its almost like i don't know any different. and when after 8 years of starving, barfing, continuous exercise, needles being forced into my veins, tubes being forced down my nose, monitors attached to my ice cold skin, terror, rage, medical crisis, personal failure and loss after loss. when after this, you are 20 and staring down a vastly abbreviated life expectancy, and the eating disorder still takes up half your body, half your brain, or even more with its invisible eroding force. when you have spent the majority of your life sick, when you do not yet know what it means to be "well" or "normal," when you doubt these words even have meaning anymore, there are still no answers. you will die young and you have no way to make sense of that fact, you have this: you can be thin. but is that what i really want to be remembered for ?? at my funeral do i want the only thing people to say "well she was able to control her weight." in the long run, that is not what i want to be remembered for.
anorexia tells me everyday that i am in control, this is what i want, this is who i am. but sometimes when i am in my rational mind (which isn't quite often) i can dissect it, try and "reality check it" as those fancy clinicians like to call it. refusing to eat, putting my body into starvation mode, which is hurting me, and being thinner, so thin that people notice i am underweight and being told left and right i need to gain weight is what make me who i am. i think if i gain a pound, everyone is going to notice and they will hate me even more, I'll lose my identity, but the danger in that is that my identity is resting on a little tiny point and anything can change that and threaten to make me lose what i think is my identity. the greatest thing i can do in life is NOT to prove to the world that i am able to get thin. i want to be thought about and regarded for WHO I REALLY AM. even if i may not know who that is. but i guess that's what life is about right? figuring out who you are, creating an image for yourself? at least this is what i have been told. i am told constantly that i was placed on this earth for a purpose. i believe this about everyone else, but am having such a hard time believing that i fit into this category. i don't know why i think i am the one exception to this vast world of people. i do not want the reason that i was placed on this earth to starve myself to death, who wants to be remembered for that? i want to change peoples lives, i want to make a difference. i have an entire list of things that i want to do. but one thing is holding me back. my ridiculous distorted fears of being "fat" or gaining weight, or giving up what i have known for so long. but giving up this one fear could unlock 100 more positive things that i am missing out on life because of a silly irrational fear. moment by moment, i have to try and convince myself to take that leap of faith into the unknown.
