Grieving anorexia

I have been struggling yet again with my recovery from anorexia for about a month now. The all-encompassing anxiety has made it so hard to eat, and I have dropped a few pounds and the old voice trying to convince me to lose more weight has awaken from its slumber.


But I haven't been able to put into words what was really bothering me until my friend, Carrie at ED Bites asked me if there was something she could do. That opened the floodgates and I cried as I wrote her the following:


I just can't seem to get past the all-encompassing anxiety to continue to eat enough to get to my healthy goal weight. Dr. Sackeyfio assure me once I reach that weight, eventually the ED thoughts and behaviors (i.e. restricting, self-harm, etc.) will stop. But I can't seem to take that final leap, and I think I allow myself to be triggered by a number of friends who either have relapsed or given up on recovery altogether, and the fact that it seems like so few people I know can't seem to stay in recovery.

The frustrating part is that I was so close, and still could make my goal weight if I pulled it together. Also, since I am so close, everyone around me (except my husband) seems to think things are fine - I don't look emaciated like in the winter and spring, so I'm all better, right? But I wake up every morning scared to death to face the day, I burst into tears for no reason at the weirdest times (like right now while writing this) and I can't seem to stop restricting, but I of course I'm eating something, so it's not like a full-blown relapse, right? (I'm being sarcastic.)

I need people to hear me and maybe I'm not saying the right words. I'm grieving. Grieving the loss of my too-thin body. Grieving the fact I am 45 and most likely will never have a child. Grieving for the person I was pre-anorexia. Grieving. And everyone wants to see happy smiles and recovery full-speed ahead, and I am failing them. And I can't get the voices in my head to shut up and let me eat; instead I hear that I don't deserve to eat, I'm a fat pig, etc., etc.


I'm afraid I will be one of those who don't [recover], and it makes the future look very empty. I'm tired of weighing myself and counting calories and worrying about every bite . . .

Saying good-bye

Tomorrow I will travel to Kentucky, see my family and say goodbye to my grandfather. I so wish I could have gotten there while he was still alive. I feel like my heart has been broken so many times these past few months, I have no heart left inside me. Maybe numbness is a good thing.

I am trying to eat more, because my sister said the other day the family doesn't want me to die and have to go to two funerals. Deep in my heart, I do care I am hurting them by having anorexia and that my mother feels she is watching her daughter die. It's just that the feeling is so deep, it can't really touch me.

But I realize I have to find strength within me. Strength to face family members who haven't seen me since I developed anorexia and now look like a shadow of my former, vibrant self. Strength to answer questions about why I can't eat. Strength to face the food that will be served and the expectations I cannot meet. I need to be there for my family and I need to say good-bye to my grandpa. I don't need to be a worry or a problem right now, and I'm afraid my presence will only make things worse.

Strength to stop thinking about all the things which have broken my heart this year — probable miscarriage and the death of my dream to have a child, losing a position because of my illness, the complete explosion of my eating disorder symptoms from rampant laxative abuse to carving so deep into my flesh I still feel uncomfortable wearing short-sleeve shirts to counting every single calorie which enters my mouth.

But the hardest thing will saying good-bye to my grandfather; I will never again be anybody's grandchild. Seeing him laid out in the coffin will frighten me, and Southern funerals are just different; it is a different world I will be traveling to tomorrow and anything outside the small zone created by anorexia frightens me.

Maybe that is the hardest thing, knowing my present and past will collide during the next few days and I'm not sure I am ready for it. I have tried to run from my Southern roots for decades for various reasons, and have failed and tomorrow I will be in two worlds, with my anorexia swirling all around me, gnawing at me, just waiting for a way to make things worse.

It is so easy to use grief as a reason not to eat; it is so easy to use anything as a reason not to eat.

And in the end, perhaps the hardest thing — saying good-bye to my anorexia. I want to hold onto the only constant in my life; my ability to restrict and lose weight. Part of me wants to stay anorexic forever, then I won't have to feel grief and pain. 

But I also won't feel joy and happiness, and I miss feeling those emotions. Being thin is a poor consolation, and flatness and apathy are poor substitutes.

My grandpa led a full life, one with joy and pain mixed in. He loved his children and grandchildren, never quite got over my beautiful Mamaw (although he had a long and happy marriage with my step-grandmother, Dean) and was interested in many things until he recently got sick.

I don't know what I'm trying to say. It's late and I'm tired and I'm grieving. I want to get better and live a full life, but I'm afraid. That's all I can manage to say right now.