There wasn’t much I could do when the iron bars of this disorder came crashing down with an echoing thud of finality. My body was wrecked and I was blind; I couldn’t see this for what it was, I didn’t have the mental capacity to see how large and consuming this thing was.
My heart, my head, my skin, my muscles, my hair, my metabolism, my blood, my electrolytes, my bones, my sleep, my thoughts, my relationships, my self perception, my yoga, my anxiety, my happiness — all of it seized and claimed by the multi-tentacled monster of anorexia.
It’s a sneaky and dishonest thing. I’d lost the capacity to accurately self-assess and didn’t have the ability, much less the will, to recover on my own. Food helped, as much as my body and soul cringe to say it. The “brain fog” referred to in treatment is a real thing, and after two weeks in the partial inpatient program on a consistent 6 meals a day and wheelchair/couch restriction, things cleared and I started to see myself from the point of an observer, rather than as a rodent caught on a wheel, seeing only the rungs moving beneath my frantically scrabbling feet.
What I saw was terrifying and disorienting; the weight of reality put too much tension on threads of logic already too frayed to carry much substance. My world turned upside down, my ideas turned loose and broken, all in disarray; I scrambled and clutched to hold on, to save the familiar. What a rude experience.
I stayed in the partial inpatient program for another three weeks, transitioning to an intensive outpatient program for two weeks following my discharge from partial. I’m back in my life, sort of, and trying to decide if I want to recover. Trying to want to recover.
I’ve lost the original incentive to feel better physically because I’m more nourished and I’m not passing out and muscle cramping and having panic attacks. Now I wonder how to incentivize myself towards recovery when my body feels fine and my brain is screaming LESS. LESS. LESS.
One meal at a time.
