The hardest bit of it all,
isn’t crying yourself to sleep at 1AM,
or staring in disgust at the
Thing that is You in the mirror.
It isn’t even,
waking up each day
and having to find something to eat,
forcing yourself to walk
to the nurses office for your supervised lunch.
To come home and feel the sharp pang of hunger,
but not quite knowing how to remedy it.
Because eating disorder recovery,
in the end is not about food.
Throwing back a hamburger will not cure anorexia,
because every day, thoughts still clog your mind.
And that is the core of it all.
Absentmindedly deciding that once recovery is over,
you’ll go back to restriction.
Only to be jolted back with a reminder that
Recovery is Life.
There is no game, no tradeoff, no backsies.
You must watch the number on the scale rise,
see your stomach expanding
as empty space turns to flesh,
with no “I’ll Lose it Soon,”
because doctors and parents and teachers have hawk-eyed vision,
and losing weight is the hospital fast track.
You cannot go back to what once was,
and the pure, bittersweet reality of this is maddening.
The idea of facing life without your life jacket
is unadulterated hell.
But you get on.
With every bite, every pound, every tear -
you hold on to the spark, the glory in the distance,
that it will be okay.