Forbidden food: the day in the life of an anorexia sufferer.

Waking up. Hunger pangs. To the kitchen for coffee, no breakfast.

This is always how my morning starts when I relapse. Lately this has been my life once again. I’m sick of this happening time and time again, but yet here I am, restricting, counting every morsel that I put in my mouth, counting every step I make, double checking to make sure I’ve burned enough.
It’s tiring, exhausting, hard work, yet I still must do it. Because my brain says if I don’t no one will like me, that people will deem me too large for society’s expectations of what I should look like.
Every moment I’m thinking of food. What I can eat. What I can’t eat. What I will eat. What I won’t eat.

To uni I go, full of caffeine and water. Occasionally a bag of low calorie popcorn if I’m feeling adventurous. I can barely think or follow what the teachers are saying, I can’t concentrate because all I care about is how I look or how much weight I should lose. I say 3kg then I’ll stop. Then another 3kg. Then 3 more and so on and so on until my legs don’t work, my heart slows down, my hair falls out, my skin is bad, I grow cold all the time.

Next stop the supermarket. My most dangerous enemy. So many danger foods. I trapse around looking at every single thing. Checking calories. Taking it off the shelf then putting it back on. Then off and on again until I end up leaving it on there. I avoid aisle where danger foods look, I stick to the fruit and veg aisle, the noodle and cracker isle. I check, check and check again how many calories are  in what I’m purchasing. I spend 30-40 minutes deciding what I want, no, what I will or am allowed to eat. It’s not much. It’s not healthy. Yet here I am. Doing the same thing again.

The walk home is tiring. I can barely move my legs. My head is fuzzy and I feel sick. Finally I reach home and put everything away. I sit down to a small salad, with two crackers. This is all I will have. No more.  I’m not allowed to. Because anorexia controls what I eat, when I eat or if I eat at all.

Bed time comes. Finally. I’ve spent hours trying to work but I’m too tired and cold to think. So instead I scroll through YouTube watching cooking and food tasting videos. It’s torture. Self inflicted. A here’s what you could’ve won type thing. I lay in bed shivering due to the lack of food. My body is trying to stay warm. I toss and turn until I finally find sleep. I dream of eating food and I wake up in a cold sweat, panicking that I’ve over eaten again. Ending the day with 1100 calories, 200 or so burned and 880 so total. It’s not enough but it makes me feel better.

It’s a hard life to live, it’s miaercalw. It’s not glamorous or fun. Anyone can be affected by it. Maybe you’re reading this and you are. Seeking help is hard, considering that they don’t help you until you’re already quite ill and underweight. So you carry on until recovery from such a problem becomes harder and harder the more weight you lose.

One day I hope I will be free of this but it seems unlikely the longer it goes on. I’m aware of the damage it does, yet I don’t care. Nothing will stop my persuit of thinness. I desire to be the skinniest one in the room. If I can’t be the smartest one in the room, you’re damn sure I’m going to be the thinnest.

I apologise if this is too depressing to read. I’ll write a happier post next time. But I just wanted to share with you what a day in the life is like. I’m currently struggling with this, as is obvious and known by many around me, but there’s little help out there due to the fact my BMI isn’t 17 or under. It’s around 21 (55kg). So whilst I’m not in physical danger, not yet, I am mentally suffering.

This isn’t about vanity despite many misconceptions. It’s about controlling something when everything else is out of my control. About being the skinniest one because you’re not good enough at anything or as thin as you should be to be considered beautiful.

After sleeping and waking up all night I am ready to do it all again.

(Please don’t worry about me. I am seeking help. I just wanted you to see what a day is like from my view point)