Breaking up with Ana

Happy 12 th (?) week of lockdown! I hope those of you who still read this blog are all keeping well and having a restful time if you haven’t been at work. I honestly thought I would write on here loads, but I really haven’t had that much to say – nothing that is particularly useful for myself or others anyways! I’ve had questions from people about how to deal with the lockdown if you have an eating disorder. The honest answer is that I wish I knew, because I am struggling. So if anybody knows, please message me!! I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to work for about half of lockdown, but other than my beautiful bunny Meredith, I’ve gone home every night to an empty house. There have been days in a row where I haven’t physically had to open my mouth to talk. It’s just been the weirdest thing. I’ve found it really tricky, especially as my normal coping mechanism when my mood gets questionable is to get out the house and see people. I don’t do well living alone. I mean, Meredith lis...

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...