blogs

To be honest I never saw any reason to blog, and I have to admit I’m not really sure why I’m writing one now, but I guess it helps me, even if no one reads it, even if no one cares, just getting these words out makes me realize how real everything that happened was.

It’s been two years now since I’ve been dealing with anorexia. I was always bullied at school about my appearance (weight, teeth, the list goes on), and at home I had no peace either: my mom would call me fat, she would look at me with disgust, but most of all I could feel the anger in her voice every time she talked about the love my dad treated me with. Everything I did was to make her proud, but when I would land high honors with the best grades in the class she would glare at me, telling me I only did it to obtain reward money from my dad. I didn’t belong anywhere, neither in my own house, nor at school, so I decided to start losing weight five years ago. When I reached 59 kg I was happy, but I figured it was impossible for me to ever go any lower so even though my bmi was perfectly normal for my 1m62 people kept making fun of me, kept calling me ugly, kept pushing me in the halls, hitting me with doors...

And so I ate less and less, I taught my body to become disgusted with food the same way I was so disgusted by life. I wanted to end it, but I was too much of a coward to do anything, so I buried myself in my studies and in food: two things I could control. Then, two years ago, my dad and me went to Egypt together for two weeks and I used the opportunity to eat even less and exercise more than ever before under the burning sun. I lost 5 kg that summer and went down to 50, but it didn’t stop there.

When I got back to school for my senior year after that summer everyone changed - they became nice to me, they opened doors for me, and told me how thin I was - they fed the Ana that had hatched within me, making me stick to strict eating and workout habits. I guess it’s pretty obvious what happened next, I kept going down, by the time my IB exams came I was so weak no one thought I would make it: at 42 kg I was barely holding up on my two feet, but I wasn’t aware of it: Ana showed me how fat I still was and I was determined to keep going, until I was hospitalized for the first time only a few weeks later. I rebelled at first, declining the doctors’ help until I reached 39 kg and almost died, that’s when I realized I couldn’t do this to the few who actually cared about me, so I went back up and was discharged at 44 kg.

I started psychology studies at the local university and went up to 48 kg, but it didn’t take long before everything became too much to handle again, so the old routines came back. In November my mom forced me to stay home because of chest pains I was experiencing, and when she called the doctor, he took only one look at me and asked “are you willing to be hospitalized right away?”. I didn’t have a choice so I went back to the same hospital where this time I was determined to finish it: I was going to let Ana make me melt into death’s embrace. I only reached 43 kg this time before I became even closer to death than the time before: I was constantly fainting when I got up, I had heart problems, my kidney failed, my hair became a lot thinner, I had severe anemia, amongst countless other nutrient deficiencies. When I was laying in bed, hardly conscious, I remembered a promise I had made to someone very dear to me, someone who told me I was the reason they were still alive. It made me force myself to eat - I couldn’t betray him.

I was discharged about a month and a half ago, no weighing between 47 and 48 kg and everyday is a battle against anorexia as well as depression. In fact, just last week I came very close to throwing myself under a train.

If you’ve read until here, thank you, and I’m sorry I’m such a let down, but the main message of this is that so many people are suffering without us realizing it, and I just wanted to say that if you’re one of them, and you need someone to talk to, I am always here to listen. And remember, keep fighting your inner demons, because there are things worth living for