2.to overcome by force; subdue:to conquer an enemy.

3.to gain, win, or obtain by effort, personal appeal, etc.:conquer the hearts of his audience.

4.to gain a victory over; surmount; master; overcome:to conquer disease and poverty; to conquer one's fear.

5.to be victorious; make conquests; gain the victory:Despite their differences, their love will conquer.

And anorexia nervosa is defined as the following by The National Eating Disorder Association:

Anorexia nervosa is a serious, potentially life-threatening eating disorder characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss.

So in the simplest of terms, conquering my eating disorder would mean not starving myself, maintaining a steady weight, not exercising myself to the bone, and living a healthy lifestyle.

But it means so much more than that.

Conquering my eating disorder means finally silencing the demons in my head that scream at me whenever I consume even the tiniest morsel or crumb of food. It means ordering pizza from my dorm room at two o'clock in the morning because I've foolishly stayed up late working on an essay and need something to keep my brain functioning. It means going out to a restaurant and spontaneously ordering something off the menu without having to look it up beforehand to see if it fits into my designated exchanges. It means not living a life relegated to measuring cups and spoons. It means fitting exercise back into my life in the way it's meant to be used: as a source of enjoyment. It means fitting food back into my life the exact same way. It means the freedom to return to school, to work, to living. It means the freedom to travel; to see the world and explore the unknown. It means not living a life consumed by calorie counting and the obsession with attaining a nonexistent yet painfully driving ideal.

Conquering my eating disorder means learning to love myself despite my imperfections. It means taking a photo and not looking at it to see everything wrong with it, but instead seeing everything right with it, like how big I'm smiling and whether my happiness reaches my eyes. It means dressing for how I feel, not how my body consciousness dictates I should clothe myself. It means being okay with feeling like the elephant in the room when all I want to be is the little wisp in the corner. It means embracing recovery for all it is with complete and total blind faith. All the pain, all the effort, all the destruction, all the devastation, all the change, all the fear, all the sadness.

But also all the love. The bliss. The happiness. The success. The creation. The rejuvenation. The fun. The spontaneity. The beauty.

It means standing up to my depression and anxiety and forcing myself to get up and do things even when they terrify the living daylight out of me or everything in me just wants to be lethargic and apathetic. It's countering my perfectionism with the knowledge that it is okay to be broken, to be vulnerable, and to be afraid. It is okay to not be okay. It is the permission to accept that I am inevitably flawed, but that my flaws do not define who I am. It is the ability to acknowledge that I am so much more than these details.

Conquering my eating disorder means finding my voice again. It means embracing my love of writing and of art once more. It means putting words to the feelings I have and expressing to others when I'm struggling and when I'm succeeding. It means accepting my failures as just mistakes, and remembering that I'm meant to be writing my life in pen. There are meant to be errors. There are meant to be times where I don't believe I can continue on. There are meant to be times where beating my anorexia seems insurmountable, or removing myself from the box my depression and anxiety put me in seems impossible. But there are also meant to be times where I rise brilliantly above these challenges and fight to live.

Because life is a gift that is only given to each of us once. And neither I nor anyone else deserves to live a life controlled by the monstrosity of an eating disorder.

I'm someone who happens to love inspirational quotes; they've gotten me through some of my darkest times and been the only source of light when I'm unable to see the one at the end of the seemingly never-ending tunnel that is recovery. My favorite quote of all time is the following:

"For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse.

So collapse.
Crumble.
This is not your destruction.

This is your birth."

Conquering my eating disorder means collapsing. It means crumbling. It means giving into being who I really, honestly, plainly, brutally, genuinely, am. It's living the life I was meant to live.

And that's the real truth.