ANOREXIA BEYOND WEIGHT

It's ignorant to declare that anorexia has nothing to do with weight but it's equally ignorant to declare that anorexia has everything to do with weight. Did you know, Dolls that only 6% of people who are diagnosed with an eating disorder are also diagnosed as being clinically underweight? I'm writing this post for all the people who think recovering is as simple as just eating, who think weight gain is the magical solution or who think eating disorders aren't mental illnesses. And as always, I'm writing for you, Shopaholics.

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It is when bodies are pushed to extremities that they prove just how resilient the body can truly be. We know that if you eat nothing, you die but something that's not discussed is how the body copes when it's eating very little. When the body is punished through starvation it becomes hard to feel, live or laugh because the body is in starvation mode where its soul purpose is survival. Malnutrition numbs me emotionally. I can still feel sad, angry, happy, tired, anxious, irritable and jealous but it's in a different way to others. I'm so busy focusing on survival that I feel these emotions less intently.

Everything is about food and nothing is about nothing.

At first, feeling mostly nothing feels wrong. The world around you feels like a simulation, a fabrication of reality. But after a while, it feels good... really good. It's like a high but my cocaine is slowly dying.

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It's difficult to explain the sense of control that is gained from restricting. It's difficult because all of the short-term moments where control is achieved, results in a long-term problem that inevitably leaves you completely powerless. I've heard countless eating disorder stories that have begun for people who at the time, felt out of control in their environment. I've seen it happen to children in the midst of their parents divorcing, young adults who don't know what they want to do with their life and people trying to navigate their way through a body image driven society. Eating, when it isn't social, is a very intuitive experience. We all require and desire different amounts and types of food based on dietary requirements, status' of activity and preference. Therefore, it's easy to feel in control through planning out when and what one eats at any given time because a lot of the time, eating is up to us. Like many others, when I was faced with environments that lacked predictability and routine, I used the planning of my nutritional intake to fulfil that need. And once I started, I couldn't stop because it felt comforting, safe and I could trust it. And then it became so habitual and rewarding that I wanted to keep what it sowed all of the time, even in times that I didn't feel scared, powerless or fearful. But at the end of the tunnel, all control is lost. Because one day you're controlling the one thing which is how much you eat and the next, the eating disorder is controlling everything which is how much you eat, your passions, your family, your friends, your plans and your life.

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A low sense of worth is said to be a characteristic of anorexia. But I've always found that term to sound too ambiguous and sugar-coated. To restrict the one thing that provides a human with vitality, that allows them to experience life and enjoy it isn't a low sense of worth... It's a non existent belief of importance in the world, it's self-hatred, it's a complete and utter melancholy carried on the weight of your shoulders throughout all hours of the day and an inability to accept and love the person you are, just as you are. Suffering from an eating disorder is to have an innate belief that you're unworthy of eating. It's deeply sad but it's undoubtedly true and to use a gentle term to depict a grave reality is unfair to the millions of sufferers who have to live with that feeling day in and day out.

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It's not that I don't feel achievement in other areas of my life. It's that nothing makes me feel as achieved as not eating allows. Sometimes recovering makes me feel accomplished. I feel accomplished as I battle my greatest demon, conquering it with the pride, love and joy that my family express as they, too, begin to feel free from anorexia. But then my sick brain catches up with my actions, remembers that eating is wrong and before I know it I've fallen down the rabbit hole back to the place I'm convinced I belong which is at the hands of a severe eating disorder. I feel achievement at my work when my colleagues and I are laughing or a customer and I share a beautiful conversation. I feel achievement in my friendships when a friend confides in me or in my family when my parents say they're proud of me. But throughout all of those experiences exists an innate feeling of displacement. When I don't eat, I not only feel achievement, but I feel it in a unique way. Its reward is laced with punishment, rigidity and hatred.

It is the type of achievement that I, a girl who believes she isn't good at anything needs.

It's the type of achievement that I can tolerate. With the other forms, I'm either counting down the moments until everybody says they got it wrong and that the achievement was falsely stated or I'm so convinced that they're lying to me that I cannot relish in the divine feeling that is accomplishing something.

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Dolls, an eating disorder manifests for a plethora of reasons that have nothing to do with weight. But for whatever reason it exists, its endurance persists like a permanent blade pressed against one's throat. Its manifestation will hurt, will induce relentless confusion and anticipated fear and for anyone who defines, diagnoses or discusses eating disorders in a manner that presumes simplicity will have never been a victim themselves.

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