taemys - Tumblr blog

taemys · 2 years

Text

Dear Tumblr

I don’t know who will read this. Maybe no one will, and that’s okay, because I just need some place to scream. I have never told any of this to anyone, even myself. And if by chance, it helps someone somewhere to feel less alone, then it would have been worth it.

I suffered from bulimia nervosa for eight years now. I still can’t believe it’s true while I write this sentence, and it scares me so much that I feel like the future is collapsing before me. I have no words to describe how tired I am and how alone I feel after all those years. I am beginning to fear that I will never get better and it’s suffocating, because I want to be happy so desperately.

I dream of a future when my fiancé can put his hand on my waist and I won’t want to cry. I want to sit in a chair without obsessing over the size of my thighs or the folds of my stomach. I want my weight to stop being my first thought when I open my eyes in the morning. I want to stop thinking about my body whenever I put my clothes on, whenever I walk by a store window or go shopping with my friends. “Can they tell? Can someone see this?” This infernal spiral is like a screaming bell at the back of my mind that won’t shut up until I finally give in to my urges. I feel like a slave to my own mind, and I watch myself as I force-feed my body like a paralyzed goose.

I’m pushing myself toward my own grave while fooling everyone, and that might be the saddest joke of it all: everyone thinks I recovered. That it’s a dark and confusing memory long gone behind me, that I went through some kind of “glowup” because I finally learned how to put pretty clothes and not talk trash of myself in public. But nothing changed. I’m still the same liar.

I could say that it’s Bulimia that made me one, but I lied way before I shoved a toothbrush down my throat. I lied from the moment I realized I was taller and bigger than other girls, and I lied even more when I saw the way I was eating wasn’t normal. I have hidden food for longer than I can remember and I have avoided meals as soon as my mother made fun of me. I became a professional at hiding the smell, at making food packages disappear, at counting calories and vomiting in silence when people were too close.

I became a contorted image of success, a walking lie that hides behind loud jokes, false confidence and misplaced advice. I used my false recovery to lift people up and tell them that no obstacles were unsurmountable, only to sob at night because I couldn’t bear the sight of my own body. It wouldn’t have been so sparkly, if I told them that I was ashamed to be naked in my own shower, that I sometimes fished food out of the trashcan or vomited in plastic bags, when a bathroom wasn’t an option. I couldn’t tell them about the cold sweat, the racing heart and the overwhelming panic that come with keeping food in your stomach.

Bulimia has made me selfish. I stole at supermarkets, I stole in my dorm, I stole at my office, I stole at my friends’ houses. Like a cockroach, I sneaked in the kitchen at night to stuff myself with food as fast as possible, and I froze in the dark every time I heard a noise. At some point, I even concluded that any form of care was wasted on me, because I would always end up choosing food. You want to give me money? It will disappear in benders. You want to treat me to dinner? I will throw it all up behind your back and come back with a smile. You want to bring me to a nutritionist? I will just use the opportunity to drop weight even faster. You will ask me if I am still struggling with my weight? I will tell you that you worry too much.

I choose food every single time and for a moment, for that terrible second where the void is filled, I am soproud. So proud of not getting caught, so proud of being able to eat without gaining too much weight, so proud of enjoying junk food in front of a show when others are working. And then the curtain falls and the ice cream sweetness is gone. You’re not a ‘sexy bitch,’ a independent professional or a struggling woman. You’re not even a victim.

You’re just some sad chick who gobbles some carrot cake in the shadows of her apartment.

Bulimia has been ruining every good thing in my life and I don’t even know what it means to live without it. I have wasted so many meals in high school that I could have enjoyed with my friends, but I was too busy running in the park to make up for the morning binge. It ruined my relationship with my family because their inability to resolve the problem had made them cruel and distant, and I never completely forgave them for turning their back on my illness. In the past, I have ruined my chances at dating because I was too insecure about my weight, and I never made the first step because I didn’t believe someone could love someone like me. But now that someone does, I guess it makes everything worse.

My lies no longer limit themselves to the outside world. I now became a full time, award-winning, pathological liar with the love of my life, and I can’t stop myself no matter how much shame I feel. I am stuck in a storm that won’t stop crushing me against the wall, and even though I may not deserve it, I am so tired of fighting.

I have seen so many psychiatrists who didn’t do anything aside from taking my money and forcing me to conduct my own therapy without any real exercise. I have given up talking to my friends and family because I either become a concern or an inconvenience. Why hasn’t she gotten over it, already? Should we let her snack since it might trigger her? Even though I pretty much live under the tyrannic rules of my eating disorder, I hate when I disappear behind it in the eyes of my loved ones, and letting them in always hurts so much. I can't talk to anyone. Nobody understands, and when they do, they just don't have the strenght to deal with it. I don't blame them.

I'm tired to be taken by surprise every time it comes back, even though it always happen the same way. Every time I try to love myself and move to another life stage, Bulimia always finds a way to explode in my face. And every time, I am reminded of who I am and I become more hopeless.

I don't know what to do. I'm drowning.

#eatingdisorder #bulimia #ED #annamia #mentalillness #weight #help

10 notes · View notes