Help! I'm Sick of living a Half-Life!

For my last blog of the year, I'm writing an appeal to anybody who is stuck 'managing' their eating disorder. I am writing it for the person who wonders whether it is easier to remain in a quasi-state, rather than take on the seemingly excruciating task of fully letting go and pushing for a full recovery. Really, I am writing it for you. The person who saw this title and clicked on this blog with intrigue, because you know there is more to life than merely functioning.

What is a 'Functioning Anorexic'

A 'functioning anorexic' is a widely used term for an individual who sustains themself just enough to live a half-life.

As a quick side note, I hate the verb Anorexic. We don't say "she's Cancic" or "he's broken-legged" as if the individual is only their illness or ailment and nothing more. So why do we say Anorexic?

But, back to the point of this blog. What do I mean by half-life?

Half-Life

A half-life is one that is overshadowed by the constant, internal, mental conflict around food, exercise, and eating. It is one in which the individual usually almost outwardly looks okay — there maybe indicators of malnutrition (thinning hair, yellowed and marked skin, a tendency to feel the cold, more hair on the arms than usual) — but, mentally, they feel far from ok. I'm talking about those who, for the most part, seem to function okay too — but again, feel far from ok internally because every choice is tinctured with fear. Sadly, I know that there are far too many people reading this who have already identified themselves as living this way already. People for whom having an eating disorder turned from a year into far, far longer. For whom ansognosia conquers. And who kid themselves and their loves ones that because they 'look' ok, there is no desperate need to pursue recovery further (and this leads to further issues because when other people stop treating us as if we are unwell, we doubt even more the extent of our illness).

I personally know exactly what living a half-life looks and feels like because I lived one for far too long. I was deeply and desperately unhappy, but maintained just enough weight that my appearance didn't cause my family or friends to comment anymore. The same goes for food. I ate an ok amount, but really, it was a quantity just over the amount that I knew I could get away with, without provoking comment. It was as if I was doing some sort of weird, performative show to 'prove' to everybody I was fine, and in doing so, I half-tricked myself.

In time, the silence around my 'lower-than-should-have-been weight' and 'lower-than-should-have-been-intake' lulled me into a state of thinking that my life within this halfway house was as good as it was going to get. The lack of external nagging made me feel as though I had permission to stop here; in this terrible midpoint between full-blown eating disorder and freedom. To be honest, this place was one in which I felt just as entrapped in the ED as I ever had done, but even more hopeless because the lack of external pressure meant recovery didn't feel as 'urgent'. As even more time slipped by, I even persuaded myself that the fact that I could have occasional pizza and pastry and go for restaurant meals meant I had actually done pretty well for myself. I was eating (and people with eating disorders don't eat? Right? (Wrong.)

But internally, and realistically, I knew that there was so much more life to live, beyond this knife-edge that I was living on.

Are you living a half-life?

Living in a half-life means that everything you do has caveats. Every bite is proceeded or followed by eating disorder chatter. Urges to movement still feel irresistible. Rules and rituals plague the hours of your day and anything out of routine causes mayhem. Perhaps you are never truly present and you don’t connect with people the way that you used to. Maybe will feel that there is a glass pane in-between you and those you love. Maybe you crack easily. Possibly you're nasty when you don’t want to be upon a 'threat' stimulus. Maybe you lie about things to hide your eating disorder and maybe some days the anxiety feels like it is going to break you.

Ultimately, you don't need a tick list to see if you're living a lesser life than you deserve because you know if you are living an unfulfilling life. Deep down, you do know. The pretence and the fooling doesn't trick your own, rational brain.

Somewhere, possibly deep down, you also know your body needs more than you are giving it. A lot more. That sandwich for lunch isn't cutting it. 3 probably wouldn't. And you also know that getting through the days and coasting is not as good as it gets and you know you need to do better. But as well as all of this, I'm aware you're scared. Of weight gain, of how many sandwiches you could potentially eat, and so much more...Here me when I say: everything you want is on the other side of this fear. Do not let fear win. It is not the absolute truth and it does not have to control your actions.

Can you stay here?

I thought I was going to be stuck halfway for the rest of my life. Staying there seemed easier than battling my eating disorder further. I frequently thought to myself, "If I have this much anxiety and body dissatisfaction now, what will it be like then?

But that was where I let go and simply trusted those who knew me. I trusted my own mental and physical hunger, which was urging me to eat every second of every day to restore the deficit I had created through previous undeating. Despite ambivalence and fear, I held out hope that I was at the peak of anxiety at this moment because I hadn't allowed my brain to heal. I trusted that it would not be this way forever. I trusted that it was only because I was still enmeshed in the eating disorders webs of rules and restrictions that my head roared like a dragon when I prodded it with deviation from routine. And I trusted what other people wrote about going beyond this same place of purgatory: it would get better.

If I hadn't taken these steps into the unknown, I could have settled. I could have taken the risk that my heart would hold out on a diet that meant every beat was hard work. I could have hedged my bets against my soul holding out on the depression that malnutrition wants to force on it. I could have hoped that I wouldn’t suddenly crack one day and want to end it all.

And that last one, is not something I write lightly and is not me being dramatic. It is the absolute truth of how my thinking pattern was when I was sick. And it is not a rare rumination either. In fact, the most common cause of death from Anorexia is actually suicide. The thoughts just become too much. The mental tugging to eat battling the almighty fear is excruciating and this constant battle made me feel as though a half-life was not a life worth living for me. The loneliness, the confusion, the mental anguish of never making the right decision as far as my eating disorder was concerned was too much for me to sustain. I came to a point where I had to make a choice.

I chose full recovery. A half-life wasn't worth living, so I had to rip the ED out of me to achieve that whole life I yearned for deep down.

Continuing all the way with recovery means that now, I do live a vibrant and rich life. Not only can I eat whatever the hell I want, whenever, but I can do everything I want to do. Recovery leads to so much more than the freedom around food. I can be wholly relaxed and present with loved ones. I am free from negative internal dialogue in my head. I can connect. I can laugh. I can stay in the house all day if I want. And there are thousands upon thousands of other things that I can do that I just take for granted.

You Can

If you are reading my blog, and have made it this far into the post, you know you have an eating disorder and you want to recover. Even if you haven’t said that out loud to anyone yet, or sometimes you don't feel it, it is still there. Somebody who has absolutely zero interest in healing doesn't seek out healing advice. Somebody who doesn't have hope of getting better does not follow recovery Instagrams. Somebody who doesn't think life is worth living doesn't read what I wrote about freedom in the last paragraph and wish for similar freedom themself.

I know you don't want to stay where you are. Who the hell would? And that's why you're in luck. You are in the driving seat, at the helm, behind the wheel, or however else you want to phrase it. You get to choose living over existing. You get to decide that enough physical and mental damage has been caused already - no matter how long you've been struggling - and fully heal.

And you can fully recover. You. Yes you. The person reading this very sentence. And actually, when you make that choice to go for it - that is the hardest step done. I wrote a blog post on why that is here... (https://www.recover-ed.co.uk/post/surrender-to-recovery)

Let Go

The door is open and you must force your self to walk through it despite all the tremendous fear. It is not that you don't know how to do it. It is that there is ED generated resistance which is not the absolute truth. You will get where you want to be much sooner if you talk to a loved one about how to move forward. If they don’t “get” eating disorders, sift through all of the resources you possibly can until you find one which resonates. If you don’t have anyone close to talk to (and that is not surprising or anything to be ashamed of because eating disorder make us push people away), find an eating disorder specialist. If you don't have the money for that, or you have trouble finding beneficial professional help, then start with reading and watching whatever you resonate with online (although there are some Bad resources, there sure are some incredible ones); Whatever the hell you do, don't just allow it to continue in the same old cycle. Change something and then change will happen. This is only good.

Lastly...

This has been a historically tough year, globally. And from the looks of things in England, the start of 2021 is going to be much the same. But you know what would make it slightly less tough? Fully recovering. Full recovery betters everything. And so, my message is: ACT NOW.

Happy New Year!