What is NEDA week? NEDA week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Awareness weeks are great, but sometimes they rip the scab off of wounds you would rather keep untouched. Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree that eating disorders need to be talked about. They need the awareness that every other disease, however to those recovering it can be a sensitive subject.

Excerpt from an article I wrote a year ago:

“Did you know that one unpeeled apple is 80 calories? Did you know that you burn more calories chewing celery than you are in taking? Did you know when you eat again after starving yourself it hurts? I shouldn’t look at food and automatically register it at a caloric number. However, I will most likely live the rest of my life with this knowledge and more. That is the everyday life of a recovering anorexic.…The first weeks are the hardest, watching myself gain back the weight I thought I was fighting so hard to lose. Watching my face fill out more and more every day. Realizing I might have to go up a size or two in some clothes and remembering that is okay now. But after those few weeks, it gets better.”

The second year after deciding I need help isn’t as hard as the first week, but it is not easy. Recovering from an eating disorder is not like recovering from a bad breakup, it is 100 percent in your head and you are fighting yourself every moment of every day. When you’re recovering from a breakup, you can remove yourself from the individual causing you pain, when you are having a battle in your own mind, you can’t get away. I still weigh myself on a daily basis, I still count calories, and I still am not happy with my weight. I have stopped fasting and starving myself, however eating disorders are more than that. I can’t get away from my mind. The voices screaming in my head that I am not good enough or that I weigh too much and am undesirable. I can’t escape the long-term side effects of what I did to myself.

The daily struggle with my mind just to eat breakfast is exhausting. Fighting the thoughts of how long I would have to work out to work off the calories I ate in that bagel or a muffin is strenuous. However, the hardest thing is trying to explain to others what it is like to suffer from an eating disorder. Many people think that just because I am “recovering” that I am completely healed and no longer affected by it. Or worse, the judgement of those who call me “weak” for struggling with my weight and body image continuously. Even though every day is hard, each day I go without starving myself is already better than the days that I did.

Eating disorders need to be talked about, no matter how hard it might be for people like me. Beauty needs to be universal, but bias. Love yourself for being you, not a number on a scale.

For more information about eating disorders or NEDA week, please visit www.nedawareness.org. If you are struggling yourself, please find help. It will not be easy, I won’t lie to you. However, recovery is worth it.