I ate too much for breakfast today
And lunch was spent wondering if I should slip away
Wondering if I should go back for seconds
**** it, why not?
My feet jiggled nervously under the table
Trying to think of an excuse to leave
Trying to figure out how much the barbeque chicken pizza would hurt on the way back up
Trying to figure out how much I’d regret it
Trying to figure out if my body was okay
My self esteem balloons up and down
Somedays I look in the mirror and like what I see,
Think I look cute and quirky in my glasses and skirt,
Think my body is almost okay
And then like black crossing over to white, like a light switch flipped on
No inbetween
All of the sudden I am ugly
My body takes up too much space
Loving myself, loving this body seem like an impossible feat
The little critic in my head is back
And he wants to move back in,
I’m not cured
Recovery is not about loving your body
Recovery is accepting it
I’m still working on that
The calculator in my head wakes up,
Regenerates every time I’m around  food
My hands still hover over the diet soda before forcing myself to pick something that scares me more
I still have to bargain in my brain
Eat a salad so I can eat ice cream and cookies
Skip lunch so I can have a big dinner
Strip naked in front of a full mirror,
Watch my body standing up, bending over, sitting
Grabbing, pinching, prodding, poking
Surveying this piece of meat
This thing
This body
That I know I need to be kind to
I weighed myself for the first time in almost a year
My toe lingered over the cold surface of a scale
Like a child about to dip his feet into water
I knew standing on that scale could drag me under
And I did it anyway
Loving myself is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done
When self hatred has been tamped into my soul
When my eating disorder was the only thing I good at
This secret lover, the most attentive one you could have
Took my hand and showed me how an empty stomach could feel like love
My eating disorder was my best friend,
The abusive relationship I kept going back to,
The most interesting thing about me,
The thing that was killing me
Having an eating disorder is easy;
Allowing yourself to slip into a disease out of your control
Having someone else make all your decisions
Your life reduces itself to the numbers on the scale
The slipping numbers on the scale assure me that everything is alright
But I can’t live like that
Having an eating disorder is easy;
Recovery is hard

Diagnosis: Anorexia Nervosa
Status: Recovered.

So my point in writing... am I doing this for myself? Maybe... or to inspire others? Maybe...
Or to simply just show and say, that I am through this. Through what? Through all that growth that you encounter when you truly engage yourself in recovery.
This does not mean I will not grow further, learn more. Develop and engage. It doesn’t mean I have been able to shut the door once and for all on my mental health struggles (I was trying to be as politically correct towards myself using that term).
It means, I trust, I believe, and not naively, that I have done the hard work.
I have stepped outside of the mirror.
I no longer believe I can only live half way, a half life, between sickness and wellness.
It means, I know, I will never, get sick again.
Many may laugh, or shake their heads at that. And yet, what I am writing here is filled with so much faith and trust, that I can be sure of myself. Even if no one else in the world believes it, I do. And I know it, because I have made a choice.
There were some backwards and forwards, to relapses and re-growths, but each and every fall, I chose to learn. I chose to take to therapy. I chose.
I choose life.  And so that means, the commitment to life, to myself, that I will always take the route that leads to more life, or to more hope...

And so getting well. What happened there? Well, after years of self abuse, of anger turned inwards, after trying to destroy myself in every single way possible... I wondered, inquisitively, what would happen if I used all I had learnt in hospital, all the positive energy directed at me, the words my therapist would say to me... I wondered, what if?
That if, turned out to be the most amazing curiosity. It is why I am safe, well, “recovered.” I don’t use the term recovered lightly. I recognise that my whole life will mean being mindful, it will mean self awareness, it will mean vulnerability. But what I am certain of, is that each year that passes, I grow and gain strength in ways I never realised I could.
I use “recovered” because I don’t believe I am “in recovery.” I have done the recovery. I have done the putting food in my mouth, consulting a nutritionist, the ridiculous amount of weight gain that allowed me to be healthy. I am done with the depression, the endless anxiety, the self harm.
I say “recovered” because as Marya Hornbacher writes: “I mean flat-out eat-normally stay-healthy get-comfortable-with-your-body-and-actually-like-it recovery.”
Few believe it exists. In fact, I was told my numerous doctors I would never recover. I would always be chronic. Sick. In need of hospital.
It exists. I know that. Because it exists for me.
Recovering has meant finding a voice, and using it. It means putting food in my mouth, it means seeing friends, engaging in life, seeking out healthy ways of coping when I feel overwhelmed, scared, anxious...

I live.

© Sia Jane

There are holes in my memory,
missing pieces of time
claimed by malnutrition.

It is a bitter pill to swallow,
knowing that my own actions
had such severe consequences.
Knowing that I so wholeheartedly believed
that what I was doing was right,
that it was what I deserved.

Losing pieces of myself
to an identity that did not belong to me.
A girl is not supposed to be a disorder
becoming nothing more than an illness personified.

when i read your name, it shifts

it flashes into the name you used to go by

i panic

i cry

who are you?