I've been noticing myself falling back into old habits. Feeling immense guilt after eating certain "unsafe" foods, bingeing, attempts at purging, spending every waking moment I have that is not invested in work thinking about food, calories, and weight, devising "plans" to follow and "goals" to meet, talking more often and for longer periods of time about food to the people around me, tracking foods I eat and calories I consume, doodling mantras and slogans in my notebook, "Be a Food Snob!", revisiting the series of questions that used to run through my brain whenever food was around, "If I'm offered any, should I say yes? But won't I feel so much better if I just say no?", thumbing through my favorite trigger book that I've religiously read cover to cover countless times, playing with the thought of not eating, turning it over in my brain, remembering what it was like to taste hunger on my tongue and smell it on my breath, isolating myself and withdrawing from others, retreating further and further inside of myself, wanting to "be alone" so I can focus attentivetly to the voice inside my head without distraction, not caring who I push away in the process, craving silence, feasting on solitude, sleeping away the afternoons.
I'm tired of recovery. I'm fucking bored. And I'm fat. I went to my primary care doctor today as a follow-up to my medication dosage increase last month. As the nurse led me to the examining room, she paused at the scale, "Hmm, when was the last time we weighed you in? Let's see...well it's been awhile, hop on up." I started panicking; backing away from the scale like it was a rabid dog ready to pounce. I started shaking my head, and then said, "I may have to go on backwards." I took off my boots and my coat and my sweater. The nurse could tell I was visibly uncomfortable, and said we didn't have to if I didn't want. I ended up weighing in, face first. I was devastated when I saw that number and started crying hysterically. It's so easy for people who have never had an eating disorder before to try and comfort you by saying that there are other more important things to worry about than weight. They don't realize that telling that to a recovering anorexic is like telling someone who has just claimed bankruptcy and lost everything they've spent their life building that there are more important things to worry over than money. Unless you've been there yourself, you just DON'T fucking get it.
I left that appointment crying like my dog just died and called my boyfriend. He decided to comfort me by saying, "so lose weight if you want honey, just do it the healthy way." So that's the end of recovery. If the man who witnessed me on the brink of death by starvation can tell me that, which my diseased brain interprets as, "he thinks you can afford to lose weight otherwise he wouldn't have said that fatty," obviously I need to shed a few.
Every day, every meal I have a choice. No one's watching anymore. No one's watching except the girl inside my head. She sees everything. She sees how far astray I've gone and proffers her help. She promises a steel-willed self-control. She promises beauty and perfection and happiness. She promises understanding and friendship and support. She promises admiration and esteem. When everyone else forgets and abandons me, she breaks through offering "ana"piphany...you can do it again, you can start over, you have the control, you have the power.
