Dear Deb...

Dear Ana.....

TRIGGER WARNING

Dear Ana (anorexia),

You have been in my life since I was in 4th grade, but I didn't formally meet you for many years to follow. Way back when I was a little person and should not have a care in the world, you told me to go on a diet. This was a special diet and I was not to tell anyone about it. I would only eat breakfast today. Tomorrow I only eat lunch. The following day I will only eat dinner. Then I am to not eat for a whole day before the cycle were to repeat.

You stole what should've been the most carefree and fun years of my life. Instead of being childlike and carefree, I was busy fasting for over 24 hours everyday. With the help of body dismorphia, I never realized that I did not actually need to lose weight. Of course your diet for me way back then was short lived. You laid dormit for a few years before my body dismorphia woke you back up.

You came back when I was far from home. I looked into the mirror. I was closer to being underweight than overweight, but I was still very much healthy. You stood being me and told me how pregnant I looked. You paired with Clyde (compulsive lying disorder) and you helped me hide the diet you suggested for me. You ruined the vacation I was on while I was too busy worrying about calories. Never again would I be allowed to look at my body and see anything positive about it. I would begin to nitpick every little thing on my body that no normal human would ever think there was a problem with and you told me to disfigure my body and destroy it.

You grew in power at the end of 8th grade when I got a label for you. I learned about who you were from a friend that you had corrupted. That friend unknowingly fueled your fire by confiding in me that he had an eating disorder and was suffering from anorexia. He was underweight and it didn't look good. When I began to learn more about who you were, I found websites that taught me how to starve myself better and how to hide it better.

After I found those dangerous websites, you helped me find an app that thrived with group chats where you were the common factor. You would have me teach others how to starve themselves to death. We would collectively praise each other for unhealthy weight loss and help others hide you better. You would have me look at photos of sickly thin bodies. People who should never have been that thin to begin with. It was disgusting to me when I first encountered those photos. But I quickly became accustomed to the emaciated body.

You cheered me when I would exercise for hours a day. It didn't matter if I had already exercised for six hours that day in my extracurricular activities, I was to do more workouts. You praised me for going three days without a bite of food just to look even more emaciated when there was a guest in the extracurricular activity. I was so much weaker and light headed than I would've been, but you didn't care how low my energy was. You didn't care if sitting up made me feel like I was going to pass out. You didn't care if I was out of breath by walking up seven steps. You didn't care if I would walk up and down a flight of stairs for three hours in a row and I would be so tired after a few minutes.

You plagued every thought in my mind and it started to show in conversations. Looking back through old conversations on my phone, the things you had me say were so twisted and sick. Things like "I ate too much yesterday. Need to burn off 2x before I should be aloud to eat again." How many calories did I eat? "Just to be safe. I'll say 3000. I highly doubt it was that much, but just in case." My boyfriend told me all I had eaten that day I claimed 3000 calories was closer to 1060 calories. The truth is that the average day, I was lucky to get into the triple digits on calories.

You became such a poisonous influence in my mind that you even had me afraid to drink water. Something that will never feed my hunger anyways. I would exercise for six hours in a row and not even have a sip of water. I was very lucky that you didn't put me in the hospital with my limited water intake. You poisoned my body further. Looking back at old pictures that at the time I was proud of, my hair was thin. My neck was yellowing. I wore a lot of makeup to hide my pale, colorless face. I never felt pretty or good enough. You and body dismorphia had me wearing hoodies every day (even in the summer and I was too hot for a hoodie) so nobody would see my stomach.

Although I had been battling you for most of my life, someone stepped into my life. The boyfriend I had mentioned earlier. He knew who you were. He never knew you like I did, but he knew about you and he hated you. He shifted my thinking and my perception. Because of the strength he gave me, I relearned how to look in the mirror. He would add food to my plate and would not let me throw out the food or hide it. Without him, I imagine being hospitalized was close in my future along with therapy.

With his help, I was able to overcome you within a year and a half. The hardest year and a half of my life thus far. You took away every shred of happiness I could've had growing up, but I'm glad you did not take away my boyfriend, my now husband. Years after I stopped struggling to fight you so much, I looked back at the pictures that I used to glorify. Back into the disorder I used to glorify. Those pictures are no longer beautiful. Those pictures look like holocaust victims, but glamorized. It is sickening to know how sick I was. How deep you led me. How close to death I was.

Although sometimes you still come back to remind me that you own my life, I fight back. I am more than just an eating disorder. You don't own my life or my soul. The God of the universe does. I am strong now. You will never reenter my life for more than a few days and I will not hesitate to sound the alarm to friends that you came back. The frequency that you come back becomes less and less frequent. One day I hope you never come back again.

To anyone reading this who is slave to Ana, I promise that it will get better. It may take years to climb out of the whole that Ana has led you to, but it is possible and it is never too late. Don't wait until you're hospitalized. Don't wait until water is viewed as no longer safe to consume. Don't wait until you reach your ultimate goal weight or until you think you are sick enough. You will never be thin enough or sick enough. No matter how many times you are hospitalized, you will never get better until you admit you are sick enough to get better. Ana doesn't love you. Ana doesn't care about you. Ana cares about killing you.

You are more than just your eating disorder. You are special and uniquely beautiful. You have a purpose in this world. I hope I can save at least one person from an eating disorder. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, don't wish this upon yourself.

- Happily and Healthily Recovered

Victim of Ana