Dear [whoever I decide to give this to],
I’m writing this out because I’ve yet to find the courage to admit all of it out loud. Thank you for reading:
I hope you never have to see what I’m watching now. I hope you never have to sit back and watch yourself die. Which is exactly what I am doing, watching myself slowly fade away. I can’t watch any longer. I don’t want to sit with my hands tied behind my back. I feel trapped. My eating disorder is slowly shutting down my body. But I need it. Why? Because the eating disorder is what is keeping me from being suicidal. After I failed at my suicide attempts, I began to intently focus on succeeding in controlling what did and did not go in my body, when I threw up, how often, ect. I felt like if I couldn’t succeed at death, the one thing I had put my heart into, I’d be damned if I didn’t succeed at the only other thing that consumed my every thought. Now, I’m up against a wall. If I get help for my eating disorder, I face being suicidal again. If I don’t, I face dying of malnutrition. Truth is, I don’t want to die at all. I know it sounds crazy, but even though I don’t want to, I have no control at this point. The ED is keeping me alive in a sense, it’s keeping the suicidal/depressive thoughts and impulsive actions away. And honestly, it’s the only thing keeping them away. However, I can also feel the effects it is having on my body.
I need help. I cannot, in any way shape or form, do this by myself. I have started out patient treatment for my ED—while following my meal plan, something clicked and a red flag went up. Even though it was only a few days in to it, those depressive thoughts already began to resurface. I know I need to confront these feelings. I know I need to work through them. But honestly, I’ve been covering them up for so long with the eating disorder, I don’t even know what they are. Truthfully, I’m terrified to find out. There’s a reason they’ve been buried all of these years, there is a reason they drove me to suicide attempts beforehand. But as scared as I am, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to watch myself wither away to nothing, because at this point the bulimia has rapidly transformed in to early stages of anorexia. I also don’t want to watch myself end my own life. One of the two will happen if I don’t get the proper help soon. I don’t have time to wait any longer. I don’t know how else to express how desperate I am.
I am taking a medical withdrawal from school for the semester. I can no longer ignore my past- it’s causing me to destroy my future. I long to be an amazing teacher someday- but at this point, I don’t even see myself graduating college. Deep down, I think it’d be a good idea to be admitted to either impatient or residential. I don’t just have to tackle bulimia; I have to be in a safe environment while doing so. I don’t trust myself to be safe without an eating disorder. As much as its killing me, it’s been what’s kept me alive thus far. I’m horribly scared to go through with this, afraid even if I give it my all, it wont work. But there is no other choice. No other option. I need the extra nudge in the right direction- please, will you give it to me?
