Where to begin when retelling ones life? For the most part my life has been far from noteworthy. I grew up with two loving parents, older brother and sister and my ratbag corgi Jessie. I went to church with the family on Sunday, was top of my class at school, and had playdates, (often getting up to mischief!) with my friends. My dad had a stable job in finance and mum stayed at home to look after us kids. Sounds pituresque, right? It would be, but for all that went on behind closed doors. Unbeknown to my parents, I was being sexual abused; for days that rolled into weeks and then 5 long years. Contrary to the softness of my childlike skin, the outer shell of my inner self grew thick and hard. This shell became my sanctuary and safe place.
All this changed one day, in my first year of high-school, when I began to peek through this shell, this hell I'd grown so comfortable in. After confiding in my best friend, things began to fall apart. She was horrified, confirming my secret fear... What had happened to me was wrong. I spoke to my highschool counsellor and she informed the police and then my parents. Of course to the police and my parents I lied that I had lied. I've never been abused, I made it up! (etc etc) and after a rocky time, things went back to "normal".
It is a principle in life that, once unpacked, contents will never fit back into their original box. I, unfortunately, am no exception to this principle. I was spinning out of control and grasped on to one thing that I could control, of course, food. At first I skipped breakfast, then lunch became an apple. I would steel against indulging in my post-school snack and eat enough at meal times to satisfy my parents. All meals I was forced into consuming were regularly followed up with self harming, exercise or purging. Always having been slightly on the chubby side my weight loss was at first encouraged. Soon however, when my hair turned to dry malting straw, I had fainting spells, my period stopped and my stores of hidden food and blood soaked towels were discovered, my parents realised they had a serious problem on their hands. Unfortunately for both myself and my parents, I was manipulative and sneaky, somehow escaping every confrontation.
Not much can be said for the rest of highschool life. It was spent on the fence, chronically sitting between forced treatment and anything resembling recovery. I was biding my time until independence... when my ED could truly unleash. Fleeting hope of recovery existed for the year after highschool when I lived a fairytale romance, yet with it's bitter end I plunged back into anorexia, with all the independence I had been longing for. Initially things were rocky as I binged/purged my way 5kg's fatter, only to snap into "restrict mode' our of desperation and lose 25kg's, landing myself in a serious condition in hospital. They fattened me up and released me into outpatient care, bringing me to the present day.
Where to from here? That is the million dollar question. My comfort zone, my rock, is 8 kilograms lighter than my 48kg (mostly) weight restored self. The hard place is the career, friends, family and happiness I stand to lose. Only time, as it unfolds in the writings of this blog, will tell....
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