With eating disordered patients there is a general idea that they are of two minds. There is the normal mind, with its natural thought processes and preferences, and then there is the eating disordered mind. In the beginning, and really for a long time after anorexia started to take its toll, I had a big problem identifying the two as separate. As an eating disorder gets worse with time the normal mind, the one that made me who I am, got weaker until I didn’t know what my own thoughts and opinions of various things were anymore.

For me the eating disordered voice just came in and took over without my even realizing it. The strength of it was overwhelming but I was hesitant to say anything about it because, to comment on its growing demands, was like admitting that I had second person in my head. It was like hearing voices but not audibly; only within the realm of thought. Through word association alone I would think “okay, mind + voices = delusional = schizophrenia”, but I knew I wasn’t crazy and I didn’t want to give anyone reason to question that. That may seem like a strange statement from a girl who, at the same time, was visibly starving herself, but those words are actually a good illustration of the thought process within sickness.

Many girls use the technique of giving their eating disorder a name. Once it has the definition of something like Ed, Jack, Jane or whatever, it makes the process of distinction from the disorder’s long list of rules a bit easier. Once I could accept that it wasn’t actually me, or what I remembered of me, giving the orders, the path to contradicting them became clearer. Sure, there were still brambles and quicksand everywhere, and there is even still some these days, but at least I can now see the direction I need to go in and walk away.

To think, at any time, that your head is home to something so foreign to all you know, is horrifying. It really can make a person feel like the loony bin is the next step but its much more common than many people with eating disorders realize. For us, we have to keep in mind that all the disordered thought, all the regulations and backwards reasoning, are not the products of a healthy vitalized mind. All the times I was silently told to “just not worry about those few extra bites” or “if you had 20 calories more here you have to take away 20 somewhere else” just plain and simply wasn’t me.

The acknowledgement is just the first step though. Even if you can separate it there is still an incredible amount of strength behind it’s words. To have an eating disorder, to have that voice, has been often equated to being in an abusive relationship. In the beginning it came as protection, a controlled focus that created order in a chaotic world. As time went on though that control I thought I had with it slowly became an illusion as it grew evident that in actuality it held a deathly grip over me. It takes and incredible amount of work to shake off something with its claws buried that deep but its definitely a goal to word towards.