Mistakes. As humans we are rarely
immune to the occasional mishap whereby the results of a particular event are
not as we intended them to be. It is however how we deal with such blunders
that distinguish the overall effect the results will have on the rest of your
life or that of those around you. Moving
on from a mistake can take time depending on the enormity of its outcome and
how much of a detrimental impact it has caused. The inflicted others have the
potential to bear a grudge for an immeasurable amount of time and so though you
will probably never forget, the constant reminder of your lapse in judgement
will make it difficult to move on. As is typically recited, we all learn from
our mistakes. It is not simply about setting out to rectify the damage, but
there is equal importance held in what the experience has taught us. Though I
admit to being a sceptic, there is to some extent a truth in that everything
happens for a reason. I do not believe that our lives have been predestined for
us in a way that we are fated to follow down a particular path, yet I do
believe the aftermath of an atrocity can be led to a somewhat miraculous
conclusion- unobtainable should you have made alternative decisions. Every
cloud has a silver lining. It would be irrational to live in regret- you cannot
change the past. My Anorexia has been my biggest mistake as of yet, though I
cannot deny that the joyous events I would have previously been dubious of
their likelihood of ever occurring, have surprisingly ensued as a result. I do
not feel I should owe my Anorexia anything, but my life seems to have
transpired in a beneficial way.
I am using my own experience to
vocalise an honest description of what it is like to suffer from Anorexia, what
the disorder is, how we deal with it and more painfully what the cause was.
Though it is a very personal account, I feel I can of sorts vouch for others in
a similar situation without sounding insincere. I have been alerted to the
notion society has of mistakenly labelling a skinny person as ‘anorexic’. I
continue to accentuate the complexity of Anorexia whereby it should not or
CANNOT be used as an undermining insult to non-sufferers who happen to be of a
slimmer nature. Our culture has begun to use valid medical terms in a
derogatory way, such is the case with the word ‘spastic’, which had been
previously a socially legitimate way to describe a person suffering from muscle
spasms such as cerebral palsy. It is in using Anorexia in such a demeaning
fashion that we underestimate its severity and create the misconception that it
is purely a weight issue; it is more than this, it is a mental condition which
affects the way we perceive our emaciated selves by surrendering to a punishing
and gruelling starvation regime. Society has managed to blur the lines between
what is truly Anorexia or simply a radical diet. You cannot switch off Anorexia
or fall off the dieting band-wagon as it were by greedily indulging when the
temptation becomes too much to bear. There is no allowance for spontaneous
snacking. Ever. Each decision on what we are to eat requires immeasurable
scrutiny and an agonising mental battle before it can even be conjured up
before us. In re-establishing the foundations, the stigma associated with the
disorder can be rectified in such a way that people will no longer be afraid to
speak out and ask for help.
