The fight is worth it

I'm 17 yet I still feel like I don't know myself properly. For five years I've was tricked into a false sense of security, my mind had given me an "answer" to all my problems.

For all this time I have lived with a shadow over me, ingraining itself into every aspect of my life. I have brown hair, brown eyes, 10 fingers and 10 toes and since I was 12 I've suffered from eating disorders (EDNOS and Bulimia). It started off as my way of control and I hate to say it but it turned up controlling me.

Up until the time I was 12 I would have been described as a happy go lucky person with an overly bubbly personality who loved art, singing at the top of her lungs and was always laughing but something changed and I don't even know what. I can't pin point a time in my past where I can say "Bingo that's why this happened"

Its different for everyone but for me it went so far beyond what I looked like it was about EVERYTHING in my life.......about guilt, anxiety, perfection, the need to do everything for everyone else, holding the world on my shoulders......haha oh yeah, using the word I dislike so greatly in regards to this, control. I can't blame, nor do I want to blame, anyone for my disorders because it's nobodies fault (except mine).

I masked the actual problems with thoughts on food and weight when really that was a symptom of a much greater problem and that was probably one of the hardest things to come to terms with.

If I were to pick a defining start point I would have to say the point where I, somewhat out of the blue, decided to go on a diet because I thought it would give me some purpose if people could see that I was capable of something.

My Year 9 homeroom teacher confronted me about a some things I had written for a class and I burst out crying when asked if they were true.......the school councellor was told who then called my Mum and I spent the next few months in and out of the doctors getting test after test.

Somehow I convinced them I was better.

Many people have tried to help me along the way and I've had brief periods of time where I thought maybe I could  recover but deep down I knew I wasn't throwing myself completely into recovery.

I saw a psychologist for awhile and it helped but I was still not ready. I couldn't see myself outside my disorder. I was so scared that I would lose the one thing that I knew, my eating disorder defined who I was and without it I felt I would have nothing. It was the one thing that I would not let people take away from me.

A little longer than a month ago I went on a production camp where we went away for the weekend anyway. So, this camp, I was still unsure about the whole thing. On the bus there I was sitting next to my friend and fortunately she had to talk to one of the ladies so I moved seats to an empty one, someone came a few moments later and I was sitting next to them. Luckily for me she didn't make me move and we started to talk.

We got into a conversation and I told her more in that bus ride than I had ever told anyone in my whole time with my eating disorder. She was the first person that seemed to know what was going on in my head and for once I felt the slightest bit hopeful. We talked many times over the weekend and I was amazed at how someone could know all these things. I wanted to have her outlook, be positive about my life, able to accept that I could be happy with who I was.

I really needed someone to be there for me but at the same time let me know that I had to do it for me.......because in the end only you can save yourself.

It was hard to find someone who could listen to what I said and help me realise what thoughts were rational and justified and what thoughts weren't. And this person was the first person who not only had been where I had been, but she helped me do this.

I don't think she realised the impact she made. I left the camp with a new outlook on things, but things didn't get better. I was so scared at the realisations I had had that I just let myself slip further into my eating disorder.

One day I decided that I couldn't live like this anymore that I couldn't just say I was going to try to recover but that I really had to. One of my motivations was that I wanted to be a leader at the youth foundation I went on a camp with and how could I help others if I couldn't help myself?

Its not an easy thing to do and everyday is a new battle but for once I truly feel I am ready and like Bob Marley said, "I am willing and able so I throw my cards down on your table"..... for me this means that I am now able to and willing to find out who I am and show that to people. At the same time I am risking failure but I'm not scared too much, because I can always learn form my mistakes.

So here's to living life, making mistakes, and waking up each day to the uncertainty of what life brings and being excited about it. Here's to looking in the mirror and not crying, like one of my favourite t-shirts says "I may not be perfect but parts of me are pretty awesome" (I wear it when I'm having a bad day).

The fight is worth it. and now as well as the more obvious steps I'm taking towards continuing on this recovery path I'm doing the things I love as well, I draw, write, read and sing at the top of my lungs again and I do this with belief in myself.

It helps also to have support form my friends at the youth foundation and good news is I got into the leadership thing so next year ill be able to help people in all areas as people have helped me.

Life's not perfect but it can be good and I am trying harder than I ever have to keep it that way still accepting that bad things may happen but that I also don't have to focus on the bad things all the time, that I can just accept that bad things happen and that surprisingly everything is not always my fault.