The Powerful Truth About Not Looking Anorexic

Hello,

I am typing this in the early hours of the morning having just wiped my tears because I looked in the mirror and I wasn't emaciated anymore. I feel like I am in the wrong body, I am tortured constantly, I fear food so intensely yet I wake up and I am medically healthy. I step on the scale and there is nothing differentiating me from a normal healthy girl yet my mind is so different.

I have been underweight before, I have had people whisper concerned comments about my figure and ask my friends whether I had anorexia but now that I walk down the street in a healthy body people expect me to be healthy, both physically and mentally. Yet the truth is, I am not healthy, my mind is a volcano that is constantly erupting. Everyday my urge to restrict is so immense that my whole body shakes at the thought of food. I feel guilty for thinking about food but it is all I think about. I imagine myself eating food all day, I watch others eat and I wonder how it tastes yet if I was presented the food I would struggle to manage it. I am still ill no matter what the scale says.

I often feel like a fake, that I am not anorexic and I never have been. People come up to me and say "I am so glad that you are better," but what do you reply to that when you are feeling worse than ever. "Thank you? but in reality I had a panic attack after breakfast?" No I feel embarrassed, embarrassed that my body and my mind don't correlate. I had just left treatment that forced me to gain weight yet nobody would know that, nobody would know that my mental health was at the lowest point it could be. Yet so many people would congratulate me, praise me for finally beat anorexia but I am still suffering.

I am writing this because I am an anorexic in a healthy body and that is okay, only 20% of people suffering with anorexia are at a unhealthy weight. Yes I was once visibly suffering but I am not anymore and that doesn't mean that the mental torment has gone away. One day it will, one day it will be okay if you say "Im so glad that you are better" and one day I will be recovered. But today I just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep completing each meal and maintaining weight and that is okay if that is my priority right now. Because I am still ill, no matter if I am not underweight.

Rosie