TW: Eating Disorders
I recently had the conversation I’ve been needing to have with my friends, and quite frankly, with myself, for a while now. When I go to dinner with my friends, we do “check-ins,” where we ask how we’re all doing; not just the “how are you?” “I’m fine,” kind of discussion This question holds intimacy for us. However, I’ve been lacking the honesty I’ve been needing to have with myself and had convinced myself and my friends that I was genuinely doing okay.
I am not okay.
It is not okay to be controlled by my anxieties and self-hatred. It is not okay for my thoughts to be consumed by calorie counting, planning how little I will eat at my next meal, and having a backup plan to purge if I “mess up.” It is not okay to spend my Saturday evenings wondering what my purpose is in this life and if I even have one. It is not okay to equate my self-worth to hurting my body. It is not okay to be dishonest with myself.
Tonight, I was honest. When it was my turn to answer the question of “how are you?,” I told them that I was scared of where I’ve been mentally. I told them that I’m scared that my eating disorder has been speaking a little too much. I told them that I was unaware of my purpose right now, causing me to feel quite lifeless. I told them that I don’t feel connected to my body, or even myself, and I haven’t even had an idea of where I belong in this personhood in quite some time.
I told them about another friend who has been worried about me, and how much it has opened up my eyes to what I’m really doing to myself; “I know you’re trying, but I worry for you. You get so little nourishment. Your weight is diminishing. Is your throat okay? Are your teeth okay? It isn’t safe for you to push your body the way your body isn’t getting what it needs. I’m scared that one of these days it’s going to kill you.”
This was what I needed to hear, it was real. While the comments such as “I’m rooting for you!” or “you will get there” help and encourage me through recovery, they don’t remind me of the danger my eating disorder is putting me in. While I need some of those positive encouragements, I need reminders that my eating disorder is something I need to be proactive about.
I brought these fears into the conversation with my friends. This conversation was so hard for me to have. I was saying unfiltered things that I didn’t have time to process, making me confront the realness of what I was going through, even if I didn’t quite know how to articulate it. I didn’t have the time to sugarcoat what I was feeling, I said what I felt in that very moment. This is the honesty that I never knew how to have with myself, or even further, with other people.
These are the conversations that I need to be having. While being aware and open about the fact that I have an eating disorder, the honesty of its harm and where I am with it is something that I need to stop hiding from myself. Tonight’s unfiltered answer to “how are you?” is what I’ve been needing, and is what I’ve been missing in my recovery all along. I am now honest with myself in knowing that I am not okay right now. The denial of this can no longer hold me back from getting better. Eating disorders thrive on secrecy; so much that even the awareness of my eating disorder doesn’t give me the power to stop it. So here’s to honesty. Here’s to realness. Here’s to acknowledging the parts of me that I still struggle to accept. Honesty has power.
Words have power. And what I tell myself can either take my life or give my life back.