Falling out of love with Anorexia

Shopaholics, Novemeber is the final month of Spring and the last item to discard in COS' Spring clean is anorexia. It's as surprising as it is unclear to loved ones that anorexia has an array of maintaining factors. One day, I woke up and I realised that the novelty that anorexia once was had become a devilish black hole that sucked life, joy, fortune, opportunity & freedom from everything that existed in my world. It struck me as a stark shock how much I despised something that I'd once adored. But life is like that, Dolls... Circumstances change, new and shiny things emerge, and lovers fade.

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Unlike other loves, falling out of love with an eating disorder isn't clear cut nor is it rarely a conscious choice. Anorexia manifested as a silent secret that nobody ever truly spoke to me about. Every now and then a comment would be made but it wasn't addressed with serious concern. It became unusual to me and in all honesty, annoying, that suddenly loved ones and strangers were becoming nosy, prying with questions and statements about my dirty little secret and my self-destructive ways. I felt intense urges to act with precaution and engage in sneaky behaviours so as to redirect others into their own private lives so that I could be alone with what I then viewed to be my best friend and greatest coping mechanism. Originally, the deception provided comfort to those who were concerned as they saw me prepare food I never intended to eat or felt relief as they trusted the claims that I'd eaten. But the immediate trust soon decayed and I was left lying left, right and centre at all hours of the day and night. Fatigue plagued me. Sadness erupted. Isolation was ever-present. After years of tactical webs being spun, I caved into acknowledging the tribulations that anorexia had instilled into my reality and I hated it. I hated how dismissive professionals had become of me, how doubtful my family was and how disbelieving my friends were. I didn't want the gratification anorexia provided me with as much as I wanted the relationship with those I loved.

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My life is enriched with many big loves from my father, mother, those I consider little sisters, grandparents, father, mother, best friends, family friends & doggy. Those loves are pure goodness, iridescent sunshine & eternal warmth. Each of those loves is the type of love I'd immediately and undoubtedly die for, yet each moment that I spend living with them are moments void of toxicity, insecurity or fear, unlike the complicated love between anorexia and me. After many years of being modelled a toxic love, I became accustomed to and expectant of loves laced with suffering. Such love (as the one between anorexia and me) was tolerable until it ripped the ground I'd once stood on from beneath me into a world where my big loves couldn't coexist. And this was when I truly understood how much I'd begun to hate anorexia. Because a world without them in it wasn't just intolerable but unbearable and it certainly wasn't an existence I desired to live.

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It is in human nature to avoid food restriction at all costs. Our primitive brain doesn't simply hold a desire for food but it places a necessity on it that we hunt and kill for. Therefore, the concept of restriction is foreign to most, the idea of dieting is painful and food deprivation feels hellish. For many reasons, eating disorders develop and restricting can feel really, really good. Amongst many other reasons, it can feel like this due to finding an aspect of your life that you can control and mitigate or feeling like you can accomplish something that others can't.

Like most areas of life, there are two sides to the coin and after a while, anorexia's illusion wears off. Deficiencies in essential minerals and vitamins, electrolyte imbalances, low blood sugar levels, low blood pressure and brain fog can cause severe lethargy, irregulate sleep and induce depression, OCD and anxiety. Unfortunately, these side effects can take months, even years to begin interfering with life in any significant way. Therefore, at this often late stage, the convoluted and disordered anorexic thinking style is engrained and there isn't a desire to escape. However, for me, Shopaholics, I despise the control the eating disorder has over me, now. I despise it every time it tells me I have no decision to not restrict. I despise every day I can fathom the severity of the restriction I'm adhering to. I despise that I feel so unworthy of nourishment. And I despise the toll the restriction takes on those surrounding me, the fear, distress and helplessness it has instilled in them

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I admit that I haven't fallen out of love with anorexia completely but there was once a time when I believed I would love her forever. And, Dolls, I just don't anymore. I hate her cruel intentions, her devastating effects and her barrage of mind games, cruel punishments and sick jokes. So far I've fallen out of love with the lies she makes me tell, the time she steals from me and my close-knit circle and the hunger she forces me to feel. But I wonder if I will fall out of love with other things... if there are other current shiny sparkles that will turn dull and lifeless. All I know for certain is that anorexia isn't forgiving, its illustrivity isn't long-term, isn't true and isn't worth its counterpart.

Until next week, Dolls!

COS x

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