Fighting

Fighting a daily battle with your body is exhausting, from the moment I wake up until I eventually drift off at night that's exactly what I am currently doing. I don't like to think I have an eating disorder, in fact seeing it there in black and white makes my heart race and I can feel tears pricking at my eyes, but I do and I was doing a pretty good job at hiding it from everyone. My battle with food is a complicated one, one that even I don't fully understand yet but I know I need to be strong.
A typical day will see me exist on nothing but fruit and coffee until the evening when S and I enjoy a dinner together, I obsessively check the calorie content of everything, I exercise excessively, I will make up excuses as to why I need to walk up and down the stairs. My body hurts, my head hurts and the only person to blame is me. There is not a moment during the day when I am not thinking about food, trying to decide what I am going to eat that evening, how I am going to be able to up my exercise to burn extra calories. It hurts, I hurt - the constant battle is exhausting and never ending.

I can't remember when it began, but I have a feeling it has been building for a long time. A couple of years ago I had to take extended leave from work which meant that I wasn't dancing at all, I made a conscious decision to cut down on food then in order to maintain my weight and things have accelerated from there. That fateful day when I made that decision is the reason why (I think) I am now in this position, I know there is more to it than that, but those reasons are personal and I am still working them out with my counsellor, one day I hope to be strong enough to share them with you all but for now I can't.

I long for a day when I can go out for dinner with friends without spending the day worrying about what I am going to order, when I can spontaneously eat without feeling ashamed of myself or panicking about how I am going to fit extra exercise into my already busy schedule. I want to be ok, I want to get better and for me admitting that is the first step to getting better, I need to stop avoiding the issue and accept that there is a problem before I can get better.

My name is Gemma and I have an Eating Disorder.