' to be labelled as an 'anorexic'. The first time I was admitted was the first time anybody had fully recognised the demon I had been battling day in and day out for the previous decade. It was the first time people saw my cry for help on my body and in my biochemistry. It was the first time extended family and friends recognised the extent that I had been hurting. For so many years, I used restriction of food to feel a sense of achievement and control in an environment where I'd felt unimportant, like a constant failure and an eternal disappointment. Anorexia told me that I had a purpose, that I was good at something and worth hearing its every (lying) word. Upon seeking medical and psychological support, professionals such as nurses and doctors saw me. They saw the havoc that was self inflicted on my emaciated body. They saw the havoc as psychologists saw disturbances in my neurological pathways. They saw havoc in my every unstable marker of health. I was being validated, noticed, seen and heard like never before. I was 'sick enough' because they gave me the evidence, put it into facts and then told me that I was. I fell in love with that feeling because it meant I was (ill) enough... Something anorexia never let me be. And if I was (ill) enough, then just for a little while, I could surrender to the treatment, temporarily pushing aside my eating disorder and diffusing the incessant conversation, argument and judgement in my mind. I fell in love with that feeling because I hadn't felt 'enough' in a long, long time.
In the midst of an eating disorder, you become encapsulated in a routine that compliments its storm. The routine must align with treacherous rain, relentless hail and raging thunder. Hence, why the routine of an anorexic is unhealthy, incessant and painful at the best of times. Everything revolves around food, whether it be food consumption, food avoidance or both. You become a ravenous animal, conflicted with the biological instinct to devour what ever is edible and nearby and the eating disorder's instinct to eat nothing at all. At hospital, you don't just receive the permission to eat a meal plan, it is a non-compulsory requirement. Slowly, the hospital routine develops into one that is functional, healthy and simple. I wake up at an appropriate time, have breakfast, journal, have the energy to walk to the toilet and spend time with visitors, have morning tea etc. etc. Suddenly, you have the space in your mind to think about your hobbies, future, goals and how they could be placed into day-to-day living. Suddenly, you forget about the hell you were living in... Rigidity, constant coldness, isolation and everything in-between. I fell in love with the routine in hospital because I was receiving a break from the routine I once felt trapped in. I fell in love with the tragic notion of everything just being... good. And it was a tragic notion because I knew the feeling wouldn't last. Every moment I lived-in hospital was a bittersweet moment. I knew I would feel nostalgia of enjoying the way I ate my Weetbix, how the nurses remembered the order I liked to take my medication in and the moments I looked in the mirror and thought I looked pretty. Tragically, my past was pervaded with occasions where I wasn't looked after, cared for or accepted. Tragically, part of me craves the ease, support and encouragement hospital provides as I slip into old behaviours and/or approach a less structured routine. Because although hospital is scary, it doesn't feel as scary as when I'm looking into the eyes of anorexia.
Often, people don't recognise eating disorders for what they truly are, due to societal judgement, stigmas and beliefs that lack the evidence to support them. So, what are eating disorders exactly? Mental. Illnesses. Say it with me, Dolls, (because it's important)... EATING DISORDERS ARE MENTAL ILLNESSES. Therefore, living with one is mental scrutiny day in, day out. Such mental fatigue is detrimental to one's ability to live a life with quality, motivation, joy, spontaneity, freedom and everything in-between. The effects of this way of life are very real, constant and burdensome whether or not it 'looks' like someone is suffering from an eating disorder.
Often, eating disorders create conflict as family members feel frustration, confusion and misconception as sufferers restrict, decline, withdraw and refuse help. Hardships endured within the family are nobody's fault. Nonetheless, they exist more commonly than not. Upon a hospital admission, it's not surprising that a family unit would feel relief as their child/brother/parent was finally under medical supervision. Yet, many don't recognise or know that there is a sense of relief that a sufferer will feel. This is mostly because eating disorders cause their victims to feel ashamed and guilty for enjoying and engaging in a process that contradicts its desires. Thereby many sufferers cannot voice their relief. But, I confess, as a sufferer, that sufferers will ultimately feel relief upon admission. Finally, the urges anorexia imposes cannot be acted on. Finally, the choice to listen to the voices that cripple, bully, threaten and scare us is a choice that's taken away. Finally, we are being forced to accept medical help and in turn, we can finally relish in the help, love and concern of our family members, as opposed to retaliate, pretend and hide. An admission to hospital, for all parties that are involved, feels like a freedom from the hellish reality that awaits at home.
This romance is tragic, Dolls, because the romance between inpatient and the patient is for a limited time, under heavily monitored supervision and takes place in a daunting environment. Will the tragic romance ever conclude, Shopaholics? And if so, when, you ask? Dolls, the romance ends when the institutional tango is deceased and what begins, is a romantic waltz with a reality that resembles hospital without its security guards, codes and four blank, mundane walls.
Kisses,
COS x
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