Separating From Ana

“Learning to deal with the voices is a difficult task…learning to not listen to them can be like killing your best friend. It’s confusing and scary. In a lot of cases our Eating Disorders have kept us focused off of ourselves and emotions, and if we stop listening to the voices, what will we feed our Eating Disorder?” ~ http://www.somethingfishy.org/



The something fishy website is a great website for people who are struggling with eating disorders (along with their friends and family). It covers just about everything on that site and I have gained a lot of encouragement from it.

I talk about Ana a lot - the voice of my eating disorder (Again it is short for Anorexia). Now as I have said before...it's not like I "hear voices" or anything like that. This is basically my own voice in my head that tells me I am the scum of the earth unless the number on the scale is consistently going down. (Which it hasn't in awhile so you can just imagine how unhappy Ana is).

There is a distinct reason I give this voice a name though....because it is not me. Jenna doesn't want these things from her life. Now it is really hard to make this distinction. It is not nearly that black and white. Everytime Ana screams, "You are fat," Jenna believes her. Everytime I believe her we become closer and closer....until the point finally comes that the two are basically inseperable. Jenna has become completely lost and Ana has taken over. I definitely got to this point in March. I had no idea who I was. Ana had said she was my friend and I believed her. She said she had my best interests at heart so I did what she told me to do....in the end though leaving me nothing but completely hopeless and alone. (If you haven't figured it out yet...Ana is the reincarnation of Satan)

Now again, if you have never had an eating disorder this all sounds a little crazy. However, in this entry I have decided that it is time to give myself a little credit for the progress I have made in saying goodbye to Ana. I have been reading a book for awhile called Life Without Ed wrote by Jenni Schaefer. I have read a lot of books about eating disorders however not one has proven nearly as helpful as this one....mainly because it is not wrote by a psychologist -- it is wrote by a real person who has been there. 95% of what she says I can relate with all too well in regards to the tricks your eating disorder plays on you to deceive you into thinking that everything will be ok if you just follow the rules it places in front of you.

Jenni writes about her divorce of Ed (E.D. is short for eating disorder so Ed is the name she gave hers). The opening paragraph of this book reads, "I have never been married, but I am happily divorced. Ed and I lived together for more than twenty years. He was abusive, controlling, and never once hesitated to tell me what he thought, how I was doing it wrong, and what I should be doing instead. I hated him, but I could not leave him. Ed convinced me that I needed him and that without him I was worthless, nothing special, and worse. He told me that he was looking out for my best interest - that his way was for my own good - but he always turned on me. He made promises that he never kept. When I hit bottom physically and emotionally, I finally decided to divorce him"

To start with, even I thought Jenni was a little crazy as she talks about her relationship with her eating disorder....but I realized that was because me and Ana had become so tight I was not realizing how abusive she was being toward me. Jenni is actually a country music singer and wrote a song to go along with her book that now rings in my head every morning when I wake up.

I am beginning to see more and more what Ana does to me. She has completely sucked the life out of me and I am taking my life back. I feel just because I am beginning to recognize the true evilness in Ana is progress in itself. Ana has been my "life boat"...when I feel I am drowning she has always been there saying, "just starve and you won't have to feel the pain." But as Jenni writes, "I realized I didn't need the lifeboat after all. In fact, I stopped panicking out there in the water, put my feet down, and realized that I could stand."

I learning to tell Ana no. Even if I don't feel it. I had an "Ana" conversationn the other morning that was frustrating but when I look back I realized I won a small battle.

Ana: "Go to the gym Jenna. Burn off those calories you just consumed in your strawberry chex."

Me: "But Ana, I really don't want to today. I'm kind of tired and it is kind of rainy out. I really just want to stay in and work on my scrapbook and talk to Jesus a little more."

Ana: "But Dr. Brackett is going to weigh you next week. Don't you want to get that shameful number down as much as you can?"

Me:" Yes"

Ana: "Then go to the gym!"

I began to listen to her. I gathered all of my gym stuff and put my shoes on and walked out on the porch. It was really rainy and gross and a half hour walk just to get to the gym. I stood there for a few minutes and called my mom and asked her to tell me that I didn't have to go...she did. She is my mom and she has never led me wrong thus far....Ana has. I listened to my mom and went back inside.

Not going to lie, I felt extraordinarily guilty but it was nice knowing that Ana didn't win that one. I probably did run a little bit extra the next day but as Jenni writes, "I am definitely not perfect. But I learned that I do not have to be. All I have to be is persistent. Each day I have to keep putting one foot down in front of the other."