MY STORY
Shopaholics, I've made many confessions to you from the moment I founded The Confessions Of A Shopaholic Blog. I vowed to be vulnerable when I felt like hiding, to discuss the uncomfortable when comfort felt safe and to be bold when I wanted to be unnoticeable. I've felt reluctant to share my story, not out of fear of judgement or criticism, but out of a fear that I'll only manage to touch the surface when I endeavour to uncover the depth of my complex and obscure true story. My story is my version of events that led to my crippling illness. My story is brutal in some aspects but Dolls, it's idyllic in others.
The days I once perceived as normal are days that exist now, only in my fantasies. I wish the present me could go back in time to tell me to close my eyes, soak up every scent, touch and taste like a sponge and hold onto it like my dying wish. Those days were like a warm fire in Autumn... You, caring for me, you naturally being with me and you wanting me. I miss how simple it felt. I enjoyed the moments but the attached meaning didn't exist. The remuneration, guilt and fear hadn't been learnt. Yet. Yet. I hate that word. My free body would run at 7 am into any seat, it didn't matter, and delight in setting the table and scooping out every jar and tub to create an array of pancake toppings. It was hard to find a reason not to enjoy my breakfast, as opposed to finding every reason to not enjoy it. I'd delight in every fluffy mouthful of lemon and sugar or maple syrup and butter as sweetly as a honey bee would. And then the moment was over. It was done. I let it be. Until we'd dance and play and laugh and say... 'I love you'. 'I. Love. You.' I miss the way it rolled off your tongue. Then you'd make me sourdough, with layers of butter, avocado, olive oil, sea salt, red onions and cherry tomatoes. I didn't know what you would like or what you had or when you had it. It didn't matter. Then, I'd study and learn and sing and say...'I love you.' 'I. Love. You.' I miss the way it rolled off my tongue. But then it all changed when that girl, that girl who showed me a way of living that I'd never seen, came to live with us. When B said the things she would, when she moved the way she moved and ate the things the way she ate, suddenly nothing was as simple as it once had been. I thought about moments I'd never pondered before. I compared things I hadn't compared. I moved for different reasons. I didn't quite know what those reasons were but I knew it was different to before. I was moving for the reasons she moved for. Suddenly, new TV commercials were noticeable, new words were spoken, and a new language was learnt. Suddenly, I found new items at the supermarket, new labels to read and unknowingly, new questions to ask. Everything imperfect had fallen into place... Into the eye of a storm that hadn't yet been traced. But just an arm's length away, just a millisecond away, was my future... Gales of wind, sub-degree temperatures and the longest hurricane that would live for years and years and years.
After I'd begun to be like B, I was approached based on beauty. I saw my future... My name in headlights, travel, glorification. My interest in living my life like B peaked. It stopped feeling like a choice to live this way... It became a necessity, a need, my only option.
My passion became a punishment.
I remember that with every un-tasty mouthful, every restrictive meal and every hunger pang, I would repeat the end goal in my mind... The destination was so vital that I was willing to endure the gruelling journey at any expense. But the worst part wasn't experiencing the journey that I was... No, the worst part was how confusing and lonely it felt to be hurting so much, to feel so stuck, lost and fatigued but to have those who loved me say they were 'proud' of my habits and impressed by my 'discipline'. It became my identity... I was the girl who my family and friends couldn't be. My suffering was admirable. This was when I began to underplay, dismiss and gaslight/manipulate myself... I couldn't have been crying out for help because nobody recognised a problem that needed to be solved... Until they did. But even then, nobody really helped... They didn't know how. And I wasn't recognised as 'sick enough' because I didn't tick all of the boxes that would put me into a particular category. So, the system couldn't help me at a critical time in my life when an intervention would've been fundamental for a possible recovery to occur.
When I was 15, I went to live out a fantasy. When I reflect on my decision, I don't regret my naivete. Instead, I feel sympathy because within my 15-year-old self, lived a 7-year-old little me who was still longing to be accepted, cherished and loved 8 years later by a person incapable of it. I was entirely uncared for in every way except for one... The only time his responses were kinder, his love, more genuine and his concern, pure was throughout my medical deterioration. It didn't take me long to recognise that the moments when I was being driven to appointments, checked in on and questioned, were the only moments when the rules, games and conflict within our relationship would subside. Perhaps some would call me foolish and stupid to starve myself for someone else's attention and perhaps I was. But all I know for certain is that when every waking hour of my life felt like I was living in an inescapable nightmare where every word I spoke was misinterpreted, every hug I gave was misconstrued, every tear I wept felt like a fountain and every move I made was doubted, I would've died for the relief that a second of security, warmth and kindness could bring.
I didn't care if it cost me myself because receiving his love, approval and validation felt priceless.
The effects of my self-destructive behaviours weren't just noticed in my home life. At school, people would often comment on how I was the 'skinniest'. I wasn't only being noticed but I was being noticed as being the best at my sickening craft. And although it felt bittersweet and wrong and scary, I was so buried in the validation that I couldn't have clawed myself out by myself, even if I'd wanted to. And believe me, Dolls, when I say that throughout that time I was completely and utterly alone... Physically, emotionally, and totally.
Upon my return home, I quickly felt estranged from the safety of the world I'd forgotten. I was a foreigner when I'd once been a citizen because a hug wasn't just a hug anymore, an 'I love you' didn't just mean 'I love you' and every congratulation sounded eery. In the world I'd been living in for the previous five months, I'd become so expectant of being labelled as a failure that I expected everyone to view me that way. And when I wasn't faulted, it didn't feel nice... It felt wrong. The game he played became the world I knew, except now, nobody surrounding me was playing his game. My feelings of being an imposter only climbed as I was rejected from my dream job on multiple occasions and through multiple unique avenues. I wasn't just experiencing the confusing feelings of loss that I experienced by not living in his game, but I was drowning in being a failure in more ways than I could've imagined. Suddenly, I had all of this evidence to show how the only thing I'd been glorified and acknowledged for in the past year had been my restriction. By now, I was thirsty for the type of validation that confirmed that I was good at something... really good. In turn, my restriction evolved into a severe restriction in the hope that alongside it, the amplification of praise would occur. I developed the belief that the events of the previous year meant that I was inherently bad, innately imperfect and that being just as I was, wasn't enough.
When my beliefs were combined with the coronavirus pandemic & my high school graduation, a poison was concocted. My restriction disabled me from remembering, let alone excelling at, my education. Therefore, I would tell myself that I was stupid, that I should be doing better and that I was a wasted investment for my family's years of schooling funding. At this time, my biological father decided it suited his schedule to spare a month or two of his time visiting me. I was adamant to be the most polite, patient and gentle version of myself to know for certain if our strenuous relationship was as much of my fault as he proclaimed. The weight on our shoulders as I knew he planned on returning to his home was noticeably heavy. I preempted disappointment knowing that every moment we spent together, whether it was beautiful or not, was a moment that didn't matter enough to him for him to want to stay. I wasn't enough. I was never quite enough. My whole life, there was always somewhere he wanted to be or had to be or was going to be. I never wholeheartedly believed that being with me, was the only place his heart truly desired to be. I was emotionally and cognitively depleted of energy due to my lacking nutrients and being on a constant mission to act perfectly, but equally, I felt out of control with my intake due to the lack of structure that the pandemic brought. I felt like an alien to myself. After graduation, my HSC and my decision to end my relationship with my biological father, I wasn't at the library or friend's houses studying, thereby my parents quickly noticed just how radically I'd begun restricting. Their recognition was a long time coming... Years of distorted cognition, brain damage, starvation, blame, compensation, grief, bottled-up emotions, self-harm, loneliness, helplessness and loss. By the time anyone truly saw my struggle with eating, I was too deep in anorexia for anyone to pull me out.
From this point onwards, I was seen in a way that I hadn't let people see me before. There existed many moments when I continued to shelter who I truly was, but concealing myself was more difficult than it had ever been. For the little 7-year-old girl? She was finally seen. She'd been calling for help for so long and when somebody answered she became safe. Nonetheless, the demon that was anorexia still lived in her mind. There continued to be many occurrences in which she would continue to feel unsafe. In fact, anorexia forced her to become the most physically unsafe she'd ever been. For 19-year-old me? Anorexia makes me feel unsafe. And for many, this may sound like a negative point to make but it's not. For me, to find a feeling of unsafeness amidst an illness that has always made me feel the safest proves that love prevails. Because without love, I wouldn't know that love felt safe, too. Love is my reason. It's the reason that I fight, even when it's hard and even when I don't want to. In learning to live with a chronic illness, I have learnt the battles I now pick, the language I now use and the choices I now make. I am still weak, I still live in fear, I still hide, I still feel depressed, I still feel that I do not feel okay but oh, Dolls, for the first time, I feel free. All I've ever wanted was to feel free, like a butterfly who aimlessly dances with the wind as the sun shines and the birds sing.
Kisses,
COS x
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