Eating and the disorder: when life becomes the choice.

Thirteen. Top-tiered academic. High-performing sports athlete. Performance school attendee. Loved by a community. Adored by a family. Perfection to those that see. Hurting to the mirror unseen. 12 months later. Fainting at school. Withdrawing from community. Grades slipping. Smile fading. Plate less full. Scales in the bathroom. Starving during the night. Cold during the day.

I was fourteen when they put a name to it: Anorexia Nervosa. When they labelled the way of life I was utilising to survive the devils hidden in my wardrobe. I remember sitting in the psychologist’s office with my mum and feeling nothing but utter embarrassment. Embarrassment for her (my mum), for me (what I had become). Shame and guilt followed as I felt an infliction of choice thrust upon me: “You decided to do this to yourself”, “you think you’re fat”, “you decided to starve”, “to crave skinny”, “you are the reason.” The headlines in my mind got louder. Yet, my family was only meeting Her (Anorexia) for the first time, and she was not going to be their biggest fan.

Twenty-two weeks of family-based therapy was what I was to go through for the treatment of my eating disorder. 22 weeks of hell! If I had known what 'hell' was. 154 days of complete failure! If failure of that kind could be endured. 221,760 minutes of torture! If anyone knew of that kind of torture we were experiencing.

An interstate hospital admission saved not only my life but my family's. Three months I would call the children’s mental health ward my home, and this is where this story decides to pivot because the diagnosis and assisted treatment for my recovery was only a part of my eating disorder journey, the hardest path was yet to be pathed ... Eating and the disorder: when life becomes the choice.

There is so much I wish hindsight told me a little earlier, but my belief in what has happened for an unknown reason may be the greatest gift I give to you.

My recovery from Anorexia was not linear, was not overnight, and was not achieved alone. I had five years of toeing and froing with whether I wanted to pursue recovery or not. Battling a conflicting bias of finding myself without Her or keeping Her close for keepsake. I overcame the medical implications and symptoms of my eating disorder, but she was still present and very much in my driver's seat. There came a defining point of strain though, strain on my relationships, routines, mindset, life. I got sick of the rules, tired of the games, drained by my own indecisive head noise, and so did the ones I loved. I had to make a decision: be left behind, miss out, watch others walk on as I continued to play 'sick' the rest of my life, or choose life, whatever that was. Ultimately, I was 18, and “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” so I jumped...I chose life, and into full recovery I went. And now you’ll find me 5 years on from that decision.

When asked to write about recovery and my eating disorder journey, I contemplated writing about the small necessities in my every day; the “one bite at a time” approach, the “trust in the process” mentality, the “recovery is possible” belief; the hope, the trust, the success, but the truth is, those may exist, but what I needed was not another person to tell me that “one day it will be better”, I needed someone to sit with me in the pain. Acknowledge that this fight was hard. It’s draining, isolating, and the harsh reality is, that I really want to give up.

I needed the validation that it hurts...then! I needed the pep talk, the one I didn’t want to hear. I needed someone to tell me the reality of recovery from here on out, the fact that hope and recovery are possible, but it requires work, work initiated by no one else but myself.

During recovery, I sat in what we like to label as ‘quasi-recovery’, waiting for someone to save me, the system to fix me, my parents to do the work for me. I blamed the system for failing me, our culture for persuading me to be a certain weight, and my trauma for holding me back. I had a point, but my recovery was not dependent on my past or the stories I told myself, my recovery was dependent on my choice. My eating disorder may not have been my fault, but my recovery was my responsibility.

I could continue to mellow in “why me” and battle the seesaw of wanting to be ‘thinner’, ‘prettier’, ‘happier’, but those labels got me nowhere. The fact was that pursuing an idea of those labels made me feel even worse. I had to own my story; my mess and realise that this life is my choice. I got honest with myself and discovered a small curiosity to explore what life could be like without Her, a life led by my own wants, desires, gifts and reasons. I started to think about the people I could meet, the moments I could create, the good that could be found, the ‘normal’ issues that could be confronted, and the version of myself I was yet to meet. I started to want more for myself than to be ‘thin’, ‘sick’, ‘dependant’, ‘restricted’. I wanted to experience freedom! So I decided to go on a quest to find it.

My message to you, wherever you are in your eating disorder recovery, STOP RUNNING! Stop cheating yourself, lying to yourself, and playing the game your ED is in control of. You can get through this, but how you do it, how long it takes, and when you get through it, is your choice.

It’s going to be hard, WORSE! It’s going to be harder than hard, but you do not have to do it alone. Build your network, find your team, and lean on them.

Be scared, but walk on. You will feel uncomfortable, EVERY SINGLE DAY! But keep turning up. Why? Because when you choose you, choose life, you take back the power. Now you must do the work. And while that work can take time, you get to re-create the life you want to live, free of the devils in your wardrobe and the disorders blurring your vision. You get to live! That is worth every bite! That is worth every tear! That is why we turn up, and that is why I will for the rest of this life I am privileged to live.

You got this x

With love, Ashlee Thomas