No such thing as ‘skinny enough’

To be honest my illness started as an accident. Due to my depression, I quit my job and was left sulking in my room for months on end and I felt I had no real purpose at all. I slept for hours during the day and was accidentally restricting, when I began seeing results. In my sad mind I somehow found confidence in my weight loss which led me to go out more, and therefore get more attention. This made me associate what I was doing with a positive outcome when in reality I was killing myself slowly. It wasn’t until I started fainting at gatherings that it became more serious, I was dropping weight way too quickly and hurting my friends and family every time they saw me. The bulimia followed this and I realised I was in a spiral. My biggest mistake was thinking that I needed to be a different size to be loved. I started wondering, when is skinny enough? Is it a number on the scales? There was no such thing, and I new I’d never be satisfied. Soon after fainting I was sent to multiple counselling sessions and doctors appointments that took up all my time. My weeks were filled with hospital visits and I was no longer benefiting from any of the illness I was once “proud” of. After a few times, I found the right counselling for me where I was slowly helped into a safer mindset. Anorexia and bulimia are not quick fixes, they are not problems that will go away on a random day. It is a very slow process and even though I’m on the road to recovery, that does not mean I am cured. It is okay to have bad days, I still think bad thoughts when I eat sometimes and I don’t think I’ll ever be 100%, but if every day I talk kindly to myself and allow myself to have relapses without the guilt, I will continue to recover and hopefully prove to others that this illness is not anyone’s fault, and definitely not something to be ashamed of, no matter what age or gender you are.