She lives inside me, this creature. She’s made a home in the back of my mind. She’s young and so so thin. Skin yellowing and eyes sunken, she lingers. Rasping whispers crawl from her acid-burnt throat - she wants me to be just like her.
She didn’t always live in my head, this eating disorder. She started as a passerby on the train. We became friends, and soon she moved in. I helped her carry her boxes up the stairs if only to burn more calories. Exercise was mandatory - two, three, four, five hundred jumping jacks a day. A growling stomach signaled success. If I ate, I’d be fat, if I was fat, I was worthless. To her, no number on any scale would be low enough, as long as there was something lower. My thoughts became split in two: a voice that was rational, who knew eating three meals a day wouldn’t make me gain weight. The second voice was much louder. Overlapping thoughts made my brain so busy, I just gave in to her. For two years I fought her solo, with varying success rates. Over time, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to fight this on my own. …show more content…
I couldn’t admit to her that I had failed, because, to me, I had. Three years prior, my sister was diagnosed with an eating disorder. I watched her struggle with food, listened as she screamed at my parents for making her eat. I had a front row seat to her suffering but still I developed an eating disorder. The evening it all came to a head, I had terrible heartburn-like pains in my chest. After Googling my symptoms, it was possible that I had burned my esophagus with stomach acid - a souvenir from purging earlier that day. When my mom asked me how this could have happened, I burst into tears. After some coaxing, she allowed me to write down what I was thinking onto a note. I told her
She didn’t always live in my head, this eating disorder. She started as a passerby on the train. We became friends, and soon she moved in. I helped her carry her boxes up the stairs if only to burn more calories. Exercise was mandatory - two, three, four, five hundred jumping jacks a day. A growling stomach signaled success. If I ate, I’d be fat, if I was fat, I was worthless. To her, no number on any scale would be low enough, as long as there was something lower. My thoughts became split in two: a voice that was rational, who knew eating three meals a day wouldn’t make me gain weight. The second voice was much louder. Overlapping thoughts made my brain so busy, I just gave in to her. For two years I fought her solo, with varying success rates. Over time, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to fight this on my own. …show more content…
I couldn’t admit to her that I had failed, because, to me, I had. Three years prior, my sister was diagnosed with an eating disorder. I watched her struggle with food, listened as she screamed at my parents for making her eat. I had a front row seat to her suffering but still I developed an eating disorder. The evening it all came to a head, I had terrible heartburn-like pains in my chest. After Googling my symptoms, it was possible that I had burned my esophagus with stomach acid - a souvenir from purging earlier that day. When my mom asked me how this could have happened, I burst into tears. After some coaxing, she allowed me to write down what I was thinking onto a note. I told her