To start,
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry to you, for the damage I’ve done.
I didn’t mean to, I promise I didn’t.
I just wanted to be perfect.
When I believed thinness was perfection I neglected you,
I starved you,
I looked at you and cried when I couldn’t see my bones –
Hip bones that stuck out of my pants, leggings –
I wanted to show you off while you screamed under the too-small jeans and skin-tight top,
Let me be free.
I let you free over the summer,
That summer of 2016 on the Tel Aviv beach,
But not to be comfortable for I starved through my entire trip.
I looked down at you and cried in the bathroom every morning for years,
Every day.
You cried with me.
I sucked you in so no ounce of femininity, no ounce of tummy showed.
I put you on a pedestal of judgment 5 times a day,
I made your worth comparable to a number on the scale, in the foods I ate.
I made you to be 1,200 when you were worthy at 2,000.
I made you to be 116 when you were worthy at 150.
I made your worth comparable to a number and thus my happiness depended on you.
The lower you got, the more perfect I became.
I was never happy with you.
I wished you away,
I wished you away since I realized I had you.
Since I was 11 years old when I grew breasts, hips, my uterus started to cause me pain, I became bloated every month, I had painful cramps, I couldn’t fit into the tiny clothes my peers could because of the hips I couldn’t shrink, the breasts I couldn’t take away, and then there was you.
I hated you.
I shrunk you until the day I was hospitalized for abusing you too much.
Instead of drawing hearts across you I wished you away like I did my life.
I didn’t realize I was wishing my life away until you one morning in treatment when I got my diagnosis screamed at me, You need help Maddie.
Set me free from her, from Ana.
https://unsplash.com/photos/mSXMHkgRs8s
So I did.
Three years ago on January 26, 2017 I began a path of showing my gratitude to you.
My love for you.
For your softness, your curves, you occasional bloating that no matter the shape I cherish.
I apologized for my behavior.
I cried not for hating you, I cried for spending years of my life at war with a part of my body that I could have spent time loving, caring for and nourishing.
I was killing you like Ana was killing me,
I told her no more. I told Ana to leave,
To leave you alone.
I set you free and on January 26 of every year since and forever more I will celebrate your liberation.
I stopped crying when I looked at you in the mirror.
I stopped sucking you in for the world deserves to see your authentic beauty.
I started telling you you when you look beautiful.
I still sometimes cry at you, on my bad days.
I know you will forgive me.
You will forgive me for so long as I continue my fight.
I am sorry.
I am sorry for neglecting you, for hating you, for painting ‘fat’ across you when I should have painted ‘love’.
Three years ago I began to draw love,
To cultivate love,
To take in love from you and use that love of you to love the rest of me, too.
But oh why did it take so long to love you?
Photo by bruce mars from Pexels
No matter.
Now I know what it means to love you.
I know what it means to look at you in the morning and smile,
Content with my body.
I fought too long to not give up on my life,
You fought too hard to keep me alive,
I will devote my life to loving you, nourishing you.
I will tell you to take up space for the beauty in you is when you exist without boundaries.
The days I wished you away are over.
The days I let you in all your rolls, your stretch marks, your curves, are only dawning.
I began with ‘I am sorry’.
I end with ‘I am thankful’.
You kept me alive when I was sure I would not survive.
You knew I was a fighter.
Now, when I draw hearts across you with my hands, with my love and radical acceptance of you.
You thank me by helping me to love me back.
You ground me in my femininity, in my beauty, in my ability to thrive in a world of recovery.
On January 26, 2020, you celebrated 3 years of growing this love,
And I promise,
I will not be sorry anymore.
#iamaneatingdisordersurvivor