Ed vs. Brie

I have a confession: about a month or so ago, I stopped placing my tube nightly almost completely. I just refused. I’d do it maybe once or twice a week, but I was so tired of it. So tired of the headaches it gave me, of the awful and inconvenient sinus issues and the boxes and boxes of tissues I’d go through, of the rash it gave my face and of how much my throat hurt as I tried to poke it down.

I was so sick of it all.

So I stopped.

And I lost some weight.

One day a couple of weeks ago, my therapist and I were talking about this, she said, “I don’t understand. It’s like you’ve been running a ten mile race (becoming weight restored is what she’s referring to) and once you hit the nine mile mark, you turned around and started running the other way. Why?”

And I honestly didn’t know why.

But yesterday, as I was reflecting on it, as I had skipped an appointment with my dietician, much to my husband and therapist’s dismay, and I realized what it was:

I’ve never before been able to really and truly recover. And oh, how I hate that word!
R E C O V E R.
Recover what? Recover from what? From whom? Do you recover all those wasted years where your small, shallow little life was consumed with nothing more than calories and numbers and whittling your body down to nothing? Do you recover from all the physical and psychological trauma you went through? Do you recover your lost self?

No, dammit.

You recover none of those things, for an eating disorder changes you. You will never be the same person you were as before, for life and its circumstances and experiences shape and mold you into the person you are and who you are to become. And we all know the eating disorder will always be there, as if it is imprinted in your DNA. Sure, you may not act on it, which in and of itself is an amazing feat, and one I aspire for, but it’ll be there. On your mind, even if it’s hidden in a small dusty box in the very back recesses or your mind.

And, well. Well well well what if I can’t do it? What if I can’t recover again? What if this effort is yet again in vain? So many of my friends and family members have already pulled away…emotionally, as if they have to build up a stubborn and terrified armor because they can’t love me and support me as they used to, for the eating disorder that almost killed me years ago and still gnaws its way through me is too much for them. They have to pull back to protect themselves. Some lash out in anger, others ignore it completely. But some, the some that really matter, have never left me: my dear, sweet husband. My mother, whom I love fiercely for never leaving me, always being my cheerleader. Some of my sisters. A few dear friends. But but but what if I can’t recover this time? What if I fail yet again? Who’s going to leave me this time? Who am I going to disappoint?

I’m so scared, so I run away. I run to protect myself, to protect those I love. For if I prolong this effort, I buy myself more time. A little more time to not disappoint. To allow for hope.

Because if anorexia wins again, I fear I’ll be too wearied, too defeated, too small and frightened to armor myself and pick up my weapons and once again enter the fight. The battlefield is already strewn with so many broken lives, and what if it claims mine? What if it claims me for good?

But, through it all, I realize this: one can never win a war that one doesn’t fight. It won’t just dissipate, Ed will never surrender. And it’s only me that can fight him. We were, unfortunately, destined to meet. To fight.

But was I destined to win this war, just as I was destined to fight it? For in war there are always winners, and there are always losers. There are martyrs and death and destruction and evil and sadness.

I'm not sure that Ed can be killed, but to be sure, he can be banished. And I want to emerge triumphant. I want my life to have not been in vain