What a testing month it has been. Not only have been tested in several exams for my course, but my strength to keep fighting anorexia…and to keep fighting for a life has also been tested.
I’ll start with exams. I have spent the past two weeks doing exams and coursework…which means I have spent the past month with my head in books revising. I can’t say it’s been particularly enjoyable, revising for 8 hours a day everyday…even on Christmas day! But I’ve done it and thankfully the exams/coursework are over. I wasn’t hopeful for the results of my exams – I genuinely thought I had failed. There have been many tears, many “I can’t do it” and “I want to give up” and “I’ve failed” but I have passed and so for now, I carry on, albeit convinced that I will fail the next assessment.
So, for just over a month now my life has been taken over by preparing for these exams. Although, anorexia still likes to try and keep itself my number one priority. I was weighed by my nurse early in the new year. My eating hadn’t changed over Christmas (except for maybe eating a few Brussel sprouts), my exercise had stayed exactly the same…yet I stand on the scales and I’ve gained a kilo! An F***ing Kilo! I was distraught. Since August my weight has slowly been creeping up, for no apparent reason. I’ve cut things out of my diet but still, it continues to go up. So on the 2nd January 2018, tipping the scales a kilo heavier…the heaviest I’ve been in 10 years, I just felt in complete despair.
From then, it was a real struggle to concentrate on my work. All I could think about was my weight, how disgusting and repulsive I was to have let this happen…how dare I have allowed myself to eat Brussel sprouts when my weight was doing this. So, whilst everyone else is sat there helping themselves to an extra roast potato, or another chocolate from the box…I am wracked with guilt for having eaten 5 Brussel sprouts. Revision took a back seat as I tried to think about what I could cut out to lose the weight, what from my already reduced diet could I take out to reduce it even further?
I discussed it with my mum and we agreed on an amount to take out. She was very reluctant but in the state I was in we had to do something. And I would much rather do it openly than secretly, something that is very different to how I was before. And I am not trying to lose a lot of weight, just to get back to where I can cope with…to what was agreed would be my upper limit, to which I am now several kilos over.
But I hate anorexia for making me feel like this…and making me behave like this. Having to count every calorie that I eat, living in fear of gaining weight. And I know reducing my diet is not the best option, it is not the option that is going to help me beat anorexia or get a life…but it was the only option at the time that would enable me to carry on, to try and keep revising for my exams and not go full throttle back to complete restriction and quest to be skeletal. With all the other stresses in life, it is taking every effort to just manage anorexia. So for now, I am sticking with that. Management. I still hope for a life where I am free from its chains but that fight is not something I am up for at the moment. I will be in the future…but not right now.
And then there was also the situation with the dentist. Mid December I went to the dentist with toothache, similar to what I have experienced before so I was just hoping for some antibiotics. Boy was I in for a shock. He wanted to remove my wisdom tooth there and then. So as a good patient I agreed. I had no idea what it would be like, having never had tooth removal before. I can’t say it was a particularly pleasant experience, but over the years I’ve spent in hospital, I’ve dealt with much worse.
I spent the rest of the day revising, although it was difficult with the immense pain. 15 minutes into eating my dinner of soup, I passed out. The next thing I know I am on the floor with my legs in the air, my mum telling my dad to call an ambulance. The ambulance crew arrive, do some checks and try and sit me up. And I pass out again. The ambulance crew want to take me to hospital. I reluctantly agree…it’s not as if I have fond memories of going to hospital.
We bypassed A and E and were taken to a small waiting room with several other patients and their families. And that’s when anorexia really started to kick in. Firstly, I was made to feel a fraud for being in hospital when I wasn’t thin. At least when I’d been in before I’d barely been able to walk, now anorexia just made me feel like a fat failure. Then anorexia started to lure me in with its temptations. How nice it would be to be ill again, to have an escape from the stresses of life…to be too ill to barely breathe let alone think about trying to get qualifications and a career. Anorexia was luring me in like a dog to a bone.
As I sat there, anorexia convincing me how good it could make me feel, I looked at my parents sat beside me. And I was overwhelmed with guilt. All the previous times I have been in hospital I have been too out of it, too brainwashed and taken over by anorexia that I have lost a sense of reality. But whilst anorexia was now trying to convince me to escape the reality once more, I have been living in the real world for over 6 years, living in reality, and I could see how worried my parents were.
And then all I could think was how I could never do that to them again. As much as I sometimes think I want to go back to anorexia, I could never put my parents through it again. They were worried about me now having just passed out… I can only imagine how they must have felt when I could barely walk, or talk, or keep my heart beating. They have spent years by my side, in and out of hospital, always there for me no matter what. Anorexia has ruined the past 10 years of my life…it has also ruined theirs. And whilst not quite ready to try and beat anorexia, I am doing my best to manage it, to stop letting it completely ruin mine and their lives. I will beat it one day. But I have to manage it for now…hopefully this time next year I will have managed…and beaten it.