#actuallyanorexia

[write-the-night]

I'm doing great just passing out just risking heart failure hbu

[restoringsunshine]

it also continually amazes me how eating disorders change, both in how they appear and why, as time goes on.

mine first developed at 11; i needed a way to escape my home and to turn my body into a shield. shrinking it to bones seemed as good a way as any.

at 13, everyone knew so I got sneakier. a fierce desire to protect it. i still can’t listen to certain albums without bile rising up in my throat. backwards on scales next to supplements in cases.

at 16, i got diet pills from an older girl who could buy them because i was on stage a lot and wanted to look pretty. we met up at a coffee shop and she handed me a ziploc bag. my hands shook in class.

at 18, my stomach hurt every time i ate.

at 19, i didn’t know my running and fitness were compensatory until i got injured and suddenly felt the compulsion to purge everything i ate.

at 21, my whole family stopped eating when my dad went to prison. when everyone restarted as their grief began to dissipate, i did not. my body wore my sadness because i was too afraid to speak it. i ignored collect calls from an elliptical in a 24 hour gym.

at 27, in and out of treatment. full-time nurse, part-time wife. worn and over-therapized, paradoxically distant and fused all at once. unsure of my capacity to live fully; completely sure that i want to.

[addictinged]

let’s play “what’s worse?”

a) having to hide your ed from everyone, weighing yourself only when nobody else is home, being Discreet

b) having your entire family know about it and fucking actively encouraging you to stop eating