Giving Lettuce To The Rabbit, Me.
Giving lettuce to a rabbit was always going to be a losing game. But what I didn't know, is that you can win whilst you lose. At the points in my life where I've been the most mentally ill from anorexia and OCD, I would fantasise about being left alone for an extended period of time. I dreamed about being free to do anything and everything, boundless by supervision, boundless by a meal plan, boundless by professionals, family and ultimately, care. The lettuce, being the situation of being left alone, was given to the rabbit, being me, this year. I learnt a lot about a lot in the most simple ways and in the most complex ways. I've promised to confess to you the uttermost truth, ugly or not, forever, Dolls. But are you ready to listen? I'm not so sure you are for this, Shopaholics.
When you give a rabbit lettuce, it will take it...
Taking the lettuce didn't feel as good as I'd imagined. No, taking the lettuce felt lonely. Anorexia stopped being the secretive option because I didn't have to hide my habits or prove my health to anyone. When I engaged in self destructive behaviours, I was the only person it affected in an immediate way. A common phrase that my family have said to me is that 'your eating disorder is lying to you'. When I first heard this phrase, I truly felt that it was wrong because everything my eating disorder promised became granted when I listened such as losing weight. Overtime, I began to believe it half-heartedly when I experienced the moments when it took from me more than it gave. But I understood this phrase in a new way when I had all of the lettuce at the palm of my hands. Anorexia told me how pretty I'd feel, how having total control would feel rewarding and how being isolated would feel comforting. In reality, the restriction, lack of support and minimal accountability felt entirely impossible on the best days and an insufferable game of decision and torment on the worst days. On many occasions, not being able to listen to anyone but anorexia enhanced my suicidal ideation and depression in a way I'd never dealt with. And not having anybody around to touch or talk to during this time brought up feelings so harrowing that it felt sinister for them to be possible to feel at all.
For me, lettuce isn't the type of object that can be given or taken, sweetly as pie, no, it's a dirty trade that can't be taken without the attached terms and conditions. When you give me lettuce, I have to take it, and I can't ask you when I want you to take it back. It haunts me, it leers at me, it forces me, it rips me apart emotionally and physically, realistically and metaphorically to what end? The end that never ends. Forevermore. The only time I can hand the lettuce back is when I'm held accountable. During this time, I found that if I couldn't ask for help, I had to accept the help that was given. Even when it was just a little bit, it was my only bit. Anorexia is as addictive as any other addict finds its heroine. I am an addict. And as much as I wish that I could say I'm the type of addict who doesn't steal or cheat or lie, I can't. I can't tell you how it feels to take lettuce when everybody asks you not to or when nobody thinks you are because its an inextricable feeling to suffer immense guilt for going entirely against your every moral and ethical code, yet knowing that you would and will do it all again. It's the type of feeling that is felt too intensely, too awfully, too immensely to be depicted by one little word. If help wasn't handed to me, it felt like hell to hand it to myself.
When you give a rabbit lettuce, it mightn't want it...
The biggest fear my friends & family had in leaving me alone was that I'd die. But when I didn't die, I realised that anorexia went beyond choosing life or death and became about the quality of life that I was willing to live. Although at times my eating disorder provides a high from the control and predictability it entails, it also makes it harder to do the things I want and need to do from the lack of energy, fear and rigidity. 'So in the occasion that you don't die, you're not really living.' I'd spent my earlier years fearful I'd face death. Every day, I read messages from people who believe or wonder if I will. And when I was told this, I discovered that living a life precariously, wasn't better or safer or more beautiful. And although the concern came from people in my life, me not really living took a greater toll on my day-to-day than it did in theirs. Because all of the times I wanted to write and I couldn't, all of the times I wanted to eat but wouldn't, all of the times I wanted to walk but was too fragile, I, Luka, lost and although technically anorexia won, nothing about it felt as rewarding as I'd thought it would and everything about it felt like more of a failure than I'd thought. Yes, I had my lettuce. But when I had my lettuce, I didn't have much else. When I refused my lettuce, there was a little bit more and then a little bit more and then a little bit more. A little bit more was better but a little bit was only possible when I had intense moments of strength which often took hours or days that I didn't have to work up to. A little bit more was better but a little bit more was not enough. The rabbit, me, doesn't have its world, lettuce, in the palms of its hands anymore. And just like that, enough, has become a possibility to harness, wholly and lettuce-less-ly.
There's no denying the difficulty I endured. But I refuse to allow anybody to deny me of the bravery I found, of the love I fostered and of the battle I pursued.
Kisses,
COS x
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