It doesn’t discriminate
There is not one age, social status, family model or culture it attacks
For it cares not of its victims
And only of itself
It starts with a piece of truth, a thought, or an innocent comparison
Unassumingly it twists and bleeds the truth of its substance until it is something altogether different, consuming and caging
It hisses and curses and distorts
It calls you “fat, undisciplined, stupid, a failure”
You frantically look in the mirror but your reflection no longer belongs to you
It shows you only what it wants you to see
Your eyes deceive you and so you believe it
Conformity to its commands doesn’t make you happy but at least it offers relief from the incessant mutterings
It is always whispering and when it’s not it’s screaming
Food has no taste, life begins to lose its color, and so do you
The noise of it starts to sound normal and so you listen
It hates those that love you, and anything that brings you joy
It wants you exclusively for itself
So it feeds you a steady diet of lies, hoping to make you hate them too
It questions the goodness of God, and if He even exists
It steals away the joy of music, and snuffs out the light of your talent
It hurts those that love you the most in attempt to push them away
The lies fill you, instead of food
No matter how it hurts them - they keep loving you
And This will be its undoing
Love
For love does not discriminate, and cares nothing of itself
Love protects and hopes and perseveres
Love waits patiently
Love never fails
I promise to keep loving you until you come back to us and for all the days after.
To the reader, be it intrigue, interest or desperation that drove you seek out this title, may I ask, what do you picture when you hear anorexia?
Now, take all those preconceived ideas, stereotypes and ask instead ‘what if all you imagined is wrong?’
What if anorexia steals the minds away of the unsuspecting, and of the best intentioned?
What if anorexia hurts kids whose parents love them?
What if anorexia isn’t gender discriminative?
What if you can’t understand until you’ve been in it?
I didn’t understand
Mental illness is a full-frontal attack on our humanity, it’s the poisoning of the human mind, heart, soul and body until all that remains is a hollowed out shell resembling the physical form of what once was. But, it’s not without hope or the possibility of healing.
Mental health battles are real, they are misunderstood and under discussed.
And though love seems an unlikely and nonsensical weapon - it's a weapon that has stood the test of time, for when we are unlovely God chooses to love us through the ugly.
