My experience of living with an eating disorder is not like those portrayed in social media. I didn’t have an intense desire to be thin. I didn’t cut out food groups to lose weight and I didn’t ever think that being deathly thin was beautiful. It was never to do with my weight. A later developed fear of gaining weight only came through living with an eating disorder, it wasn’t the cause. My eating disorder wasn’t caused by a desire to lose weight, it was merely a side effect. 

When I began to restrict what I ate it was because I didn’t believe that I deserved to eat. Eating is necessary for life and I didn’t think I deserved it. I didn’t feel like a good enough or cared about enough person to deserve the fundamentals of life. I’d watch others eat and think about how deserving they were, which only ever made me feel even less deserving. It’s not something you have control over and when you’re deep in that mind-set you don’t feel like you have any other choice than to not eat and if you do eat, the repercussions are huge. Eating disorders are so far from their often glamorous ideation. They’re not a pretty girl refusing an apple. They’re tears, arguments and endless suffering. They’re pain when you try to move, dizziness that’s overwhelming and constant exhaustion. Pale, dry skin, weak nails and your hair falling out. Eating disorders are not something to be desired and are not something developed through choice.

I don’t think eating disorders are an illness that you’re ever cured of. It’s something that stays with you for life, but you do learn how to manage it and life becomes so much more bearable. You can quieten the voice telling you not to eat and be able to over-rule it. To this day, 6 years on from the true beginning of my eating disorder, I still slip into the mind-set of being undeserving of food, the wonderful people in my life and many other crucial things that are essential for survival… but there are so many more good days than bad now. Recovery is hard and a choice that you don’t just make once or even just every morning when you get up but often with every meal, every snack and sometimes even every moment in between; but it is worth the fight and it does get better!

This blog has been written and released as part of QMUSU Eating Disorder Awareness Week