I know exactly what that's like. Okay, not exactly, but pretty darn close. And everything I just read from you is just like how I was only 3 years ago. I was starving myself and purging whatever I ate and I loved it. At least I thought I loved it. I loved the control I had from it. But I started missing small things. Like birthday parties, girls night out, family dinners. Since all of those things revolved in someway around food I did whatever I could to avoid them. I was so lonely because I was always hiding.
I always got compliments on my weight loss. When an already skinny girl starves herself and drops twenty pounds people worry. But when an overweight girl does the same thing and loses twenty pounds they applaud her. I loved that people could see a difference but a very small part of me was pissed off that they didn't figure out how I was doing it. I of course could never admit it because that would mean I'd have to admit I had a problem. I knew that I had a problem because otherwise I wouldn't feel so guilty all the time.
No one really knew about my issue with food. Not even my therapist or doctors. Some close family and friends I think had an idea but nothing substantial and I think part of that was that I didn't look ill. I also had so many other problems in my life that my food issues were completely eclipsed by them. I was a cutter with a number of suicide attempts in my past.
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All I really know is that I'm such a freaking failure who KEEPS messing everything up and I think that maybe it'd just be easier for everyone if I just took a bunch of pain pills and stopped thinking. Sure... there'd be pain and hurt for a few years... but that compared with long-term issues of me constantly being a problem, a thorn in their sides?
I don't know. I don't want to die. But sometimes I feel like it might be the best course of action... even though I know that's a lie... that I'm just giving myself an easy way out.
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I thought that too. I was in and out of hospitals. I flunked my junior year of high school and after two month of repeating it I dropped out. I was an absolute ***** to be around most days. I was a constant time bomb and it got to a point where I think even my mom (though she will probably never admit it) would have found some relief if I died. I didn't want to die but I just wanted everything to stop. I wanted to pull a Snow White. Just lay down and fall asleep until the day would come when life was better and my prince would come wake me up from this nightmare. I was exhausted. I didn't want to fight anymore. I felt bad for the pain I was putting my family through, I wanted them to be proud of me but all I kept doing was failing. I felt like my heart and my mind were constantly being torn in different directions. By March of 2009 I was completely lost. Everything was so chaotic in my mind. I couldn't tell up from down or whether I wanted to live or die.
By the time I drove my car into the guardrail I wouldn't have been able to tell you right from wrong because I let everything get so messed up. That day did I not only come real close to killing myself but I came really close to killing others as well. If anyone had asked me years ago if I thought I would be capable of something like that I probably would have laughed at them and said no. But it did happen. I spent four months in the state psychiatric hospital.
It wasn't until a couple months after I was released that I finally made the decision to change my life. I could have hid behind my diagnosis and blamed all my problems on that. But when it comes down to it, I'm the one who makes choices. And you know what? I'm happy. I still struggle but it's been over two years and I love every moment of my life, including my crazy side. I am proud of my past. Do I cringe when I look back at some of it? Uh yeah, a LOT!! But I'm strong now. I thank God for the pain I went through because it's made who I am today. I would never have thought that just a couple of years ago. If I told myself back then who I'd become today I would have called myself a liar.
Today I am a GED recipient, a college student who made the dean's list last year. That's right, I'm bragging about that because not many on that list could have said they dropped out of high school their junior year. I know what I want to do with my life. I want to become an art therapist and help those just like me. I am someone who still struggles with food but I control it and not it controlling me. (Don't believe the lie that just because you control what goes into your mouth that you have control over food.) I am someone who is worthy of love.
I know that one day you will be in my place, with a story like mine and be able to share it with another who was once just like us. I can tell you hope is there, just hold on tight and one day things will get better but I know that most likely you won't believe me because I've been there too. But as someone who has made it to light at the end of the tunnel, I'm yelling back to you and saying it's okay, hope is real.
Ever wish sometimes that you could just die... so you'd no longer have to live a lie?
Because while I tend to think myself out of something bad, or begin to see patterns, etc... I can also end up spending hours mulling over one or two specific things.
