I wish I had known what it was like to have an eating disorder before I had one.  I wish someone had talked to me frankly about the disastrous effects it would have on a person mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually.  I wish I had known how it could destroy your life and leave you with nothing.  I wish someone had told me how it wasn't really about the food.  But I don't think you can really know unless you have been through it.  I don't know had I been warned if I would have gone down a different path.

I want my story to be known.  I want my daughters to know of their mother's struggle. I want my nieces to know as well.  I want the young girls, women, and even boys/men in my life to know.  I want to be an open book.  I don't want to hide behind the fake smiles and "together" life.  I want to share and openly struggle so I don't have to be alone.  Maybe even so someone else wouldn't have to be alone.

I wish people knew what it was like.  I know many understand because it is an addiction like anything else: drugs, porn, sex, alcohol, shopping.  One more time to get high.  But unlike drugs, porn, sex, alcohol ect.. food is always there.  It is always there, it will never go away.  You cannot quit it cold turkey.  When my day is overwhelming, I want to be numb and not feel, I'm bored, happy, sad (you name it), I go to food.  Or I go to exercise.  I have been both extremes of starvation to binging large amounts and immediately purging and doing it all over again.  I always knew what I was doing, but I didn't know why I was doing it.  I'm still working that out, but I'm getting there slowly.

My eating disorder is with me all the time, like a unwelcome houseguest who never leaves.  It mocks me.  It tells me either I'm strong for not eating something or terribly weak for giving in.  It tells me it will be my best friend, there when no one else is there.  It urges me to eat as much as I can until I can't stand it and hate myself and then remedy it by ramming my finger down my throat in a mix of frustration and euphoria.  5 min after, I'm ready to do it again.  Not a day goes by that I do not think about food.  What I will eat, how much, when, why, how much I could exercise to get it out, or to what degree I would use laxatives.  Every day I struggle.  I wish more people understood. 

What I do know is that I am loved.  I am known.   I am not alone.  I am not forgotten, though I may forget.  I am understood.  I do not always believe it, but I know this is a part of God's bigger plan for my life.  I'll forget it tomorrow as I always do.  This is why I don't want to hide, to be reminded of God's love for me in my struggle.  And the love from people around me.

Maybe this comes from being at the beach in bathing suits all week?  I don't know, but its been on my mind a lot lately to tell my struggle.  I am not very good at it, especially face to face, but I am working on it.  Its taken me 8 1/2 years.  Almost 1/3 or thereabouts of my life has been consumed with this.  I do not want it any more.