ED RECOVERY BUCKET LIST

There are so many things I want and wish I could do in the short-term and long-term aspects of anorexia that I currently, can't. So this is my bucket list, for myself and others to aspire to.

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I wish I could go a day without counting calories. Numbers rattle my brain like venomous snakes, poisoning me every time I go to eat something. It creates the most lack of peace in my life, and I long for that sense of peace immensely. If I could go just one day without counting calories, eating with enjoyment and ease, it would free up this crippling burden in my mind. I yearn to be rid of the noose that strict calorie counting has around my neck.

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I haven't had the kind of energy required for certain recreational activities that others find pleasurable nor have I been granted the green light by professional doctors, psychiatrists and GPs in so many years of my battle with anorexia. I miss the days when I had the vitality in my body to have fun doing social activities involving activity: dancing, yoga, hiking. I used to find dancing such a beautiful form of expressing myself. Yoga allowed me to release stress in my mind and body and to attain mind, body and soul harmony. Hiking was one of the most rewarding activities I engaged in because I could see parts of the world that I couldn't in a car or plane. I would find myself hopelessly in love with life upon finding secretive dens and holes and feeling the breeze upon my face after working up a beautiful sweat.

I miss feeling like I had the world at my fingertips and that I was a part of life, not simply, saddeningly watching it pass me by.

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I want to eat because of hunger, despite the rules and order. I want to have the rigidity loosened and the simplicity of my youth days reiterated. I can't remember the last time I was genuinely full, content and satisfied. Everything plays into something complex and obscure and nothing plays into a normal, regular life of genuine habit. My fear is interlaced with every food decision I make so it is unsurprising to me the desperation I feel to be unchained. I think every sufferer years for this same sense of freeness to do with decision making for it is an unspeakable feeling of confinement.

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It is heartbreaking to me that anorexia can tie its hands around beautiful and good people. I hate how it sucks enjoyment out of the hearts of people who were once truly living life. I hope that a cure is found so that there is a viable solution that allows more people to be released from its grip before the grip is so strong that it's too late and anorexia has won. I hope that one day we're all cured so that this ED Recovery Bucket List can be nothing more than another day in our lives.

Kisses,

COS x