Monkey Inside Anorexia, also known as "the monkey inside our head," is a disease that make certain people think that it is a way to make them thin. What people don't understand is that this monkey inside our head isn't healthy and it certainly isn't a diet. Anorexia comes along as a fairly harmless friend and it ends up destroying us from the inside out. We are no longer in control, the monkey is. This isn't a game, it's a sickness. It was quite harmless, or so I thought. A few months later, I had lost the weight and everything was fine. But for some reason, I just wanted to lose more weight. I guess I thought that the more weight I lost, the more friends I would have, the more boys I would get, and more people would stare at me and go, "God isn't she pretty." I admit it did happen for a while. I had what most people would say was a "perfect lifestyle." But you never realize what you have until it is all taken away. I don't really know what started the monkey in my head but I know that I didn't just wake up one day and think that I wanted to deprive myself of food. It creeps up on you slowly over weeks, months, and sometimes it could even take years. But slowly, over time, the monkey takes over your brain. It tells you that everything you are doing is wrong and that everything you eat is going to make you fat. And for some reason, I believed what this monkey in my head was telling me. I did what it told me to do when it told me to do it. I went from being a happy, carefree, little girl to someone obsessed with what she weighed. I wasn't me anymore. The monkey was in control. Over those next few months, thanks to the monkey, I cut down to nearly a quarter of what I should have been eating. I cut all the carbohydrates and fats out my diet and went for days without eating. I would go swimming and exercise to videos, and my own routines, for hours every night. I lived on chewing gum and the bare necessities. In the next three months, my weight dropped dramatically but somehow I still had tons of energy. I would walk to and from school, even though my school was nearly two miles from my house. Food was not important to me anymore, or so I thought. What I didn't know was that food was the most important thing to me. But strangely, I never had one craving for food until after I had been diagnosed. I thought I was perfectly fine. I had convinced myself that what I had was the perfect life, and I guess, at the time I did have a great life without food. It all came to a head when I went swimming one Sunday morning the week before my holiday. This is when my dad first noticed how bony and skinny I was. Without my knowledge, he and my mother must have had endless conversations about me. I was told I could go on my holiday as long as I stuck to an eating plan consisting of half a yogurt in the morning, a smoothie at lunchtime, and a main meal at night. This wasn't ideal but it was all they could force me to eat. In my head, all I heard was "FAT, FAT, FAT!" How could they make me eat this rubbish? Didn't they know that yogurt has FAT in it? I must say that this holiday was one of the worst things I had ever experienced in my life. The eating went good for about a day, until I saw the smoothie being made. Sugar was literally poured into it. That was it. I couldn't eat that! After all my hard work, they were trying to feed me with sugar like a fat little girl. I didn't think so! So after that, smoothies were out of the picture. I survived on half a yogurt and a small dinner, alongside vigorous exercise. To be honest, I have no idea how I did it. It was the most painful experience I have ever had anything that I could do over again, it would have be to never have gone on that holiday. It was the end for me. When I got back to England I was quite pleased with myself. I thought I looked considerably better than I did before. Little did I know, I looked ten times worse. I thought my mother was going to cry when I first saw her. I had no idea why, though. I thought I looked quite slim and I thought she was going to be proud of me. But when she took me into the kitchen, I had never seen so much pain and hurt in one person. She told me I had to go to the doctor because I was ill. I didn't even feel guilty. I just felt angry that she was trying to make me fat. Anorexia can do a lot of things to a persons mind. It can make you a very selfish person and at that point I could have hit my mother for what she wanted to do. I was quite pleased that I had lost 6 pounds on my holiday but the doctor was shocked. He gave me a meal plan and I felt so much hatred towards him at that point. Who did he think he was, telling me what to eat? Does he want to make me fat? Obviously he just wants me to be obese! I barely opened my mouth that day. Actually, I barely opened my mouth any other day. I hardly had enough energy to walk. I lived on weight watcher meals, hardly enough for a person in my condition. I had hairs growing all over my body and I could barely stand up. I would cry over anything and I could barely sleep because my body had no energy. I was a living skeleton but there was no way I was getting fat. There still isn't! That's the thing with people who are anorexic. It's like giving a smoker a nicotine patch. You can't give them the medicine and expect them to not ever smoke again. Anorexia never goes away. Obviously, I was one of the lucky ones whose monkey decided to take a break because for a few moments, I knew I had to get better. I took the meal plan and told myself that I was going to stay really skinny but be able to eat whatever I wanted. I cannot explain the pain, the hard work, or the emotional scars I have been left with or what my family and friends have been going through since the anorexia monkey took over my head. Luckily for me, I had a really good group of friends. I told three of them what was happening, even though I'm guessing that everyone could already tell. But at the time, keeping my monkey secret was the most important thing to me. Then my whole world fell apart. I cannot even put into words how I felt. I felt like I could go to sleep and die for all I cared. I just could not be bothered anymore. Now, I have to add this into the story so you can understand that at the time I was going through this "illness," my whole group of friends started to fall apart. The usual teenage changes were taking place around me and I had to be strong enough to not get dragged into things that were not going to help me. Half of our "group" had decided that they wanted to get drunk at every moment of spare time that they had. Now, when I say drunk, I mean pathetically drunk and arguments would get started. It all came to a head one evening when one of our 'friends' decided to smack me in the face because she had lost her phone. That was it. Everyone was arguing now and nothing could stop it. It felt like the things that had once meant the most to me were drifting away from me. I felt like my life was spiraling out of control again and every day it was getting worse. All I could think about was food and that was strange because as much as I hated eating it, I would think about going home to eat all day. It was like a dream. I would think about food all day but as soon as the food was placed in front of me, it would suddenly turn into a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from. I don't know if all people with the anorexia monkey on their shoulders feel the way I do. I always feel as if everyone else is better than me and everything bad happens to me. All the confidence I once had was gone and had been replaced with a fake smile and constant worry. I have no idea how my friends coped with me. I would spend hours making sure I had perfectly dead straight hair and analyzing everything people said because, even if someone paid me a compliment, I thought it was meant horribly. I could not see how anyone could like me, or even love me, and I always thought people were talking about me. I have no idea why because I knew everyone liked me and thought I was genuine. The worst things are what I call "fat days". Those are the days when I would wake up craving food and would stuff myself with chocolate, ice cream, bread, or anything that I could get my hands on. At the time I would think, "Oh! It doesn't matter," but ten minutes later the guilt would kick in. I wouldn't be able to think properly or communicate and I would cry and cry for hours trying to think of ways to get rid of the food inside of me. I even took random pills that I found in my cupboard hoping it would make me feel sick so I could puke up the food. It only worked once. For days after a "Fat Day," I wouldn't be able to think properly or talk to people. It is so horrible having to think about food every second of the day. I would exercise until I was falling on the floor and I tried to find other things to be addicted to doing instead of thinking about food, like cigarettes and drink, but that didn't last very long. I wish I could say that it goes away, but still nearly two years down the line, I'm constantly depressed and worrying about what others think about me. I can't think straight because I don't have enough oxygen in my brain, which is because of lack of food. I constantly have a small amount of dizziness that washes over me and makes me tired, upset, and worried. I have no confidence anymore, and that is strange because when I was larger, I used to have so much of it. I don't know whether or not to say that things have gotten better since I first got anorexia. I would rather have not known about anorexia because I still had my confidence and my friends until I found out what I had. I have never felt anything so horrible as being depressed, especially when everyone else seems so happy and they can't see why you are upset. Of course my friends helped me through my disease. They truly are the best friends you can honestly wish for. They stood by me through it all and I honestly don't know how they did it. I had so many endless conversations with them about it and still do from time to time. They helped me even when I was at my worst. That is what I call "true friends" and I still feel so guilty about what I put them through and especially about what I've put my family through. I have gone from this care free, loving girl that everyone knew, to a basket of problems. I am especially thankful to my mom and dad. I honestly cannot explain in words what they have done for me, especially my mom. I never used to need her or hardly even spoke to her, but since my illness she has become my rock. We scream and shout and fight and argue. Most days we hate each other, but I know under everything else, she loves me and I wouldn't be here without her. She has been through so much because of my illness and I'm surprised that she didn't get depressed or something else because of what I put her through. She really is such a strong person and I admire her for that.
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