‘What a waste’ I thought.
Forty five pounds on a next-day delivery ASDA shop and I just donated half of it to the toilet.
Two more days and I’ll be back on their website spending more in the hope it’ll last me longer this time.
See, the food is SO good…
For about fifteen minutes
And then it’s just regret.
It’s looking in the mirror at your protruding stomach and realising even the drain pipes need those calories more than you do.
And before you know it you’re running the bath taps and taking your rings off for the third time that day.
It’s the perfect solution when you think about it!
I can eat as MUCH as I want, whenever I want and lose more weight than if I ate nothing at all.
I have to steady myself every time I stand now,
And my face seems to have adopted a dull, grey complexion
But that’s a SMALL price to pay for the easiest method of weight loss.
That, and the marks on my knuckles that I renew so often I’m starting to wonder if they’ve scarred.
The stress of working an eight hour shift and not knowing if you’ll make it to the end without an ambulance being called.
The desperation when all your housemates are home,
Or you’re visiting family,
And you have to come to terms with the fact that,
‘No, you CAN’T eat the whole kitchen right now, no matter HOW hungry you are without seeing the whole kitchen on the scales the following morning’.
The little red dots that have accumulated around my eyes,
The random aches and pains,
The fear people will find out…
The WISHING they would just so someone would know how hard you’re trying.
Maybe the ‘easiest’ method was the wrong term.
But, still!
I can’t help but feel lucky that the pizza I just devoured won’t make it to my stomach like it will with my best friend.
The same satisfaction with none of the consequences.
You see,
I REALLY love food.

But I’m not supposed to until I’m thin enough that people think I deserve it.

You talk about your own insecurities so much I mistook them for my own
Started finding fault in the way the skin on my arms sagged, too
And the way my stomach stuck out under my high-waisted jeans that I only wear because you taught me that low-waisted jeans weren’t for ‘girls like me’
Or was it ‘women like you’?
I don’t quite remember now.

I lost a bunch of weight but I still won’t wear leggings out in public
Because you told me ‘no fat girl should ever wear leggings’
And even though I’m nearly 60lbs lighter
I’m sure I still bear a resemblance to those girls you made fun of from your car for being too fat for a piece of clothing

I remember you printed off your before and after weight loss picture one year
You were stood in front of a Christmas tree in the second photo
As if weight loss was the present you were most grateful for
So I take a lot of progress photos myself nowadays
In fact, I honour the family name even more by making sure I, too lose the weight by only eating a salad a day
How good of you to teach me how to be ‘healthy’

You make a point of mentioning just how good I look every time I finally bite the bullet and visit you
Which I wouldn’t be offended by if you didn’t add ‘compared to last year’ to the end of that compliment

You feel the need to insult yourself after congratulating me on how well I’ve done
You say you’ve just been SO lazy lately
Is it laziness?
Or are you finally eating three meals a day without punishing yourself?

Why would I ever want to recover when my own mother equates recovery to idleness?

I didn’t realise how true the phrase ‘like mother like daughter’ was until I adopted the same fear foods as you
When I only ate till I was full when I was alone
And when I watched ‘my 600lb life’ every time I craved crisps

You taught me so much, mum
Not trivial things like how to nourish my body but the truly revolutionary stuff
Like how much abuse my body can endure without breaking down entirely
How your happiness and your health don’t matter all that much in comparison to how much space you take up
And how you can never, ever let people see a double chin or the fat on your arms in photos
God forbid you show any signs of enjoying food


Most importantly, you taught me that regardless of my grades
How hard I work to keep two jobs,
And the effort it takes to get out of bed some days,
The only thing that matters,
The ONLY thing that’s worth anything in this life of mine
Is the number on the scale I climb onto every morning

And I guess you were a good teacher
Because that will stay with me forever.

Lately, when I look at my reflection,
it feels like someone else looking back.
I'm staring into the depths of my bathroom mirror at a shell of a person.
Alive and living but with none of the hobbies and plans that gave her that glimmer in her eyes.
No excitement, no anticipation for the future,
just memories, and even those are falling from her grasp.

It's like the world has been paused.
She's like the main character of the show you watched a couple of episodes of and swore you'd go back to and watch the rest but never did.
She's unfinished. Waiting for someone, something to press play.
There must be some more storyline to get to.
She's begging you for the chance.

Begging you to let her go out and get drunk in the middle of her town and kiss a random bloke she's never met before.
To let her stumble into the bathroom of her favourite pub and try her best to console a girl she's never met before that's crying over her boyfriend not giving her any attention.
To let her sit in the passenger seat of her best friends' Mini Cooper shouting the lyrics to some song that reminds her of her ex.
To go back to her family members and hug them three times as hard.
Begging you to let her live.
Because this... This isn't living.
This is existing.

When I was sat in my hospital bed I thought things were going to go back to the way they were.
I felt like I'd been given a chance to escape from this cruel reality, and I had messed it up. Like I mess everything up.

But the minute I left those hospital doors, things started to change. My mum was desperate to make me happy. And cafe trips and random presents were the result of that. My brother hugged me for the first time since we were little and had to have those soppy family photos that I laugh at now because of how staged they were. He even asked me if I was okay. And he didn't try to start pointless arguments. He just agreed with me.

Everyone was walking on eggshells around me. But I felt cared for. And loved. And not alone with my thoughts. After all the sharing I'd had to do, it still felt like I was at war with my mind, but I had an army of family and friends with me to fight it. Even when I caved in, they'd keep fighting on my behalf. But I refused to cave in because everyone was looking at me like their leader, expecting me to get us to the end of this war. And I didn't want to let them down. Not again.

In the months that followed I started getting used to the small gestures of encouragement from people that didn't really know what to say to me. I got used to spending time with my family and not just with the four walls of my bedroom. I got used to being watched. And I got used to not hating it.

But after a while it died down, like I expected it to. But I didn't expect it to be such a shock.

When for so long I'd felt like I had no one to turn to, suddenly everyone was there. And everyone was lovely. And I was reminded of the reasons why this war was worth all the casualties. Because victory would bring a future of love and friendship.

But when people got used to me being around again, and the idea that I might not have been around faded, people started to back away. Started to mask their love behind petty arguments and stopped being around as much. The four walls of my bedroom became my only company on some days again. And it came as a surprise to me when people did seem to care.

Such open hostility was a shock after months of people tip-toeing around me.

And it really shows that people take their loved ones for granted. They get used to having them around. Used to seeing them everyday. Used to not seeing them but knowing they're there. And that's why it's so easy for depression to creep in. Everyone is so occupied with their own wars, that they dont have time to stick around with you in yours, and they don't notice when you're losing.