i’m probably going to lose followers for this.  some people can’t face harsh realities or honesty.  but this is my blog, my place of outlet.

i simply cannot come to terms with losing a friend to anorexia. i can’t bear the guilt, the hurt, the anger.  i couldn’t bear seeing 4 grown men carry her coffin. one stone for each man.  the guilt of looking in the mirror and wishing i could lose a couple of pounds, when she weighed half of what i did. the guilt of not helping her when she called me and told me she was finding life difficult.  believing her when she said she lost weight from pneumonia.  anger at myself for not challenging her more when she promised me she ate 3 meals a day. responsible because i was the one who was supposed to look after her and make sure she was okay. and i knew she wasn’t.  ‘skeletal’.  that was the only way i could describe her.

why did alarm bells not go off when you stopped turning up to everything? or when you were so hard to wake up? i’m so angry at myself for not doing more.  but i’m even more angry that you were surrounded by medical professionals every day and no one intervened.  you were so supportive of everyone, but who the hell supported you?

i hadn’t seen you in 6 months.  you were avoiding me because you knew i wanted to talk to you about your illness, and you couldn’t admit to anyone that there was anything wrong.  you told your family that i was there for you.  and that’s heartbreaking, because i was hardly there at all.  but you had no one else.  i knew you needed a friend, and i still didn’t reach out to you like i should have done.  i told you i would get you help after you phoned me.  and i didn’t.  i didn’t check up on you. i didn’t know what to do.  and the next time i heard anything about you, you were gone.

i feel so sick when i try and eat anything.  yet i feel like i owe it to you to clear my whole plate.  i don’t think i’ll ever use the word ‘starving’ again, now that i’ve been reminded of the meaning.  i see your face everywhere, and i can’t sleep because i feel like you’re there.  it makes me so angry when i’m trying to make a hard decision and people say “what would Katie want you to do?”, because i don’t have a clue.  i didn’t know katie.  i never knew katie.  you weren’t katie when i knew you, because you’d gone. you’d been consumed by something too dark to reach.  i keep looking through your old photos and wishing i’d seen you smile like that.  i wish i’d known the katie that people talked about at your funeral- fun-loving, care-free.  the katie who wasn’t subject to torture for 5 years of her life.

i refuse to lose someone else to anorexia.  i refuse to let any of you lose someone to anorexia.  i could say ‘she’s in a better place now’, or ‘now she can finally rest’, but it gives me no comfort.  i know you didn’t want to be helped.  but i know you didn’t want this either.  i wish you were still here.

i’ve got really annoyed at a post i saw on the ‘curveappeal’ tumblr.  the blog is about curvaceous girls who don’t conform to the skinny ‘ideal’ that our society hammers into our brains, but instead they’ve embraced their curves and overcome whatever body confidence issues they have as a result of such media pressure.  that is something i completely advocate. however, i saw a girl post a picture of herself on there which said she was 127lb and 5’3.  that puts her at slap bang in the middle of the ‘normal weight’ range.  i fail to see how this is a ‘bigger’ or a ‘curvy’ girl. the picture of her also presents someone who is incredibly slim. 

she goes on to say that she’s suffered an eating disorder and her weight ‘dropped down to as low as 106lb at one point’.  is it wrong that this REALLY ground my gears? 106lb is a perfectly normal weight for someone who is 5’3, and my knowledge and experience of the nature of eating disorders tells me that this certainly does not meet the criteria of being a weight at which you would be considered as having an eating disorder.  i feel that to post something like that is sort of… insulting? insulting to those who have suffered severe eating disorders where their weight HAS dropped dramatically. for people who weigh HALF her weight.  i’m aware i’m being incredibly judgmental. maybe she had bulimia, where you aren’t prone to huge amounts of weight loss.  the girl probably has had food issues. but haven’t most of us at some point? it’s one thing to have issues with food, and another to have an actual eating disorder which you’ve truly struggled with.

i don’t know. tell me if i’m wrong and i’m being unfair? i’m just sick of the ‘diagnosis’ of mental illness being thrown around when people face the slightest problems. it’s not something to be taken lightly. 1 in 4 people DON’T have a mental illness. 1 in 4 people are affected by a mental health issue at some point in their lives. this figure includes people who simply have had a friend with a mental health problem.  only 2-3% of the population suffer from severe, debilitating mental illness. there’s such a huge distinction between these two figures and a VERY big difference between the experiences of people who fall into them.