What went wrong? - poem

Funny, intelligent, strong 

Where the hell did it all go wrong? 

Planned, precise, perfect

Was my whole personality just a defect? 

I tried to do what was best

What I thought would please others

What I thought was best for myself

And now I’m withering in the gutters. 

I thought,

If I push myself, be the best I can

I will be happy, calm and content 

I would feel better in myself, more confident. 

I had everything going for me, grades, friends, a life 

and I wanted it so badly

But it became my crypto night. 

You see I have this voice in my head 

And it twists my world to the extremes. 

Black and white, right and wrong

There’s good and bad, big and small

And the rules became so strict, the wold so contorted and regimented 

And I didn’t belong. 

I couldn’t fit the mould made for me

I didn’t meet the expectations 

And if I didn’t manage, if I wasn’t perfect 

Then I was a failure, a humiliation. 

I wanted everything to be well

I wanted to be happy, and I wanted everyone around me to be 

But the more I ached for this , the more out of control I felt. 

I saw any sign of distress, unhappiness and sadness as a problem that I had to fix 

I saw any slipping grade, missed goal, Red Cross as a complete failiure, an embarrassment, shameful against my name

I slowly began to withdraw into a bubble 

That I felt I could contain. 

In this bubble, it felt safer, I could keep everything organised 

I wasn’t alone though, there was my ‘friend’, I thought an ally, but it was a disguise. 

The voice of ED pushed me harder than ever

And I thought it was for the best. 

The only things it allows me to remember

Are the successes it helped achieve, the A*’s in tests. 

The smiles on the teachers faces, when I did extra homework

The comments from school girls changed to an awe of my self control, self containment. 

All it allows me to remember is the feelings of calm,

The control, the success, how it promised me I’d come to no harm. 

But what it failed to warn me, and it block me from recalling 

Is the utter hell it really was, how each day became gruelling. 

What it fails to remember is the exhaustion that never stopped 

The way I felt so OUT of control

So low, confused and lost

It stops me from remembering

The looks of concern. The comments of anxious friend and worried teachers

The warnings id gone past the point of no return. 

What it fails to let me remember

Is the fear that I felt

Every night that I lay in my bed

Counting my pulse beat slower. 

How everyday I felt weaker

And my ED told me that was a sign to push harder. 

What it fails to remember is the pain

The confusion that starvation causes 

How my grades never stayed at A*, in fact they got completely halted. 

What it fails to remind me is the mental hell it induces 

That pushed me to such desperate lengths 

That saw me talk of every lie and excuses 

What it fails to remind me is there is no finish point with anorexia

I’ll never feel enough, I’ll never have permission to eat again

If im looking for it from the thing that wants to end me

What it fails to remind me is how I lost my friends, family, anyone I loved 

Because it twisted them in my eyes to the enemy that I could not trust. 

What it fails to remind me is that it almost killed me, more times than I fear to recall

What it blocks me from remembering is how it caught me in the cycle of setting me up to simply watch me fall. 

Because It pushed me to the point that was almost too far to forgive 

Before I realised just how much I wanted to live.