Panic

My closest friend has struggled with anorexia for a long while. While it helps to feel the solidarity of another successful, intelligent, productive woman struggling with an eating disorder, I always come back to the same thought: It’s really not the same.

While I’ve never struggled with anorexia (I used to wish I had the “willpower” to have that disorder instead… I know that’s distorted thinking), it seems to me that it’s a rather slow burn. A long, steady, emptiness that to me seems akin to a long depression. You can’t really suss out a singular moment, a particular point when the disordered activity occurs.

With bulimia, there’s an explosive event–a frenzied mania, a specific moment of decision. It feels more like an addiction, like the do-or-die moment when an alcoholic sits with a drink in hand. When I’m in THAT place, I don’t feel like myself. I am utterly unrecognizable. When I’m in my normal headspace, I can’t even imagine running wildly around my kitchen inhaling an entire loaf of cinnamon toast. The two personas just don’t jive.

I’ve been working on bringing in my sane self and objectively looking at those crazy, wild, panic-driven moments. I’m trying to sit in the discomfort of knowing I may have eaten too much that day, but it’ll be OK. It doesn’t feel good. It feels awful. But, when that panic has subsided and the morning comes, things are somehow better. Not great, not full of rainbows; but, better. I wish you all something that is simply better. Day 15.