My Secret.

I share so much online that it’s probably considered oversharing now. I don’t hide my thoughts or my feelings. I openly talk about my mental health, sexuality, political views, and relationships. None of that is airbrushed. Reworded a few times, maybe, but still my honest thoughts and opinions are voiced. You see, I’d been quiet for too long.

My whole life I’ve been the quiet one, the shy one, the well behaved one or the clever one. Not anymore. I’m the talkative one, the passionate one, the funny one, the unpredictable one. I didn’t like any of those boxes I had been put in and left in at age 4. I felt caged, trapped. Never quite living up to the expectations others had for me. So, using the shield of a mental breakdown, I took the opportunity to  smash out of those boxes. To allow myself to be true to who I am.

Anyway, I went off on a tangent. Let’s get back to what I wanted to speak about. (Yet again I’m avoiding it.) The way I feel I look is a huge issue for me. The words that I share online (and in real life) are true. But the pictures of me that I share online aren’t. With make up, filters, photoshop and the perfect camera angle, you haven’t seen me. Not really. I’m beginning to feel trapped again because I feel like a fraud. I feel like I’m hiding. Because in all honesty, I want to. I feel gross. I don’t like the way I look. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying I feel like an absolute ogre (love you, shrek) but I feel uncomfortable in myself with the changes that have happened to my body recently. 

There are a few reasons my body has changed. I’ve been unable to leave my house for quite some time now, in fact, since July I’ve only ventured further than my garden twice. Once for a close friend’s wedding, and the other for a psychiatric appointment. Whenever I go out, I’m exhausted, for anywhere between three days to a week, afterwards. No matter whether it’s a 10 minute walk around the block or an all day wedding, afterwards, I crash. So, when it comes to deciding to leave the house, I weigh up the benefits with the cost and if it doesn’t seem worth it I won’t go.

As well as this, I used to have a very active job, five days a week, early mornings and late (ish) nights. Not anymore. While I was working, I was restricting my food, counting individual calories, obsessively weighing out food, measuring my waist, craving a thigh gap. (I almost got there.) Then my mental health plummeted, I think I ate just four things in around three weeks. My mum was secretly checking on me every time I went into the bathroom to make sure I wasn’t throwing up.

I lost five and a half stone in total that year. It had started out well. I was doing it healthily, eating more fruit and veg, having slightly smaller portions, finishing my meal when I felt full instead of when the plate was empty. But I quickly needed more control. And then it got out of control.

Not long after almost starving myself I switched to binge eating. Losing weight hadn’t helped how I felt. So maybe eating my feelings would help? I reinforced that theory with the idea that I was taking care of myself by letting my body have the food that it wanted. This was a few years ago now and I’m still hiding behind that idea because I’m scared to admit the truth. It’s out of control again. And I don’t know how to fix it.

I have gained all the weight back, and more. I hate how I look. I hate that I let this happen. I hate that I’m scared to ask for help because of the idea that eating disorders are ‘only for people who are thin’. I’m not saying this is an eating disorder, I haven’t even looked into it. But I know this isn’t a healthy relationship with food.

There it is. Written down. No more hiding.