I have a confession to make..

I have a confession to make, one which I have hidden for such a long time now. One in which has been the centre of so much shame, guilt and pain. A habit I have loathed, hated and been oh so ashamed of, but one that I have not been able to kick. A toxic force in my life that has taken so much from me; my confidence, my productivity, my sanity. Something that I have hidden behind closed doors, never spoken directly of and yet which has ruled my life, consumed every waking thought for over a year now. I don’t know how I got to this point, in spite of my honesty, I have hidden this shame but today I have to admit it. Not because I want your sympathy, or your pity, but because I am trying to be better; each and every day. I admit this now in an attempt to put it out there and thus make myself accountable to all of you through this confession towards my recovery..

To the illness that has sparked obsession, I name you today as I look forward. Bulimia.. my foe, my enemy, the inherent threat to my life. And yet, you have been the presence in my life for over a year now that has been the most pressing, the most present and constant. You were the voice in my head that told me that I had to purge all of what I last ate because if I didn’t I would gain that pound that would make me utterly undesirable. You were that reminder each and every day that highlighted within my warped sense of thinking that I couldn’t just eat, get up and walk away. You taunted me after every miniscule consumption and shamed me to the point of physically making myself sick in order to rid myself of that shame, of that threat to my skinniness.

You weaved your poisonous ways into the very wiring of my brain to the extent that even now, I have to actively check myself after every meal and force myself not to attempt to purge every last crumb I consumed. Your stranglehold on my life tightened as the days went on and leaked into every space of my existence. To the extent that I would starve myself during the day at work, barely be able to function or think and then leave early each afternoon so I had the ability to gorge and then rid myself of all of that within the privacy of my own home.

I loved the way I looked, but hated the way I was treating myself. I knew that I was slowly killing myself but just could not stop. I wondered if this miserable existence would be normalcy and my way of life of the entirety of it. As sad and terrible as that made me feel, I kept reminding myself that this was the price I had to pay to stay skinny, to remain within a body that was accepted and complimented in society.

But no one ever tells you about the side effects of living out each day in parallel with this awful habit. No one tells you about the constant and excruciating muscle cramps due to dehydration and low potassium levels you feel associated with heaving everything up that you consume. No one mentions the pressure that is put on your heart during the cycles of binging and purging or how you can’t lay down flat on your back for too long due to the acid reflux condition that this disease has now inflicted on you.

The silence on these elements is deafening. I understand that speaking of something so awful and all consuming might be a little confronting and difficult to enter into a conversation about. But the cost of not addressing eating disorders and the havoc they inflict on people’s lives surely is much more dangerous.

Opening myself up like this has been an incredibly difficult endeavour. I sat on this piece for the longest of times knowing that by identifying my personal battle with this illness would come a whole raft of comments/feedback and questions that may be entirely intrusive. But I make this confession for myself, to hold myself accountable to recovery, as much as I make it for us who are struggling in the same way.

My hope is that you read this piece and realise that this eating disorder, or any other like it is an illness; it’s a disease and you are no less for suffering it. You don’t need to feel shame or guilt because the commonality of this condition is more prevalent than you think. But remember you are more than your illness. You are worth of recovery, you are worthy of your health and your confidence. Because your body and the way it looks doesn’t define you.

Sx