I used to dream of being the ‘perfect anorexic’. Convinced that if I put all my time and energy into conforming to my diagnosis, I’d manage it. I thought it was sustainable to live my life grey, tired and scared. But it wasn’t. I thought it could go unnoticed. But it didn’t. My eating disorder took so much from me. I lost friends and terrified my family. But most of all, I lost myself. However, I didn’t care because I was perfecting my illness, so it was okay. It all went tits up. I didn’t perfect my anorexia, because I ended up in a treatment centre for 3 months. I had failed. I was a failed anorexic because I gave up on my illness and allowed someone to try and take it away from me. I didn’t perfect it. I couldn’t perfect it. As each day of treatment passed, it gave me more opportunities to recover, things started to get easier and less scary. I started to realise that if I could put all my energy into perfecting my anorexia, why couldn’t I put that same energy into perfec