The Pain & Pleasure Of Anorexia
I recently became infatuated by an intricate piece of traditional Japanese artwork. Initially, my gaze was pleasurably met with embellishments and glitter detailing, fire orange goldfish and big cats and delicate strokes of azure blue forming a breathtaking sky. It was upon a closer look that my eyes were faced with pain... The big cat was in fact gnawing at dead flesh, there was danger present and what once appeared beautiful now appeared shocking. Those who live with Anorexia most likely empathise with this concept. Whilst an eating disorder can provide comfort, reliability and achievement, its pain is enduring, intolerable and insufferable. This week, I delve into the conflict between Anorexia's pain & pleasure, exploring its unforgiving temperament and hostile nature.
Many people consider their eating disorder to be a friend. After all, the voice of an eating disorder is a constant voice living inside of your head, where daily conversations between it and the healthy self occur. Therefore, it makes sense that it feels as though a relationship has been established. Unfortunately, the relationship fosters indescribable pain. This friendship is a dictatorship that entails a barrage of unsolicited criticism, rules and judgement. The person enduring these conversations is living in a state of terror.
Alike to most forms of abuse, there is a maintaining factor. It's something that seems too alluring to leave behind. This friend that I speak of is someone I could rely on when everything else in my world had become unreliable. Over time, I began to depend on my friend to provide me with stability, even when my world evolved and I felt loved, wanted and needed. In any moment where I feel that the previous world I lived in is seeping into my current world through conflict, abandonment or judgement, I turn to the friend who has always been there for me.
Dolls, I've said it before and I'll say it again... Anorexia is a mental illness that has physical side effects. Part of the mental anguish, however, is derived from the physical fixation on weight declination. Watching the numbers on the scale change becomes less and less about satisfaction and more and more about worthiness. In other words, it doesn't matter how low the numbers become, the number has to be lower or at least maintained or your day is ruined, you don't deserve to eat and you aren't enough.
Despite the conscious understanding of what the vicious cycle involves and its detriment in your life, it doesn't cease the pleasure felt from achieving success on that cold-blooded plate of glass. It brings with it an unexplainable and incomparable achievement. The only success that ever truly counts in your life becomes the number staring back up at you first thing in the morning, stomach growling, body starving. You finally feel enough, that you are making something proud and that your life amounts to something more.
Shopaholics, I write this final pain & pleasure piece with misgivings considering the abundant stigma of Anorexia affecting young girls who have an imprudent desire to become thinner and prettier. I must clearly indicate that for most, the underlying purpose Anorexia serves is numbing pain, exhibiting control or seeking praise amongst serving many other deeply complex unfulfilled needs. However, to completely ignore the aspect of Anorexia that is about body image would also be an incomplete depiction of the illness. Looking perfect, even if it isn't initially the reason for getting smaller, becomes unavoidable. In this sense, pain is inevitable because striving for perfection is an unrealistic and impossible ideal. The obsession with a perfect body and face results in intense self-criticism and terrible body image. You pick apart every minute curve, pinch and surface until an unrecognisable skeleton is a reflection that stares at you in the mirror.
The illness convinces sufferers that less fat on their body equates to beauty, better self-esteem and body image. When Anorexia affects younger people, they can become attached to how it reverts to a prepubescent body that is absent of pimples and void of periods. A sick pleasure emerges as every day goes by, convincing yourself that with every stomach grumble and every protruding rib, you are becoming more and more beautiful.
It is uncommon for such conflicting sensations to coexist so monumentally, however, it is evident that they do. The pain feeds the pleasure and the pleasure feeds the pain, like a fragile cobweb slowly strengthening until you're entangled in a web of isolation, desolation and shame. Cobwebs can be destroyed, Dolls, but it takes force and strategy.
Cos x
You could write about so many things. You are so smart and observant and convey such interesting ideas. I hope a year from now to see a blog post written from a place of recovery, perhaps continuing recovery. Perhaps a larger world of writing will open up to you? I imagine you get a lot of pleasure and satisfaction from writing. I hope it continues to give you that, even as you devote yourself to recovery..from what you’ve already written I can see, you will always be a writer, and a person with something valuable to share.
You have good insight, but I have to say it doesn't match with all your pro anorexia posts on tiktok. You're saying here that you worry about young girls getting into this illness, but yet you're actively recruiting them into anorexia on tiktok. It's hard to feel that this blog is at all genuine.