Your body is your body

For the longest time I believed my story started when my sexual abuse did, but it didn’t, I was a small girl with a big heart and always will be. My eating became disordered soon after my abuse ended, it was actually after we were shown pictures of sick people in health class, I thought they looked like ballerinas and I wanted to feel as fragile he left me. For years I would spiral in and out of control whenever life became too stressful. Time and time again I would choose life, choose recovery but would relapse painfully without any proper supports. I found the world of purging when I was 15. I used it to punish other people for hurting me by punishing myself. It hurt when I tried to recover, my body had forgotten how to digest food, the bloating felt unbearable but I promise you, recovery is worth it no matter how much it hurts. After experiencing psychosis for the first time, I was put on a medication that made me gain a lot of weight, my self esteem dropped and I was really uncomfortable with the changes in my body, when they took me off of them I relapsed in disordered eating horribly, the medication levels in my blood were too high and a few weeks later at 16 I had my first eating related hospitalisation. I didn’t want to get better, I felt as though life had hurt me until I saw the ways I hurt my family, the people that loved me. If you don’t want to recover for yourself, do it for your future and the people who love you. After that I started contacting the butterfly foundation for support, I would call them about how to fight the thoughts that told me the I wasn’t thin enough to be loved, that I took up too much space. They helped me when I needed a way to recover effectively, although recovery is never linear. Now I’m here, I’m 17 and have learnt that recovery isn’t a part time job, you have to choose life everyday. I’m healing, I’m learning not to blame and punish myself for being hurt. I got psychiatric help and am learning to be kind to the skin that I’m in. Hopefully what you will learn from my story, is that recovery is choosing life. Your body will always be your body, so be kind to it.