The Lifelong Recovery of Anorexia

I recently wrote a post focusing on body image and my childhood eating disorder, (which you can catch up on here) and often I find my mind wandering to those days, but recently I've been reading Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton, which feautres a chapter on her struggles with disordered eating and I found myself sobbing, remembering my own struggles and how often they pop into my head. 

I developed anorexia when I was 11/12 years old, barely into secondary school and found myself at my lowest ebb, starving myself and self-harming to deal with the thoughts I was dealing with. I would count my calories that I'd consumed throughout the day and figure out how much time I'd need to spend on the exercise bike we had at home to work them off and finally be thin enough to be beautiful. But you see that would never happen, because I would never be thin enough, be pretty enough, be worthy enough in my eyes. 

" I started going to mental health services when my mum saw my self-harm scars one morning before school and they diagnosed me with anorexia nervosa,  a serious mental illness and eating disorder where someone who is a healthy weight or underweight  thinks they are much fatter than they are and stops eating or reduces food intake to lose weight. Anorexia can affect anyone of any age or gender, and often have a very distorted view of their appearance, seeing themselves as much bigger than they really are and have a deep fear of gaining weight. You don't necessarily have to be skin and bones and the usual picture of someone with anorexia to be struggling, this can be an internal battle with food in your mind that gets your diagnosis. "

But I did recover, I started eating again and gained weight. My body has been ever changing throughout my teens, with anorexia, which caused my delayed puberty, and then weight gain and natural fluctuations of my weight over the years. But it hasn't been easy. Recovery isn't linear and it isn't easy either, still to this day when I look in the mirror I'm thrown back all those years to the days where I'd hurt myself because of who I saw looking back at me, and the hatred and loathing I felt towards my own growing body. 

Now, I eat regularly, I treat myself to food I enjoy, I go to the gym and work out, but I still don't love the way I look, I still look in the mirror and think about how small I used to be and think "would it be so bad to go bad to that? Was I really that ill?", obviously I realise later how ill I was at 5/6 stone, now I'm 13/14st and am so much healthier, I don't love my body, but I don't hate it either. My body has helped me get to where I am today, my body is covered in the scars of my past, but is also covered in beautiful tattoos, and the skin and bones that keeps me going. 

Recovery from an eating disorder isn't simple or easy, and it stays with you or a long time, sometimes forever, that niggling voice in the back of your mind, reminding yourself of what and who you were, but you can fight it, and you can recover and learn to accept yourself for who you are. 

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Meg x 

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