NEDAW – My eating disorder destroyed more than just my body!

This National Eating Disorder Awareness Week I’d like to focus on the damage my eating disorder has done to my entire life – rather than just the physical affects. 

Although the damage I have done to my body I will have to live with forever, for me that wasn’t the worst thing about this illness. My eating disorder took control of more than just my eating – it controlled my entire life! Every single move I made, or every thing I said, was all a part of my eating disorder. 

I couldn’t go outside without constantly comparing myself to others. I’d watch others enjoying portions of chips or packets of crisps and almost die of jealousy, oh how I longed to be able to do that! It got to a point where I didn’t want to go outside at all – that voice inside my head convinced me that everyone else was judging me just as much as I was judging them. I was scared of the opinions people I’d never met had of me. 

I struggled to leave the house a lot of the time as I believed I wasn’t even worthy of going outside. I was exhausted all of the time and even laying down became a chore. Every little thing would make me an anxious wreck and I’d panick over the silliest of things! 

But this illness didn’t just stop me meeting new people or making new friends, it resulted in me losing all of my friends. (Although I wasn’t the most popular to begin with) the more entrapped in my eating disorder I became, the harder I was to be around. The constant hunger caused me to be rude and dismissive – I didn’t have the energy to focus on anything. I never felt wanted so assumed I wasn’t and would never hang around. I struggled to hold proper conversations with people and became even more argumentative than I was before. Even I hated myself, so why wouldn’t everyone else??? 

It’s these same problems which caused problems between myself and family members also. The people who are supposed to love me unconditionally felt like they were constantly stepping on egg shells around me – how could I expect anybody to want to talk to me when even my own mum felt this way?

The more alone I became, the more entrapped I became within my eating disorder. It became like a vicious cycle of feeling alone, pushing everyone away, and feeling alone again. I pushed absolutely everyone away until I had no one left!! The only person I kept around me was the same person who was making me worse. He was incredibly hurtful in the things he’d say and do and yet I was too entrapped within myself to see that.

These characteristics are still a part of me, and I fear that they will be forever. Despite the fact that I now actually have a few friends, I know that I’m still not the nicest person to be around and have to try extra hard to fight that voice within my head just to leave the house each day. Out of everything that this illness put me through, the scariest part is not knowing whether the thoughts are the eating disorder, or whether it’s actually me.