3 minute read
MYSTORYMATTERS
Dear Reader, You may have seen coverage of Eating Disorder Awareness Week which took place recently. You might have heard about it, or seen the excellent poster exhibition which was run in CCAD Wandesford Quay by the 3rd year Visual Com munications students.
I’ve never written anything like this before, but I feel the need to.
I love college. My experience in college has been one of the best experiences of my life. I’ve made friends, grown in confidence, learned new things and had absolute belters of nights out.
I’ve also had an eating disorder nearly the entire time I’ve been in college. They’re not uncommon, they’re usually invisible and they can make you so blooming miserable. I have struggled with this for nearly three years. I’ve dam aged my health. I’ve damaged my relationships. I’ve lied to people I love and for the life of me I couldn’t tell you why – it’s not like I woke up one day and was suddenly terrified of gaining weight. But I was, and still am, a little bit, terrified. I’m not alone in this – it’s pretty much normalised and the thoughts that drove me to do seriously unhealthy things are normalised too.
How many times have you heard that you should never snack between meals?
That there are ‘no excuses’ for not going to the gym?
That you should skip meals before a night out because that way you’ll get drunk faster, and the calories in he alcohol won’t count?
Do you ever feel guilty for eating a sandwich, or for eating more than your friends do?
And have you ever felt like it was ‘your fault’ that you aren’t dating somebody, or that somebody treated you badly, be cause you don’t have the ‘willpower’ to be your ‘perfect self’?
Maybe none of this applies to you. Or, maybe it does, but you don’t recognise how messed up it all is. Maybe you’ve realised that being on a diet makes you sad, but you don’t feel that you can stop because that’d be ‘giving in’.
Well, I’ll tell you what; you should give in.
You should go and get a lovely breakfast roll, or a pot noo dle, or a pizza, or whatever it is that you never let yourself have. And I should have too.
Instead of running home, alone and drunk after a night out. Endangering myself physically to try burn off the pints I’d had. I should have stayed out and been with my friends, and gone to Hillbilly’s and not worried.
Instead of sitting through lectures dreaming about food I wasn’t going to let myself have, I should have just eaten breakfast.
Wandering through the supermarket analysing every prod uct on the shelves, dreaming about Tesco Meal Deals day after day. Pretending to eat biscuits. Throwing away the spuds off my dinner and doing squats in the toilet.
And the first time I ever had an inkling that what I was do ing wasn’t making me happy, I should have looked for help.
I didn’t, but now I have. And it’s not easy to change but I have had to, and, if you identify with any of this, you have to too. Be kind to yourself. Ask for help. Know that you are worthy and loved and don’t let something so insignificant ruin your life. Whether the rest of the world can see it or not, if you are unhappy then it’s you that can change things.
CIT offers free counselling, the chaplaincy office is always open.
I know it’s scary but if I can do it, you can too.
And you deserve to.
