You can do this. When I say that I don't mean you can get better - although you certainly can. No, what I mean is that you can in fact get worse. It is possible to be sicker. To deprive yourself more. The competition you have with yourself to achieve more and survive on less than anyone else or your previous self is perpetual.
But WHY?
What are you gaining? It is an insatiable illness! No matter how much you do to satisfy and appease the tireless voice in your head, you will ALWAYS be able to do more, to give in to your disorder one more time. But I can tell you from firsthand experience that this ever-raging war within yourself that tells you to exercise more, eat less, binge, purge, restrict, deprive, whatever it may be is NOT LIFE. It is physically and emotionally draining you. An eating disorder will you exhaust you like nothing else can. Why? Because there is no task more tiresome than one that gains nothing and takes everything.
The eating disorder is a lie you are living; it is not the life you were created to live nor does it define you.
What finally woke me up from my nightmare was my grandmother telling me that I had lost the light in my eyes. She was right, of course, but it still broke my heart to hear it and to know that my eating disorder was essentially ravishing my life from me.
I have been through the treatment and the therapists and the thought processes and I KNOW that recognizing the damage of an eating disorder physically and mentally does not make it easier to overcome. But I also know that there are only two possible endings to continuing down the path the illness leads you: spiritual death or physical death. Spiritual death is losing the light in your eyes. It damages your relationships, stunts your emotional growth, takes away your will, and depletes your energy.
But you have the power to overcome. I know you do because it is true that the fact that your, and my, struggle with an eating disorder is the result of an innate inner drive, a perfectionist personality, and obsessive desire to be the best you that you can be.
You have a beautiful light inside of you. No matter who you are or what you have done. And you have a Maker who loves you and has so, so much more for your life.
So yes, you can do it. You can satisfy your eating disorder moment by moment and let your joy drain from within. Or you can choose life. Remember the you before the eating disorder - find that girl inside of you who is healthy and loves herself. She is your light.
