I’ve been sitting in my room now for almost a week.
Yeah… a week.
I already know what you’re going to say.
“You’re lazy. Pathetic. Unmotivated. A failure.”
I know. I know.
I had an appointment today, for which I actually left my apartment, and my therapist asked me: “What could you do to get yourself out of the house?” I didn’t know how to answer. I still don’t. I have spent the last 3+ years of my life navigating and perfecting how to survive in hospital – IV’s, Ensures, and knowing what meals were actually edible – that I think I’ve actually forgotten how to function in the “real world”.
This is a new pathway for me – being outside of the hospital and actually navigating what it’s like to live without my eating disorder. I have never lived this way before and honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing. Does it sound weird that I don’t know how to survive outside of hospital? My whole life up until now has been all too consumed by my eating disorder. In between hospital stays and intensive treatment, my life was bombarded by the severity of my symptoms, the effects of these symptoms, and therapy to stop my health from deteriorating any faster. This is the first time in my life where not every moment has to be focused on ED. I have no idea what I’m doing and now I have to navigate this on my own.
I don’t know how to ask for help – and I need help. What do people do with their time? How do people occupy themselves? How do people create a life worth living? How do you go about your day to sit down at the end and be okay with that? I would pay any amount of money to figure out what the secret is to actually living. I want to know what living feels like. What does it feel like?
Sometimes, when I need help I isolate – because I don’t know how to as for help. I don’t know how to ask someone to help me to do the things that I want to do. I don’t even know how to help myself. This life is so much more than I bargained for and I’m so used to depending on my ED for support. I don’t have that now. I have to support myself and get myself through this. I’m putting all of this pressure on myself without even recognizing that I didn’t get to this point on my own. No way in hell. If I had been left to my own devices, instead of being forced into treatment and intensive care, I would probably be dead right now. I don’t have to do this on my own.
I don’t know how to ask for help – and I’m learning that I am not alone. I need to love myself enough to remind me why I’m here – why I CHOSE to be here – and what I can do going forward. I have to ask for help. I have to learn how people can help me because I still don’t totally know how to help myself. I’m working on it. Please be patient with me. I’ll figure it out.
- – HAUS of HAIRROR, Jennifer Walton