Control

A couple months ago my friend asked me to write a short piece on anorexia and eating disorders and how it affects boys, because it’s often overlooked and not many people talk about it. I thought to myself, piece of cake, I’ve written about this stuff in my journal lots of times, I’ve talked about it in group, how hard can it be? Well, I was wrong. The thing about anorexia is that it will slowly take over your life and then you wake up one day and you’ve become the illness or it’s become you, I’m not sure which. It’s almost like you surrender yourself to it. I guess it’s a relief in a way, to just let go, because most people suffering from an ED are control freaks and have to be in charge of everything all the time. I had some pretty big and scary changes happen in my life and I was desperately trying to control every little thing that was happening. I can stop my body from changing, I can stop it, I can, I can! I'll be light as a feather, calm and empty. I'll be me before it happened. I remember feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and extremely helpless. I'm caught between wanting to be in control, and giving it away to the grownups around me. What happens if I do? What happens if I don't? It's like that moment when I'm on my board, and I don't know if I'm gonna land safely or fall. Obvisiously when you’re a kid you have very little control over what happens to you or around you, but one of the few things I had control over was my food intake. I don’t think I meant for it to happen, when I was 11-12 years old I didn’t even know what anorexia was or how dangerous it can be, it just sort of happened and I got stuck. I wanted to hurt myself and my body and I was never hungry anyway. It’s like eating when you feel sick or nervous, the food grows bigger and bigger in your mouth and it’s impossible to swallow. Every time I ate in the cafeteria I’d feel every kid watching me and my hands would start to shake really bad. Sometimes I'd drop my knife or fork and it’d make me jump in my seat. It’d get so bad I’d run to the bathroom to throw up or skip meals. It wasn’t a conscious decision to stop eating, once I started I just couldn’t stop, but I think I’ll stop writing now because this isn’t short at all.