Track 5
Five years ago, to the day, I was pushing together two of the most uncomfortable white vinyl Ikea chairs to make what could easily resemble an adult crib, in an attempt to get cozy…
I forgot to mention during those same moments I was crying to the point of being nauseous while screaming on the phone at my parents demanding they come pick me up.
Happy Five Years of Treatment, Ashlyn!
Five years. 1,825 days since my anorexia lost her game of hide and seek.
A lot happens in five years; Prince Harry and Meghan Markle quit the royal family, we had a whole ass pandemic, I’ve taken 100 and some odd hours of college classes, Taylor Swift has released four brand new albums and re-recorded two, I’ve dated three guys, kissed way more than three guys, cried about a million times, got matching tattoos with my mom, been to endless hockey games with my dad, spent hours having panic attacks, scheduled at least 200 doctors appointments… I could go on. But the one thing that remains constant is that I’m still anorexic.
It was funny for me to randomly realize, as I was painting motivational canvases, that it has been five years since my need for motivational canvas painting began. “Funny” in the sense that I had no idea that a day, which felt like it came straight out of a nightmare, would turn into five years of treatment hopping. “Funny” in that just yesterday, one of my providers decided I need more support because yet again, I’ve stopped eating. Definitely “funny” because when they asked me in high school where I saw myself in five years it sure as hell wasn’t here.
My lighthearted attitude comes from the fact that all of it really makes me want to cry. Anniversaries of my admissions make me long to be back in the safe place that is treatment, but they also fill me with rage about the normal life each admission took from me. Five years ago today was supposed to be the first day of my senior year (spring semester) in high school. Instead, it was the first day of falling academically behind. That year, I missed my senior prom, missed our senior award ceremony, my senior season of lacrosse, I missed having a relationship with any of my friends because I was locked in a hospital with a random cellphone that could really only call my parents.
Five years ago, it felt like my life shattered into a million pieces.
When I get down to the real, raw emotions of it all, my heart breaks for the high schooler who had to give up so much. Hell, it breaks for the nineteen year old college girl that had to give up so much. I have this horrible ability to feel like everything I have right now I deserve. I deserve to struggle with friendships and to indulge in men with questionable character. I deserve to anxiety attacks daily and to suffer from past trauma. But, in a uniquely compassionate but confusing way, I want to shelter the younger me who didn’t “deserve” those things. I want to take all the pain from her and carry it now.
I want to tell her to stop pacing, stop watching the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show like it’s a damn sermon, and go eat. Go eat the food you enjoy. Invest in yourself and not in the older boy you’re trying to impress. Stop trying to force your body to do unnatural things. You’re not above biology; your body can give out. I want to scream at this truly beautiful young woman that she is worth it. The mistakes made by her family when she was eight aren’t a reflection of her worth. The decision he made for her was not his to make. The girl who told you to “go eat carrots” in third grade was an asshole. The comments made about your body were disgusting but weren’t a reflection of you, they were a reflection of the person making them.
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I hate my ability to be introspective. As I’m writing this I realized my point of view changed. The easier things to talk about came out in second person, like my current self is talking to my younger self. But the things I still cling so tightly to, the things that haunt me even now, were spoken in third person as if I have no say in them, like they are still happening to me…completely out of my control.
So much of my life the past five years has been about control and I feel farther from it now than I did then.
The truth is, anorexia will always be a part of my life, it’s not a disorder that seemingly ever goes away. It will always be the most defining factor of who I am. But, that doesn’t mean it always has to be what makes me special and it certainly doesn’t always have to be the way I find control in the midst of my chaos.
