Apologies in advance for the very bitter tone to this entry, but my opinion on IP treatment has gone from vaguely positive/neutral to ‘OH HELL TO THE NO’ since my tour of the ward.
So essentially, I am the fattest one there. And I know, I know, I can’t see myself properly, everyone says that, it’s the anorexic voice BLAH BLAH BLAH. I have heard that phrase so many times I don’t even… Argh. Everyone says it but it has to be true for one, logic dictates as much and guess what guys, it’s Faye! Yep. The average bmi is between 12 and 13 and I’m close on 14 so MATHS ALONE tells you that I’m the fattest, and also the views of my parents and the Beloved. The tour didn’t take very long as it’s a small ward, and naturally there were other patients- mainly pretty little broken girlies- meandering through the hallways or sprawled in common rooms, and we drove past the group walk on our way out. And guess what. EVERY LAST ONE looked skinny to breaking point, looked like she’d been hooked from collapse into the e.d ward and stuck in a pair of jogging trousers that hung in folds around her matchstick legs, hair pulled back from jutting cheekbones and enormous dinnerplate eyes, bodies folded neatly into little V shaped heaps against walls, too weak to stand as they waited for meds at the nurse’s office. And this is where you’re sending me. Me. I don’t belong there.
I am unhealthy looking, sure. I’m slim. Maybe I look too slim but I do not look emaciated like those girls and I am going to have to sit with them and eat six fucking times a fucking day and slowly inflate even further beyond them.
I’m not saying I want to look dead but I don’t want to be the fatty surrounded by skinny girls and at the moment that’s how it is.
Even my mum agreed. Reluctantly. I cried, screamed, raged at home, not at her but definitely to her- And she said yes, I looked like I could stand to gain a few pounds, and insisted that I should not want to look like them because those girls looked on the verge of collapse or worse. Which acknowledges that I do not look like them. Because I am bigger. Less sick, less NEEDING of that stupid bed. Which I am being admitted to at some point next week, possibly the week after, the funding needs to be approved but it’s a formality and I’m definitely getting it.
This is so, so unfair. I don’t belong there. I knew I wasn’t sick enough, but I thought there might be at least one person who was more than emaciation but I didn’t see one. Not one. Only me. It’s going to be humiliating. So fucking embarrassed. I don’t belong there and they all know it, they all see the difference between me and those other ACTUAL sick girls, and yet they’re putting me there in with me and I don’t know why but it’s humiliating, utterly, cripplingly, painfully humiliating. Showing me up as a failure.
I don’t have the time to lose enough weight to deserve to be there. I told the Significant Other that I am not going to eat until the date of my admittance but even that won’t do enough good. I’ll probably permit food on Saturday actually, because then it will be a week without, then dinner with Aunt, then fast again. Then I’ll at least be a little closer to their level, a little closer to deserving that place, though still not wanting or needing it.
All this is doing is spurring me on and reminding me that actually I’ve accomplished nothing at all.
Ah, the I’m-not-sick-enough, I’m-not-thin-enough argument/justification. I know that oh so well. I told my nutritionist the other day that I just wanted my outsides to reflect my insides so people would take me serious; as if they are not taking me serious now. I still get lots of you-look-great compliments except for those who have read what not to say to an anorexic. They just don’t say anything, which is kind of worse. The GP said my BMI is too low at 21 which kind of freaks me out because, to me, that is horribly high and therefore I don’t actually need help. I never want to go to IP but, ironically, when I was told that I probably wouldn’t need it now I felt like a failure in a way, relieved yes, but a failure none the less.
Mm, that is probably it in a way, the outsides-matching-insides thing. But even then- I don’t have any health problems, not even a questionable pulse or temperature, not a solitary deficiency so even my physical insides are ‘betraying’ me in that way. Yes- not wanting to go but being told you don’t need to, I can see how that would lead to feelings of not being good enough… yuck, i’m sorry you had that. It’s not all about BMI (which I know is hypocritical, but hey, if we mentally ill can’t be illogical then who can?)
You must be so frustrated right now!! That competition is so fierce… I’m so sorry you have to be in such turmoil.
Thankyou, I am so frustrated
and not only that but my weight is now maintaining! I’ve not eaten since saturday, and not lost ANY weight since sunday! It’s like the whole world wants me to explode from frustration lol.
You might need to eat just a little bit to remind your metabolism what to do!! Good luck
i have never done that >..<
Oh man. I’ve been off radar again, and just come back to find all of this. You poor thing. I know what that’s like. I’ve done in and out patient stuff surrounded by the ultra thins, and it makes you feel unworthy somehow. But, please, don’t let it. I think that maybe the best way to look at it, is that your parents and bf love you too much to let you get to that stage without one hell of a fight. And that maybe these other girls have been sick for years.
Either way, despite the fact that it looks amazing to us body image disordered, to everyone else being that thin is terrifying.
I don’t know if this has helped at all, but I hope so. x
Thanks for le sympathies. I hope you have been alright, hiding below the radar…
x
It does, you wish they weren’t so thin and sick, but also wish you were- which doesn’t make sense, i know, but that’s how it is. Did inpatient help you? That is actually one thing I’ve been pathetically clinging to; i could have done it too if only they gave me some time, that’s all. those girls have been sick for longer, i got stopped.
you have helped