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I always wanted to recover and get rid of the thoughts and feelings going around my head. I wanted to release some control and be able to live a 'normal' life again like I had before my eating disorder had reared its ugly head. I wanted to be 'normal'.
My anorexia started when I was just 11 years old. However, I wasn’t officially diagnosed until 10 years later. That is a decade of illness before I started treatment, by which time my ED was well and truly ingrained.
I have no doubt this is going to be a long road, but I am sick (no pun intended) and tired of having this secret and hating myself.
An eating disorder is like a pair of armbands, keeping you afloat when otherwise you feel like you would drown. It makes life easier in many cases – by holding onto your disorder you feel like you have control and feel like you are able to accomplish things.
I know how daunting it is to think of the recovery journey ahead. I know how easy it is to be deceived into thinking that it’s simpler to let your eating disorder control you and destroy you.
The most important thing I have learnt is that treatment (although important and necessary) doesn't work unless you do. No one can drag you through recovery or do recovery for you.
Dear me, the girl with the laughing face. Hard times are coming. You’re going to hate your body, detest the very skin you reside in, yet obsess over it, every inch of skin.
Sometimes it has felt like no progress is being made, and in the dark times we all feel things will never get better. But looking back over those ten years, I can see Ellen has made some remarkable achievements.
I used to believe that there was nothing wrong with me, that I was meant to be like this. That I was my eating disorder.
Finally, for the first time in a long time, my day was not completely structured around when/what I would eat, and my mind was not completely consumed by thoughts of food and my eating disorder.
I was born as a Muslim, but never knew anything about it. At a time when I was searching for answers to the purpose of my life, I found all the answers.
I am still in the grips of my eating disorder, but that doesn’t mean I’m backing down!