How to say, "I'm not okay."

I have an eating disorder.

I said it - in my head, in writing, out loud, under water. I've said it to people, to walls, in my shower and into pillows. I have an eating disorder and I'm not okay. That's okay.

One day, I'll share more of my story from the past five years. For now, I leave you with this monologue:

It’s 3am and I jolt awake. I’m in a cold sweat and there’s a burning sensation moving through my stomach. 

I think, “Oh no, am I getting sick?” 

My eating disorder chimes in, “I hope it’s the flu - the real kind that makes you throw up.” 

My mind feels as twisted as my stomach does. Somewhere along the fight tumbling around in my brain, I fall back asleep. 

It’s 7am. I’m at to the doctor’s office. I’m groggy. I just want to sleep. My eating disorder just wants to not eat. 

I sit down at his desk. He looks at me then looks at the medical papers in front of him. Looks at me. Looks at the papers. Looks at me. 

“Do you throw up a lot?” he asks. 

“No, not really.” I lie. 

My eating disorder hides behind my teeth as I keep lying through them. 

Days pass. 

I’m sitting inside a treatment center, holding hands with my eating disorder as it repeats, "Just go home, you're not sick enough." 

Hours later, I leave. I’m sick enough. 

I used to think I could do anything on my own if I just tried hard enough. Just slap a smile on a face that wanted to cry, push the anxiety out of a mind that needed to crumble and demand more from a body that wanted rest. 

I couldn't do this on my own - so I blew out my own windows. I knocked down my own front door. I marched myself right into treatment as an architect with no blueprint. 

Days pass. 

I lie and say I am busy with work; but not in the way most people think. I am busy learning how to breathe. I am busy calming a racing mind. I am busy telling myself I am OK. 

I am OK. 

Sometimes I find myself laying in my own bed wishing I could go home- with no idea where home is. 

Other times I notice the silence. Notice my heart beating. Fighting. I’ve made it another day - and I’ll make it many more. 

I’m building a house with a door that I have the courage to walk through. With rooms that I deserve to move around in and not for just some of the time. All of the time. 

And things are messy inside: the floor, the bed, the heart. Life. 

In the quiet of my new home I write a note to my eating disorder: 

“Thank you for not being here any more. Your absence has forced me to find my own way.” 

A way of life that is both happy and sad. And I’m still learning how that could be. 

A life with more courage. The courage to say yes. The courage to say no. The courage so say I want and I will. The courage to say goodbye. 

Days pass. 

It’s 10pm. I’m walking home and it’s raining. I’m crying with the sky. Both tears of sadness and tears of joy. 

I mourn the life I lived with my eating disorder- like a friend, always by my side, slapping a smile on their face too. Convincingly repeating, “What’s a life worth living without me?” 

I celebrate the life I’m leading now with the bravery to ask for more - more time, more words, more respect. I am worthy and deserving of the space I take up.

The tears keep falling from my eyes and dripping from the darkness above. I am OK.