By Jia Jun // Breaking Mirrors – You Are More Than What You See
It feels good talking about my eating disorder; to see how far I’ve come and to, hopefully, help someone out there. Sharing details about ED though, is triggering–I buried all the negativity on my road to recovery, so digging them up can be trying.
That is why I talk about recovery more than ED; that recovery is worth it.
It is worth the earth shattering feeling of losing all control because the lowest days in recovery is infinitely better than the happiest days in the disorder.
Essentially, with any mental illness, you’re fighting an invisible battle in your head. Fighting against your own voice, your very self. Or so it seems.
The first thing the SGH eating disorders programme teaches is that you are not your eating disorder. They teach you to differentiate YOUR thoughts and ED’s thoughts. They teach you that ED is a voice in your head amplifying every negative thought and dictating every cruel regime. ED is not a safe place nor a comfort zone.
ED is a false semblance of control; it controls you by manipulating your thoughts while it kills your from the inside.
ED is a parasite you can choose to fight.
The sooner you make the distinction between your voice and ED’s, the easier it is to fight because the battle is not as invisible as it once was.
So I did just that by rebelling. You know that spark in you when you stand up against a bully? It was that exact same spark that drove me to recovery. Doing the exact opposite of everything ED told me to do, including listening to the doctors, trusting my family and loving myself.
Every time I rebelled and won, the voice quietened down to the point where ED became a shadow of a whisper.
That is when the world starts making sense again. When the torturous routines in your head disappears, when you can eat without guilt, when numbers on a scale stay as numbers.
If you survive ED, you can survive anything.
Recovery is a way of living. Chose it and hold on to it.
This story was contributed by Breaking Mirrors – You Are More Than What You See, a health campaign that aims to prevent the development of anorexia and bulimia among young women in Singapore. Do check out Jia Jun’s post here! https://www.facebook.com/breakingmirrorsSG/posts/531905783853772