People who knew me would say I was possessed. There was a monster inside of me telling me what to think, act, and say. That monster’s name was “Ed." Ed prevented me from hanging out with my friends like a normal twelve year old girl. Instead, I sat inside staring mindlessly at the television. My usual bubbly, outgoing personality had given way to a harsh and dark side. No longer did I dress in bright, cute outfits; I wore black and grey sweatpants and sweatshirts. Ed hated smiles: one never crossed my lips. Ed’s biggest pet peeve was eating: this was not allowed, period. The only time a morsel of food went into my stomach was when I was about to pass out, because if I passed out, our secret was up. We shared secrets like any best friends would. Secrets about my lies and deceit to the ones I loved. Ed was the best liar around. He made me tell everyone I wasn’t hungry, or that I ate a big lunch, or that I finished my dinner when it was really in the garbage can. But the biggest lie of all was that I was fine. Because I wasn’t fine: the old me, buried deep inside, was screaming to get out. However, Ed was just too powerful to let that happen.
We had a love-hate relationship. Sometimes he made me feel small and unwanted, others he built me up to feel like I was actually accomplishing something. However, the happiness was always fleeting. He’d praise me when the scale revealed I had lost a pound, punish me if I hadn’t. I came to learn it was an abusive relationship, but I was too blind to see it. He convinced me I had needed him. This continued on for months. Ed soon became the only friend I had. I was a zombie walking around school, always pitied because everyone knew there was something wrong but everyone too afraid to say anything. Who could blame them? And why would I care what they thought anyways? The only friend I needed was Ed. But the secret had to come out eventually. I was a skeleton version of myself, and it was only a matter of time before my body shut down.
When that day did come, as I laid there on jagged rocks encased in blackness all I could hear was people shout “Is she dead?”
I wished; anything was better then the paralyzing bursts of pain coursing throughout my body. No one knew how long I had been there. As the ambulance pulled up, Ed and I were still fighting. The paramedics could barely find a pulse. We would be better, he promised, yet I knew this was just another one of Ed’s lies.
After hours of doctors and specialists coming in and out asking me tedious questions, and my parents standing nearby putting on the brave faces they knew they should, someone finally said the words I was too afraid to admit to myself: Eating Disorder. Ed, my eating disorder, and I were placed in a psychiatric facility by night fall. I still clung to him because that’s how abusive relationships work, right? Everyone thought they knew what was best for me, but they abandoned me here in this strange place hours and miles away from home. Ed convinced me they were ashamed and disgraced and that is why they threw me in here.
There were days, followed by weeks, of being forced to eat, which to my mind and body were torture. Ed still came around every now and then. After a month of hospitalization we were allowed to go home and receive outpatient care. My mom left me alone for a second with Ed the day I got home, and all it took was five minutes for him to convince me to purge myself of what I had eaten that day. Our bond was strong, but not strong enough for the treatment I was soon to begin.
As I sat in group therapy staring into my future, at 40-year-old women, all with their own abusers, I began to question Ed’s motives. Did he really want me to be like this forever? Stuck in this hell that was my mind to never return to the person I was before? Just as when any relationship begins, I didn’t pick an end date. However, I slowly came to realize mine and Ed’s had to be soon. It was a slow, long, and painful break up. But eventually, I began to pull myself out of the darkness to see a person I could almost recognize. With the weeks, months, and years that have passed Ed will try and come around, comfort me after a bad grade or trying experience. Sometimes I think it would have been easy to crumble, run back to the familiar arms of Ed. But I refused; I could be strong without him. After I left him behind, I began thinking like myself again. No longer was there Ed and I, it was just me and that was enough.
