Let's Get Real
Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2018
I am so scared to share this. Openly saying that I am recovering from Anorexia Nervosa and knowing you are about to read some of my deepest darkest experiences is terrifying. I wasn't going to write anything for Eating Disorder's Awareness Week until I saw this years theme, 'Let's Get Real', perhaps a sign from the universe that sharing this is the right thing to do!
'From the outside in, it can never truly be understood. From the inside out, it can never truly be explained'.
I wrote the following piece, 'My Friend Ana', last year before being hospitalised again the day after my eighteenth birthday. It is a collection of memories, diary entries and thoughts compiled together. I hope this helps to illuminate the unjust myths, defy the unfair stereotypes while also shut down the shame associated with mental illness. I truly pray this doesn't come across as a cry for attention, pity or sympathy! This is just a glimpse into my little experience over the past few years, an experience of which with every day on the twisty path to recovery is getting less painful and more beautiful! Everyone's story is different but also all too similar. The story you are about to read below could and may resonate with every single person who has/had an eating disorder.
Recovery is hard. It's really, really, really hard to recover from any form of suffering and it's really easy to cover up the pain with a smile. However, when I compare my life to this time last year, every single thing has changed, and is continuing to change, for the better. My life is now blessed with beautiful people, memories, experiences and just the simple everyday moments of life like being able to walk upstairs without blacking out, going out and partying with friends and even experiencing the stress of being a teenager hehe!
This time last year, a smile can hide everything!
Ninety three. A sliver of silver moonlight slices across my bathroom tiles contrasting with the neon flashing digits beneath my toes. I look out out of my window to see the pale stars glistening like tiny holes in the floor of heaven, the moon a golden reflection of the hidden sun. The beauty lasts only momentarily when Ana suddenly interrupts, ‘Get going Lauren, you’re wasting precious time’. My numb blue feet make their usual dance across the cold wet tiles.
Ninety. My foot prints pound the cobbles to the beat of my racing heart. A sense of euphoria overrides my aching bones. Ana runs behind me pretending to be a monster, ‘It’ll make you run faster!’. I laugh at the idea of her as a demon, she’s my best friend; cool, gorgeous, interesting, experienced, intelligent. Ever since I met her all of my problems seemed to disappear. Albeit she’s controlling and demands a lot of attention, I feel like I’m nothing without her. I do anything to make her happy, in return, she promises me the world. The notion that life could be any different – that it could be better – is now inconceivable. I have forgotten any good without her, in fact I have come to to believe that I prefer it this way. ‘Turn left it’s a longer route!’. I barely make out her words through the ringing in my ears.
Eighty seven. The cold water drips down my body, gathering at the concave slopes. Two pools form at either side of the base of my neck. I step out of the shower, turning around to see a strange figure staring back at me. Angles jut out at strange places with two large dark grey eyes. This reflection follows me mercilessly in mirrors, car doors, shop windows. I live in a world of circus mirrors, the grotesque distortion of my body looking back at me everywhere. I wonder if the water is dangerous, is it seeping through my skin and making me fatter? Ana pushes me closer for a better look. ‘That’s the only drawback of ice showers, there’s no steam to fog the mirror…look at your thighs’.
Eighty eight. ‘I’m ashamed, I am so so sorry’. I plead with Ana as she screams, I try everything to make her stop. Her voice has been bellowing ever since this morning’s bad results. ‘You should have known, I told you! This just further proves my point Lauren.’ I hated disappointing her, she didn’t deserve to be left down like this. I’m a failure. ‘You’re a failure, you’re worthless, you are a bad bad person, you will never ever be enough, not now, not ever’, I silently nod my head in agreement with her roars. I felt so guilty doing it but I had no other option. It was my parent’s 25th wedding anniversary and I can still remember how it felt; vibrant, exotic, dangerous. The sour raspberries exploded in my mouth sending shots of tingling shivers down my spine, the fluffy, cloud like peach cream counteracts the tang, sending my body into a state of deprivation induced shock. My teeth sliced through the moist sponge just as a I ran to the bathroom. I tried my best to reason with Ana, ‘It was one bite and I got rid of it…I promise’. I can almost feel my shame it is so palpable, ‘The proof is in the pudding Lauren, literally’.
Eighty three. The oven door swings open filling the kitchen with the familiar comforting winter scent. I can almost taste the sprinkles of cinnamon, dashes of vanilla and spritzes of cardamom as they glide through the air. ‘It’s just like the real thing except even better’, Ana giggles as she slides my eyes shut. I feel dizzy with ecstasy at just how authentic the moment feels, I swallow as if taking a bite, only to taste the thin air. Suddenly, I awaken in shock, remembering just how wrong I am. ‘Food isn’t good, how disgusting’, I shiver to myself. I open the freezer and pull out an ice cube, stopping to try and remember if Ana had told me that or if I always saw food that way. Indifferent, I place the solid rock in my mouth sucking until the cravings subside, it feels warmer than my bitter hands. Ana and I were so close now that it made it difficult to recall how I felt before I met her. ‘I don’t even want to know’, I think to myself as I watch two frail hands investigate the fresh muffins. Ana throws five away, even I could see that they weren’t perfect enough. ‘One more, it has to be an even six’, as another four hundred and forty eight calories are dumped.
Seventy eight. The sun slips beneath the canopy of trees as the sky bursts into roaring flames of red, orange and lilac. The clouds shimmer a delicate cream while each wave rolling onto the sand reflects a different shade of indigo and mango. ‘It’s so beautiful’, I whisper softly to myself. The fire is quickly quenched as I anticipate what’s coming. ‘There’s so much beauty in this world, it’s such a pity that you just being alive takes away from it’. I lift my tired body from the damp winter sand, standing to burn more energy, a way of showing my allegiance to Ana without having to engage with her. When it’s quiet in my head like this, that’s when Ana knows she doesn’t need to tell me how pathetic I am. I know it in the deepest part of me. When it’s quiet like this, that’s when I truly hate myself. She came with me everywhere now, every moment was experienced with Ana’s running commentary. I need her though, she keeps me in line. ‘Come on, we’re leaving now!’, I hear my mom calling us in the distance, just audible above the Atlantic winds. Ana and I were so inseparable now that my parent’s barely even noticed she was there. Come to think of it, I don’t think they ever did.
Seventy four. My bedroom door slammed so hard I thought the whole house would crumble apart. Ana was angry, this time not with me but with my parents. I hear the familiar clip clop of my father’s shoes against the hallow wood of our stairs. I collapse into the furthest corner of my room, trying so hard to distance myself from her. ‘Please, my love, please open the door, we just want to talk’. I can barely make out my mother’s sobs under Ana’s explicit screams. I never imagined such horrible words could come from the mouth of such a perfect angel. ‘We didn’t mean to get angry, we just want to help you’. I reflect on the evening’s meal that led to this disaster. I tried to block Ana’s antics out but when I looked around after, chicken curry entangled with shards of fine china concealed the dining room floor. It all began when Ana announced, ‘no matter how thin you get, no matter how little you eat, it’s still going to be you underneath’. ‘Lauren stop crying please just stop screaming, open the door, darling we want to help you’. ‘Lauren, what do they mean Lauren’, I anxiously wonder. That was Ana screaming, that was Ana who flung my dinner; it’s always Ana, how can’t they see?
Seventy. I slip into my satin black heals, my perfectly polished fingers shaking as they tie the strap. I look up to see my mother’s face twist in agony as she looks me up and down. I know she thinks I look disgusting, remembering what Ana had earlier said, ‘That dress clings to you in all the wrong places, you're like the little teapot, short and stout...all you're missing is the handle and spout. You look like a garden gnome’. ‘You got that dress in first year Lauren, you’re eighteen now, this is terrifying me’. She didn’t understand that it was the only thing I had, all of my clothes had seemed to expand in the wash. ‘Lauren, why, please, please just why are you doing this to your beautiful self’. Before I have time to even think, Ana answers. ‘Why? You want to know why? Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three days. After your skin bubbles and peels off, roll in coarse salt, then pull on your clothes woven from spun glass and razor wire. Smoke gunpowder and go to school to jump through hoops, sit up and beg, and roll over on command. Listen to the whispers that curl into your head at night, calling you ugly and fat and stupid and worst of all, “a disappointment.” Look in a mirror and find a ghost. Hear every heartbeat scream that every single thing is wrong with you. “Why?” is the wrong question. Ask “Why not?”’.
Sixty seven. It’s twilight. The blind flickers as the warm spring breeze floats in my bathroom window. I step on the metal plate, relief floods through my body at the result but I know I can do better. I gather myself, preparing for the ritual analysis. ‘Pounds?’, Ana questions. ‘Sixty seven, one down from this morning’, I proudly add. ‘Kilograms?’, '30.8’. ‘Stone?’, ‘4.85’. ‘BMI?’, '13.1’. ‘Heart rate?’, ‘38 beats per minute’. I know I’ve fulfilled her today. My hard work is starting to pay off and there is nothing she can fault me for this evening, I hope. ‘Good girl, you’re almost there but this is not an excuse to slack’. Ana’s praise sets free a cage of butterflies in my tummy, I’m euphoric for a moment. ‘Almost there, almost where Ana?’, I question as goose bumps rise on my paper like skin. Ana was constantly readjusting our goals as I met them that it was hard to keep up. ‘My sweet Lauren, don’t you see my darling? Zero, the goal is and always has been zero. Zero pounds, zero pulse, zero friends, zero happiness, zero life. A beautiful tragedy they will call you, you’ll be perfect then, even worthy, you'll finally be enough’. Zero in tennis is love. I finally get it. My parents burst through the door moments later upon hearing my screams. My father crawls down beside me, cradling me in his arms as I feel his tears dropping onto my white cheeks. I twinge with the pain of the blisters on my back as my bones tear through my skin. ‘You know why we have to do this Lauren, there is no other way out’. I watch my mother’s lips move but her words dissipate into the evening’s darkening sky. I feel faint with fear. I focus on the flashing neon digits of my scale, considering how I will break it to Ana that they are putting me into hospital, again. At the beginning Ana was so inviting, offering me anything – friendship, a get-out, or a haven – but now, it is a trap. ‘I can’t do it’, a mumble emerges from my dry, cracked lips. ‘She won’t let me, I can’t disappoint her, I can’t let her down. I feel trapped. I’m nothing without her’. ‘And you will be nothing with this too Lauren’, my father shakes me. I notice wrinkles where I had never before. He was getting old and frail from worry, another fault of mine. Ana is beside me as she whispers in my ear, ‘They’re lying Lauren’. I cast my eyes upon the mirror hanging opposite us. I see my father and mother in heaps on the white tiles. Lying in between the two figures I notice a tired, sick body before it morphs into chubby cheeks, all too round shoulders, boxy hips, tree trunk thighs, a pregnant stomach and fattening knees. I pierce into two gaunt eyes, unrecognisable. ‘It feels so real’, I wonder if I’m looking at me or Ana, am I her or is she me. ‘Someday, Lauren, we will get those voices out of your head and you will be ok’.
If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder or any other mental illness, please please please reach out for help. Click here for a list of various numbers, emails and websites which you can reach out to for help, advice or comfort.
you are enough
PS Incase you couldn't really understand it, Ana is not a real person or voice but I and many others on their recovery journey have found that personalising the eating disordered thoughts and separating your true core self from the poisonous beliefs, hugely helps in fighting the disorder; in picking up the fork to nourish your body and slaying the beast heheh. Feel free to comment below or anonymously in the ASK section of my blog (it makes my day getting such kind lovely messages from you, it means the world that these posts are helping people). I hope this post helps spread awareness of such a horrible illness and maybe even enable you to thank your body today! Click here to subscribe to my newsletter for updates on new blog posts. I hope you enjoyed!
lots of love & peace & happinessLauren x
