“Just a few more pounds, just a few, then I’ll love myself, then my body will be beautiful” I repeated over and over in my head while running on an elliptical on an empty stomach. Hating myself for years, I thought this was the only way to change it, to simply starve the hate out of myself.
Cold, miserable, and numb, I skipped another meal and repeated it to myself again: “Just a few more pounds”. My family was suffering but I didn’t care. I was becoming beautiful. I was ready for people to love me. For me to be society’s standard of perfection. No, I couldn’t walk up the stairs without almost blacking out, but my thighs didn’t touch, so obviously it was fine.
Sometimes my anorexia almost made me feel super human. Almost like I was constantly having a contest with myself to challenge how little I could eat.
Months pasted and I continued wasting away. Because dry skin, thin hair, freezing cold touch, and bones jotting out of a persons body is attractive, right? My hate for myself grew. No matter how many calories I burned our how little I ate, the hate grew.
I don’t know what broke the final straw for me “staying strong” and acting like nothing was wrong. Maybe it was my mother crying every time she felt my ribs, or my boyfriend being afraid to touch me. Or maybe it was the fact that it hurt to sit down and gave me bruises. Or that I wasn’t even a human anymore. I was a zombie. Only barely surviving, not really living.
I finally decided that it wasn’t worth it. I could no long kill myself and everyone around me. Anorexia took away my faith, my friends, my family, sports… everything I loved, it took. I decided that maybe I should try something new. Since restricting and hating my body didn’t work, maybe I should try loving myself.
I began eating more and more. A constant choice of whether to recover or give up with every bite. I screamed and cried and fought. I punched things and kicked things and threw things. At first I cried at every meal, but I still ate every one. My body began to grow, but so did my love and appreciation for it. Eating became easier everyday.
Recovering from anorexia was honestly one of the hardest and most painful things that I’ve ever had to do. It’s battling with yourself constantly and it’s exhausting. I gave my body rest and did something I haven’t done in a long time; I listened to what it was telling me.
Eventually- after a long time of eating, resting, self care, fighting with myself when I didn’t want to eat, and respecting my body even when I couldn’t love it, I’m now weight restored and close to being recovered. I can honestly say I love my body SO much more than I have in a long time. My boyfriend doesn’t think he’s going to snap me in half when he hugs me and my mom smiles with joy as she watches me play my favorite sports.
I destroyed my body for a peace of mind I never got. Eating disorders will never make you happy. Only fully committing to recovery can make you truly happy and truly love yourself for more than what you weigh. Because the truth is, your weight is the amount of gravitational pull on the the Earth, and that’s it. It doesn’t say anything about who you are. No “few more lost pounds” will make you any more or any less amazing. Yes- recovery is hard, but it’s also the best thing I’ve even chosen to do. Yes, I still have bad days, and sometimes even bad weeks, but I always know there’s sunshine on the other side.
Who knew that the opposite of the thing I thought would save me made me fall in love with myself all over again.
Written By: An Anonymous Guest Blogger Living_Lili.
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