“For those of you who understand, no explanation is needed. For those of you who don’t, no explanation will ever be enough.”
I don’t know how to describe my world to you. So I thought maybe I’d try and show you. Obviously, you’re not going to approach my websites like I do, and you’re not going to see visiting them like visiting a place of safety. Obviously, you’re not going to think the pictures on there are pictures of beauty, perfection… hope. Obviously, you’re not as messed up as me.
But perhaps, you’ll at least know what I’m talking about. If you know what the sites tell me… you’ll know what to tell me to counteract it. Or at least you can start to think about it. I’ve got more addicted to ana sites than I have done in a while, and I know it’s bad. But I’m surrounded by all this recovery stuff and I need to know Ana’s still there. That the other world still exists. Like, if it doesn’t work out… I can go back there.
I’ve also been trying to find articles and stuff online to help you out, videos… suggestions, leaflets. I don’t know, I honestly don’t know how to show you. I think tomorrow, I’ll do that for you though, I’ll tell you all the thoughts which come into my head, like Emma suggested. To show you what it’s like living with Ana. All you have to do is listen.
Y’know, I’d really appreciate it if you would tell me how you feel. If you’d tell me what this is like for you. Open communications means both ways, right? So I need something back. I don’t care if you think it’ll hurt or offend me. I’m not as volatile as I used to be. I won’t go mental at you and I won’t hate you…. and I won’t push you away.
Right. So. What do I do during my days, in my world?
First things first. I wake up. And Ana wakes up too. About 2 seconds after me. There’s a moment, just a moment… when I smile and I feel happy. And then I realise I can feel all my bones… and Ana shouts at me and the abuse from her begins… “If you think for one moment they’re there enough… for one moment you’re thin enough… I will NEVER forgive you. I’m trying to help you. Why do you have to defy me? Today, we’re having a good day. I don’t understand why you fail me ALL the time. It’s not as if it’s THAT hard. All you have to do is STOP EATING.” &etc.
I get up earlier than everyone else, so I can go and make myself black coffee without anyone noticing… and have my breakfast/make it look like I’ve had breakfast. And then I come upstairs and brush my teeth straight away so I can’t eat anything else. I’ll spend a while wondering what to wear, and wondering how many layers I’ll have to put on to stop people seeing or feeling my ribs and spine too much. At the same time, Ana’s still ranting at me in my head. Especially when I look in the mirror. It’s like my heart sinks. “HOW did you let yourself get like this? Even with my help, you’re still fat…”
Anyway, I’m already by this point thinking about what I’m going to do for food during the day. On the way to school, I’m singing along to my pro-ana songs CD, all of the tracks encourage thinness and not eating as a means of acheiving it. I feel a bit bad about it, because I know it’s counter productive to recovery. I park the car at Waitrose just so I have to walk to school. Exercise. Burns calories. I told you it was because I didn’t want to park near all the buses anymore.
Everything at school zones in and out. Sometimes, it’s like someone’s turned the volume up on you… I feel like you’re all shouting, all being really noisy… invading my mind kind of thing… sometimes, it’s like you’re all on mute… I can see you’re speaking to me, but I just can’t understand what you’re saying. Ana’s still going on at me “Oh Georgie, look at all the food…. look at all the people eating all the food. It’s a good job you’re not eating all the food… because you would eat ALL the food… at least you’ve got this minute right. Bet it won’t last though, you’re too much a failure to do a whole hour… a whole day… a whole week..”
Lunchtime. Now, I have to make the illusion of eating. Or intending to eat. I’d rather go to town by myself. Some days, I just disappear, but I have to get away from everyone… which is hard when I’ve had lessons with friends just before. On Tuesdays, that’s biology. So I have to escape Elli. But she goes home, so it’s not too hard. I know if I walk to town by myself, I’ll just walk around. I’ll look at all the food, but there’s little danger I’ll buy it. Especially with my new “don’t carry money” policy.
But if I go with you, or someone else…. I’ll have to buy food. And you don’t let me just buy apples. So at the start of lunch, Ana goes into begging and blackmail modes, all at once. “Don’t let them see you… get out of here, please… let’s run… run, do that…. run away where they won’t find you.” I’ve explored lots of Buckingham. I usually walk away from the town centre, around the old town… it’s pretty and quiet. And remember, walking burns calories.
The afternoon lessons are the hardest. Luckily, I don’t have too many of them because I have lots of afternoon frees. But in the afternoon my concentration really is wavering. The feelings are irrelevent of whether or not I’ve eaten at 2 o’clock. If I have… Ana’s going “For god’s sake… why did you do that? You ruin EVERYTHING. You’ve let me down again… I hope you stay fat forever…. I don’t have to hope.. you WILL.” If I haven’t, I feel so horrid on a sugar low and an energy low that I’m too zombie-like to be happy anyway.
I feel safe in my car. The walk back to it is normally tiring. I know it’s not far, but I have pretty weak muscles now and I get tired very very easily. It’s not much fun having such a frail body, but I usually don’t care. I hardly notice anymore. I’m used to it. And Ana still tells me it’s too big ALL the time.
I drive the long way round home, so I’ll get home just after mum’s left to pick Zoe up from school. This is the only moment I have the house to myself… the only opportunity I get to weigh myself. It’s never low enough. Never good enough. Always need to do better.
When mum and Zoe get back at about quarter past four, I take the dog out. I get back around five. This means I don’t have to be involved in in front of the telly snacking – tea and cake and the like. Ana’s quieter when I’m in the middle of nowhere, just me and Whizz. No food, no one to hide my rumbling tummy from, no one to hide my bones from… no one to prove anything to. Just me. And I like that. That’s why I spend so much time alone. Even though you don’t see that….
Then I get home, and it’s almost dinnertime. I find something to do… usually come up here and fill in my food for the day on my food diary Then I’ll check all my emails and stuff, my two facebooks… generally posting more on my ana one than my real one. I rarely check my pro-recovery forums now… Rarely. Too moany.
Then I’ll eat dinner. It doesn’t take as long as meals at school or with friends. I don’t know why. I feel safer at home. And I’m still pretending I’m better to my parents. But I do have certain rules. I only drink water, I have to use a small knife and fork, and things have to be arranged on the plate in a very specific way. After tea, I almost always come back up to my room, and curl up in a ball on the floor. Because I feel ill. I feel sad. I feel scared. And Ana is going mental at me.
I’ll then spend hours and hours on my pro-ana sites.
Blue Dragonfly
Pretty Thin
Sticks and Stones
Among others. And facebook of course. I probably look through 400 – 700 pictures of thin girls every day.. it’s one of my favourite past times.I used to aspire to be like normal weight girls. As thin as them. But now I aspire to be like the very thin ones. I can see that deterioration. And it frightens me sometimes… that even supermodels aren’t thin enough.
I get very tired. But I stay awake because I can’t sleep. I sometimes exercise lots. I always look around online for diet ideas and programmes on people who lost weight, and films on eating disorders and stuff… websites about food, websites full of thinspo…. anything. Everything.
And sometimes someone comes online and notices I’m not myself and tries to snap me out of it. Sometimes I don’t want them to. Sometimes I try to sleep early, just to shut Ana up.
I know all of this is long and dull and probably sad and horrid to read. But it’s how my life is. Day in, day out. And it’s not the half of what I think… it’s a general gist of how it works. Everything is about eating, not eating and exercising. Everything’s aboout balancing calories. Everything.
Well, I hope it’s helped you to see… anyway.
