Who am I?

I never understood why my eating disorder seemed to have such a hold on me for so many years, and why it got stronger and stronger. Apart from the obvious malnourishment and my brain running on such little intake for so long, i realise now that it served a purpose. That purpose is different for everyone, but for me, a rage opponent to my anorexia was that I didn’t know who i was. You’ll notice a trend in ed sufferers - they care more about everyone else than they do about themselves. To fit it simply for you, they’ll make sure everyone else’s needs are being tended to before they consider their own, including eating. For me, i spent so many years trying to meets everyone else’s needs that i neglected my own, and in that, i lost my identity and who I was. I thought my worth was what I could do for other people, how they thought of me, everything came down to other peoples opinions and judgments. My purpose was to make other people happy, and I lost who i was. 

Recovery is giving me the chance to tend to my needs, which is terrifying and liberating at the same time. Often I feel selfish, especially for eating. It feels like a luxury I don’t deserve. So many people are struggling, I could always be doing something for someone else, there’s so much pain and struggle in this world, how on earth can I justify myself the luxury of sitting down and indulging myself in a sandwich? I’m learning, slowly, that i am as important as everyone else, and therefore i need to tend to my needs to allow me to be able to help other people whole heartily.