That one time I recovered by myself and felt like I "failed at having anorexia"

The dead you don't bury come back to haunt you. Is that a real saying or did I just make it up? In any case, it is something I know too well. 

When I was teenager I got sick with anorexia. I was largely in denial about my disease. Not in the sense that I didn't know I was sick, but that I wore my sickness like a badge of honour. 

But when I started to lose my hair, I finally reached out for help. I didn't really want to get better, but I intended to see if the doctor could give me something that would allow me to keep my hair and continue restricting. 

This would have been the moment for any health care professional to intervene. Young, underweight woman with fatigue and hair loss. I don't know how it could have been any more obvious. 

Instead no one intervened. The doctor said because I've had a bowl of fruit that morning, I couldn't have an eating disorder. He did a blood test which came back fine and sent me home. And at home no one was really concerned about me either. 

This was the position in which I was in when I eventually had to recover by myself. I never consciously made the decision to get better. I remember that one day the chains just fell away and it was easier to eat. And then there was no stopping me from eating.

I gained weight. People commented. I continued eating. I now realize this was the bravest thing I could have done. 

Just in my head it didn't feel brave. It felt like admitting defeat. I felt like I was failing at anorexia because I was eating again. 

I had no support system nor anyone to explain to me how eating disorders worked. In general, there was no one supporting me or telling me that it was okay to gain weight. I wasn't even on online forums yet because back then all I knew about eating disorder forums was that people posted pictures of themselves and I was too ashamed to do that (I was misinformed by popular media).

I carried this (literal) weight with me for years. You failed at anorexia. You failed at weight loss. You were never really anorexic because true anorexics struggle gaining weight. 

I avoided any content about eating disorders because it made me feel so ashamed. I barely mentioned my illness to other people because, I thought, I looked too "normal" to be taken seriously. I never made any attempt at working through my eating disorder of the past. In fact, I have serious memory gaps from that time. I don't even remember how I got better.

I also didn't realize when I had mini relapses over the years. A month here and there when I would barely eat. Every time it felt like an achievement. Just that I always went back to eating. 

Until last year, when the perfect storm of pandemic, studies, moving and a Covid-related complete lack of support from friends threw me right back into its grip. And what did it feel like? Like an achievement. The badge of honour of old times. 

Initially at least. I am now a lot older and I had a lot of time over the pandemic to self-reflect and read. I now understand that I probably have a genetic predisposition for this disease - there is nothing to achieve. 

And it also made me reflect a lot on the importance of support and help. I now have to work through over 10 years of experiences during which I was in denial about being sick. An early intervention when I first reached out could have validated that, yes, I am sick, I don't need to make it worse to be worthy of attention. This could have helped me spot signs of relapse, too.

On average, a person with an eating disorder spends 11.5 years with their illness before they receive help. This years marks year 11 for me. I am right there on the average and I reached out for help again. Wish me luck.