SURVIVING ANOREXIA—-MY BEST FRIEND STOLE MY EATING DISORDER.
I have had a lot of friends stab me in the back, talk behind my back, and say they had my back but proved they never did. I have had a lot of friends come and go, and I certainly miss some of them..others not so much. However, up until recently I have never […]
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I have had a lot of friends stab me in the back, talk behind my back, and say they had my back but proved they never did.
I have had a lot of friends come and go, and I certainly miss some of them..others not so much.However, up until recently I have never really been put in a situation where my identity, my sense of who I was for 17 years, my eating disorder was somewhat stolen by one of my best friends.
When I say stolen, I am saying that my friend was a perfectly, healthy happy person, and they one day just all of a sudden became the old me.
When I say old me, I am not talking about when I was walking around with a feeding tube down my nose, and looking like a concentration camp victim.
I am talking about the old me whose only desire in life was to be super super skinny.
She literally went from looking one way to completely shedding like 20 pounds.
I know this because I happen to live with her, so everyday I had to watch her shrink.
Now most people got alarmed when this was happening, but there was something in side of me that honestly started to get mad and jealous.
This may come as a shock to some of you, but even though I am at a really good place in my recovery, old demons still linger around.
I have to deal with my fair share of inner conflict just like everybody else.
A little part of me was like, how dare she take my disease.
How dare she be the one who is getting attention for looking so thin.
How dare she come home and not eat anything but some sort of weird whey protein shake.
How dare she wear a size I used to wear.
How dare of this Biatch to steal my old thunder.
I being in a much better place physically started to feel really big next to her. My eating disorder was loving this. Feasting on every little move she made. It was like “OMG Mel you are so weak next to her. She is more control. She is happier than you because of what the tag says on the inside of her jeans.”
This friend and I had a falling-out awhile back, and we don’t speak. Even though we pee 10 feet away from each other we have ceased all communication.
I at first was kind of confused at why we don’t talk, but now I know she was truly never my friend to begin with.
A true friend wouldn’t put a scale in our kitchen, slew the house with diet magazines, pop diet pills like candy, and tell me one day “she hoped I threw up everything I ate”
Oh ya…she went there, and there to me is a place that almost killed me.
At first I was livid. Thinking perhaps she actually was giving herself a full blown eating disorder to hurt me.
I put a big can of tuna fish on her scale with a sign that read “scales are for fish”. Probably not the most mature thing for a 38 year old woman to do, but I didn’t feel like she stabbed me in the back, I fel that she had pretty much taken a chainsaw and cut me in half.
One day I just had this huge awakening. It wasn’t about me, and although I was a great pawn in her little game of nervosa, she was doing this to herself because she was unhappy.
I looked at her and started to actually feel sorry for her that she was heading down the path to hell.
I completely let go of my anger, and threw it away.
I started to focus on myself, and completely not let her rent space in my head.
I sat my Eating Disorder down and was like. “Look, I am probably at one of the happiest places I have ever been in my life. I have a great job, great other friends, great opportunities, and I love who I am on the inside. I am finally free from the starvation, the binging the purging, and the misery. Don’t you dare fuck with that.”
I started to gain back my sense of self, and realized that this was not a competition, but if it was, I feel like I am the one who is wearing the crown.
I cannot control how other people act, or how they treat me, but I can control how I act, and how I treat myself.
Other people, perhaps your close friends might develop and eating disorder, and at first you might feel envious that they are in that spotlight that you used to be.
This is where you have to stay really strong, and realize nothing is worth sacrificing your recovery.
I honestly am thrilled now this all happened to me, because it proved to me how strong I was. It proved to me that I am still in control of my life, and that I am living for myself, and not anybody else.
I really hope my ex-friend finds help, gets help, and works through her own issues.
All I know is if she wanted to take my eating disorder she can have it. She didn’t steal it from me, because I had given it away a long time ago.
SINGLE WHITE FEMALE
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