I could remember a time in my anorexic journey, where things got really stressful and complicated and I was really scared that I was falling back into anorexia all over again. It was in the summer of 2011. I started to fall into the same cycle, the same cycle that sent me to the hospital. To this day, I'm not really so sure how I began to go backwards instead of forward. My mom began to freak out as well, she would constantly be cautiously watching me. My mom and I started to argue with each other more and more. She would say to me increasingly, "You going back downhill" "You're not thinking" "Aren't you scared of going back?" so on and so on. I got so mad at her for doing that. Of course I was scared, but at the same time I thought I could handle it. I wanted to get better, I really did, but at the same I scared of getting better. I know that sounds totally messed up. But people should know that the logic inside the mind of an anorexic is very unstable. Many anorexics want to get better, but at the very same time, they don't want to get better. Mainly because in order for them to get better, they have to gain weight, until they reach a healthy weight for their height and stuff. However, they are so highly convinced on the idea that gaining weight is just getting fat. You may call it silly or stupid, maybe even unrealistic. You can say, "It's just a cupcake what's the big deal??" you can say that all you want, but get it through your head, to an anorexic a cupcake is dangerous, even deadly. And no, that wouldn't be an exaggeration. Anyway, I started to lose weight over the summer, from 120 to 118 to 116 to 114, but most of the time I was 115. With every weigh-in that came, I just couldn't gain the weight. I just stayed the same. And I knew what I had to do, I knew how to do it, but I couldn't. Because secretly inside I liked the feeling of being underweight, of being thin and skinny, small. Even though I was thin in an unhealthy way. I knew that what I was doing to myself wasn't good for my body, but it made me feel good. That also sounds really messed up, but many people know that smoking can kill them, but they keep on smoking only because they like it. Well, it's sort of the same concept here. Next thing I knew, I began to exercise in secret, trying my very best not to let my parents ever know. Every time, I weighed myself, it would always be 115, and I would say to myself, "Raquel you need to stop this." But there was another voice inside of me saying, "Why? I feel fine." I didn't know how to explain myself, or my actions to my parents.
They best way I can illustrate it, even to this day is like this: Picture an over-sized hammer full of expectations, goals, fears, desires, dreams, values and other things. And this hammer is pounding down on small, little, weak nail. I was the nail. I hope this illustration explains how I felt back then. I really felt pressured by everybody, including myself.
