I wake up at my sister’s house. I look around and feel anxious. I think about a letter which I received from the NHS a couple of days ago. A month which is 30 days which is 720 hours which is 43,200 minutes which is 2,592,000 seconds! This is how long I need to wait to meet the Eating Disorder Team. This is how long I need to wait to get help. Multiple questions enter my head. How can I cope during this time? What if things get worse? Am I strong enough for this? Can I convince my demons to stop pushing me inside the black whole, punishing me for not being good enough, being different, worse than others? Can I do it? Can I? I try really hard to find the answers inside me, but there are none coming my way. I can see no hope.
First rays of the sun interrupt my thinking. They touch my face gently. The daylight fills in the room. I check the time. 7AM. I need to get up and go downstairs. My sister starts her work soon and I do not want to cause more trouble. I think that me being here is already an inconvenience for her. Polly has her own life, challenging work, a husband and a charming toddler who I love to bits. I feel guilty adding my unstable psyche to all of that. I do my best though to remember that it was a part of the agreement. I said yes to staying 2 days a week at Polly’s just during my waiting time. According to her, it will help to break my routine, change the environment, and spend time differently. I am not sure I am fully happy with it, but I obey. She is a much stronger character than me, a much more successful person, she must know better. I have no courage to argue and apparently I am not well and it is the illness that is fighting against the idea of staying over, not me…
So here I am trying my best to move, to get up. I feel this awful pain inside. I call it soul pain. I want to do something to get rid of it, anything that can bring just a little bit of relief. Over the years I have learned so many tools to cope with stress and anxiety, but all of them seem useless at this point. Nothing is working! What the hell is wrong with me?!
Slowly I move my body. It is stiff and numb. I can hear my bones cracking, like an old creaky chair. Not a very pleasant sound. A little stretch, a few more cracks and I head downstairs.
I see my sister in the kitchen. She makes breakfast. Breakfast for me! I get angry straight away. I have just opened my eyes! I am not hungry! What does she think?! She has not even asked if I want to eat! As soon as she notices my entry Polly smiles - Hey Hon! How did you sleep? I hope you fancy porridge. It is almost ready, she says. My gaze stops at the kitchen top - fruits, nuts, chocolate. I guess these are additions to the porridge. Too many additions! I am fuming at this point, but I do my best not to show it. No chocolate please I mumble. She fills in the bowl with the creamy mash, tops it up with fruits and nuts and puts it in front of me.
I stare at it. The portion is massive! I have no idea how many grams of oats she used! What milk did she add? Semi skimmed, full fat? By eye I can assess that there are approx. 20 g of almonds which means around 120 kcl. Too much. I push them to the side of the bowl. My mind works really hard to assess the rest of the calories. There must be approx. 700! No way I am going to eat this!
I look at Polly. She holds a cup of coffee and looks back with her soft eyes. It is OK, she says. You can do it. I ask as calmly as I can. How about you? I can see there is no breakfast in front of her. I have just had a toast, she replies. A slice toast?? Is she out of her mind? She served me this massive thing and she had toast!!! She wants me to be fat. I cannot eat, do not make me, I say. I just cannot.
Kala, you are underweight, you must eat. This was the agreement. And yes you can eat. You can pick up the spoon with the porridge, put it into your mouth and swallow. You can do that. Can’t you? There is nothing physically stopping you.
Unbelievable! I feel so much pressure. I want to fight. Why can’t I just say NO to her? I would like to, but there is this nasty guilt inside. It tells me that she does so much to me, so the least I can do is to cooperate. Ok, then. I decide to give it a go. I can always starve later. I carefully dig into the porridge. I make sure there are no nuts on the spoon. Swallowing literally hurts. I want to cry. I feel like my body is putting on weight with each piece. I feel disgusted with myself when I finish. Weak, powerless and upset. I feel like I failed.
I need some fresh air. Polly is hesitant to let me out on my own, but I insist this time. I leave the house. My achilles tendon is still injured, but I do not feel any pain anymore. The guilt inside me is growing. There is only one thought in my head - walk fast, walk faster, walk the fastest I can...