Aspiration to addiction
How does it start? I don't know. Some people start without even realising, others suddenly decide they will 'not eat' any more. Well, yes, we do eat. But we eat strangely. Read books about diets, find out about calories and counting them. Cut out all fat. There is so much information on diets in magazines, in the news, everywhere. Just sitting there waiting for you. Whilst you have to reach out for love and support, starvation is thrown in your face daily.
Addict to manic
Somehow all you ever think about is food. There's the daily routine, the pills and the exercise. Avoiding meals and the daily lies to everyone around you. They're suspicious, and something inside you doesn't feel quite right. Running around like this, as if were you to stop for just a moment, you might never start again. Running running running all the time. Metaphorically and maybe physically. Sometimes you're dizzy. But you block any doubts with the focus on not eating. Just another 20 pounds or so, maybe then everything will be right. Feeling faint. That alive feeling is now a feeling of slight insanity. Like you've only just got a tiny grip on life now - loosen up a little and you'll be gone. Balancing on a cliff edge, terrified and excited all at once.
Get up, go to the bathroom, stand on the scales, make a note. Wash, get dressed (do teeth - the taste of mint makes it easy to avoid breakfast). Go as long as possible before you let a morsel of food cross your lips. Maybe slug pills, diet soda, high caffeine. Go to the gym or run. Aerobics, perhaps. Maybe time to stand on the scales again. Find anything to keep the mind off food, because that's all you can think of all the time.
Mania and the downward spiral
It's scary. You're maybe taking laxatives. You know they don't actually take any calories out of your system but they're a placebo. Make you feel better whatever. And was it always this black? Confusion, anger and pain. Everything seems too much to control. You're not waving, you're drowning. Your world has gone mad and the only tool you have at your disposal is starvation. So you're afraid of looking at food in case it makes you put on weight. When you order drinks you're paranoid - how many calories does water really have?
You drive your body over the edge because no food is 'safe' any more. You don't ever sleep, you get shaky and can't sit still. You forget things and then find yourself downstairs in the kitchen, the fridge door wide open and you're bathed in the light from inside, shovelling food into your mouth as your survival mechanism forces you to eat before you die.
The smaller you get, the more concentrated the hate becomes until there is nothing else but you, the scale, and your hate. Depression sets in when the mind is starved. You feel weak all the time. The 'nervosa' nervous energy that kept you going before is getting harder to find. You thought that when you lost the weight, you'd feel lighter, but the less you weigh, the heavier your body is. Your arms are like lead weights. Being conscious is a nightmare. If only it would end...
Sometimes it takes years, sometimes just months. The starving mind forgets things, becomes irrational and paranoid. Pushing people away and screaming out for help at the same time. All you think about is food because you are too terrified of what lies inside your head, waiting to get at you. Terrified of inadequacy, of memories perhaps, of failure, of not being good enough. To ask for help seems like failure too. You'd rather be dead than human. There is a magic weight that solves everything, all your problems. You just haven't reached it yet.
