Living with a monster

By far the hardest thing I have ever said out loud is:
‘Mum, I can’t eat.’

There was a pause…
‘What do you mean, you can’t eat?’
‘I don’t know, I just can’t eat.’

It took me about a year to muster the courage to tell my mum that I had anorexia. Not because I was scared, but because I knew it was going to hurt her as much as it was hurting me, if not more.
It is a conversation that I can remember as if it were yesterday. It is a conversation I pray I never have to have with my own children. Should I ever be lucky enough to have them.

Living with anorexia is almost impossible to understand unless you have been there yourself. Much the same as any mental health problem. Anorexia is a disease, a killer, it consumes you and sucks all that is good about your life. It is indiscriminate, it will attack and feed off anyone. Boy or girl, black or white, young or old.

I have often tried to think how best to describe anorexia. As a kid I likened it to having a Dementor from the Harry Potter books constantly on your shoulder. Creatures that ‘glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them.’ Anorexia will leave you with just enough energy to fight the temptation to eat, to exercise obsessively.

Essentially, anorexia keeps you alive just enough to allow you to slowly kill yourself.

I don’t believe you ever truly recover from anorexia. You never fully get the Dementor off of your shoulder. Instead, you get better at dealing with it. Day by day, month by month, year by year. Most people eventually begin to gain weight and get healthier habits. In my case I gained 7 stone between the ages of 17 and 21. I doubled in weight. That was my journey. But does this mean I have recovered? No. Does this mean the journey to a healthier, happier life continues? Yes. Am I strong enough to keep fighting? Yes.

Anorexia kills 10% of the people whose life it enters.

Anorexia was the worst thing that ever happened to me. No question. But for the first time in my life, I now consider myself to be lucky enough I’m still here to continue that fight.