Why Would Anyone Come Back?

When you recover, when you have not recovered, when you seek out a mental illness you do not have, you may ask yourself: why would anyone sane choose anorexia, or fall back into its death grip once they've escaped?

Anorexia is so safe, it is like a nestled cocoon that we can wrap ourselves in like a blanket or a bubble to protect ourselves from everyone else. We are all in our own little world of calories, weight, numbers, control, and thin. You get to a point where it is almost therapeutic to obsess over all the numbers in your head, being forced to plan out your meal plans a week ahead..and so on. You get to a point where all the silly rituals of strict diet regimens and workouts, snapping rubber bands on your wrist, and looking at thinspo becomes...comforting. Whether your too weak to move or your still trying to get to double digits, there is no denying that this illness is our home. 

Without it, who are we?

I try so hard to keep Ana separated from myself by calling it "her" and "Ana" as if it were a person, but I know it is me, I am it. This illness has consumed me and you cannot love me without accepting it as well, because there is not one without the other... 

Without Anorexia I would be so miserably lost; I have no idea who I am without it; I don't think about anything else, I don't talk about anything else, my entire life has been planned around it, and...literally this illness is not just about food and thinness, it changes everything you are...and that is why when you recover it never really goes away...

It has infused itself into every cell, every fiber, every inch of me...it has infiltrated my life and changed every aspect, every relationship... 

I have no personality; I don't remember who I was before this eating disorder, I don't remember what I used to think about, talk about, or what I did instead of count calories, obsess over food, bones and weight...I don't remember who I was before...I think that girl has died, maybe she died long before I found Ana, I don't know.

I LOVE my eating disorder; I love the isolation, the protection, the safety...I love the tiny little bubble of secrets, excuses and lies it has forced me into that keeps everyone at arms length. I love how calm it makes me because I feel like I am drowning, constantly, because everyone seems to have their shit together and here I am failing at school because I am too busy worrying about food and how to get this fat off of me.

I love the -- sameness. How everyone that suffers knows exactly what one another are going through: the thoughts, the emotions, the binging/purging/starving cycles, the loathing, the self-harm, the reasons, the triggers.... we all know one another, we all understand and we don't judge. 

We know exactly how welcoming and cruel Ana is, we know how ugly and yet so beautiful it is; so why does it complete me? Why does it make me feel so damn safe? Maybe because it makes life so much easier if the only thing you have to think, worry and obsess about is weight, calories, and numbers. 

I don't know.