broken alice

I live in Adelaide, South Australia. I found out yesterday that the one and only support group in this state is closing due to the withdrawal of government funds. There are absolutely no other groups or centers for ED support. 

I’ve been in recovery for almost six months and a large part of that was spent battling on my own. I know I don’t need a support group, but it was the one place in which, for an hour and a half each week, I felt alright. A little bit hopeful. Strung out and sad - because talking about EDs will do that to you - but lined with silver. One and a half hours where I could start to believe that I would wake up one morning and be fully okay.

So what do I do? 

Here’s what I’m really sad about. I don’t know if I will ever recover.

I’ve gotten used to normalcy, and outwardly these days, no one would ever be able to guess what I’ve been through or how I still struggle. I have more normal eating habits and I weigh a healthy amount. But inside, I am far from okay. I feel like I’ve broken something important, and I’ve been given crutches and painkillers instead of a cast and bed rest. I limp on, only no one can see it. 

I’m not okay. I wake up sad. I loathe this body I walk around in. I am constantly, heavily, incessantly niggled at. Too fat, not quite ‘there’ yet, too average-Jane, too plain, nothing really wrong with me, nothing right with me either. I keep thinking that this is recovery. This constant sadness and heaviness. I did everything I’m supposed to and I stayed strong and everyone is so proud of me - but I feel it ruined me. 

Is this recovery? If it is I think I would prefer my old life back. The pointy knees and ribs, a head too large for my body, a grimace instead of a smile. 

I think I need help but I don’t know where to get it.

Oh God, this is how it feels. Can’t go backwards. Can’t go forwards. Don’t want to gain weight, shouldn’t lose weight. Round and round, mouse in a wheel. Oh for some more ribs. Some hip bones. A thigh gap again. Oh for rules and counting and calories. Numbers, meal plans, diets, calorie counters, structure, calculators, scales, another food group to add to the forbidden list. Oh God. Oh God. I can only fight this constant hunger with more hunger. More rules. Backing myself into a corner. How do I keep going? I must do this now, or lose another two years. Do this now or lose my life. Please tell me what to do. 

(Source: joeydeangelis, via martinipistache)

Asked her about the rate of weight loss if you do what I’m doing. 

‘You twat,’ she said. ‘I’m just angry now.’

But oh I am so happy. So fixed. Everything is okay when there are so many rules I can barely eat. 

This morning I hardly had the energy to get dressed. Even that is worth it.

Just three weeks. Just three weeks. 

Ate well for seven days. Binged three times in five days. Vomited twice. Currently on a three week 1000cal-per-day diet, starting this morning. 

That’s my fortnight.

I was so close, though. I almost made it. Oh, it breaks your heart sometimes.

I’m learning that every now and then there is just no way you can keep within your calorie limit without someone noticing. To hide it, to keep the peace, to keep him happy, you have to break every rule sometimes. And when that happens there just seems no point in attempting to eat well at all. 

Mouse in a wheel. Rag doll round a tyre. Over and over. 

That’s all I said to myself today. I really really don’t like myself. But that’s okay. I’m allowed to. It was hard. I made it.

And then my boyfriend finished work and walked into the room looking at me like he couldn’t believe his eyes and he said the beautiful things he says to me and I felt almost okay. And proud, too, because I’d made it almost by myself. Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to accept any of that if I hadn’t spent the whole day telling myself I’m allowed to feel what I feel.

What I’m hoping, is this: That by giving myself permission to hate, by letting go, by stopping the striving towards a love I’m never going to feel, it will cease to matter. That I’ll be able to look in the mirror and see someone ordinary. That I’ll look down at my legs on the bus and not feel that hot surge of panic and fear and anxiety and hate hate hate.

That this is the start of Everything.

Of course not. I know this by now. But it feels like I am. Feels like I’m stretching my limbs, caring a little less, unfolding.

Six days binge-free. Three days of not-starving-so-much. Am I returning to normal?

They say once you’ve been there, for the rest of your life you’re never not there. I guess I’ve only gone a little way, and it’s too soon to be pulled up short by the ropes.

Just for a moment, wind on my face, open sky, arms out like a sparrow.

Before I fall down in tangles.

I think that’s all I can put it down to.

Bending over the toilet, eyes streaming, an ache in the muscles behind my knees, hurry hurry hurry before the parents come home.

Oh, but it felt better then. Like I wasn’t just vomiting up my morning tea but the whole past two years. Every time I’ve looked in the mirror. The fear about being too fat. The binging. The starvation. The diets. The hate, shame, panic, anxiety. It was like everything that refused to leave me for the past two years had finally gone, disappearing down the toilet.

I didn’t know you could get rid of anything that easily.

Clean. I feel so clean. I could get addicted to feeling this way.

That’s it, I said afterwards. Starvation, now. No more throwing up. Just starvation. Because that is so much healthier.

Is it? I’ve either gotten a little better, or a whole lot worse.

I want it to stop. I want it to stop.

Please stop talking to me the way you do. Please look back at me in the mirror tomorrow and say Hello beautiful.

Just once?

Please.

All the time. Well, that’s an exaggeration. But when it hits, it’s a feeling of returning. Like it’s the only thing that I’ve ever felt and I haven’t realised. 

Maybe it’s not my divine right to be happy with myself. To be in giddy-in-love with the way my belly folds.

Today I was thinking maybe I should just settle, accept that this is what I’ve got and who I am, go on with my life and pretend that I don’t mind that this is what I’m stuck with. 

Is that what other people do? 

Or do I really have a divine right to like what I am so sick of?

Me.

Had two sachets of oats for breakfast. Thought about eating a milk arrowroot after church. Thought about it. That counts.

And then he brings out two types of salad for lunch - tabouleh and morrocan couscous - and I’m panicking. That itching anxiety clawing its way up my throat. I was acting crazy. Picking at my nails, running my fingers through my hair again and again. Bent over at the waist, hands blocking my ears when he practically inhaled a cupcake in front of me.

All over a couscous salad.

Times like these I think I need a padded cell. Times like these I realise that it’s not over. I’m not fixed. Not even close.