I'M ANOREXIC

Recognising the illness is the first step. You have to be able how to say 'I have anorexia' just as someone who is depressed can say 'I have depression' and others can say 'I have anxiety'. 'I have anorexia' is not going to make it worse from one day to the next, it will not make you instantly lose weight or gain the kilos that you are so afraid of gaining, 'I have anorexia' is not going to make them love you less or look at you badly 'I have anorexia' is not going to make you sick, you already were before you said it and 'I have anorexia' is just the first step to stop being one. A year ago, I came home from camp much skinnier and eating less than when I left. My mother noticed all this and told me that I had to go to the doctor, that I was sick. Refusing to acknowledge that the problem was mine, that what I was doing was neither healthy nor normal, I had to go see my paediatrician, who, after weighing me and talking to me, wrote a report in which she said 'She suffers from an eating disorder', anorexia. In my opinion, the paediatrician was a woman who had never known what it was like to look bad, and I saw the intention to lose weight as something normal and not as an illness. I cried for hours, angry with my mother, the doctor and the situation until, days later, I began to treat myself and see doctors without even having recognized the 'I have anorexia' that I had been told weeks before. Not having recognised the disease yet, I ignored the doctors because 'there was nothing to cure, nothing to recover from', I 'just wanted to be skinnier'. When eating became compulsory, I stopped doing sports, and finally I recovered something, I had the least bit of logic to reconsider how little I had been eating, and I realised that yes, I was sick. When having to eat meant crying and suffering daily panic attacks, I realised that yes, I was sick and I needed to recover. When I recognized my illness I began to realise how bad what I was going through was, how hard it was and that simply being healthy was more difficult than ever. When I recognised my illness and realised how hard it was, I started to want to recover.