Maybe I'm Just Not Sick Enough...

Maybe I'm just overreacting. Maybe I'm just being dramatic. Maybe I can still cope. Maybe other people have it worse. Maybe I should wait. Maybe I should get a little bit sicker first. Sound familiar? Because if it does, you're exactly who I wrote this for.

One of the biggest lies an eating disorder ever tells you is that recovery is something you have to earn, it convinces you that before you're allowed to ask for help you have to prove just how unwell you are. So you wait, you wait until you've lost a little more weight or you wait until you've skipped more meals or you wait until somebody notices because surely then... surely then you'll finally desece help. But here's the problem, the eating disorder never wanted you to feel worthy. It wanted you to keep waiting because every day you tell yourself, "not yet" is another day the eating disorder gets exactly what it wants. More control. More silence. More of your life. The cruelest part?

You don't even realise you're chasing something impossible because every time you get sicker the eating disorder just makes more rules. Yesterday it was "lose a little more," and today it's "you're still not that bad." Tomorrow it'll be something else, the finish line is designed for you to never reach it.

The eating disorder doesn't want you to ask for help because asking for help threatens it. The moment you tell somebody what's really going on, it loses some of its control. So instead it keeps moving the never ending finish line. Have you noticed something? No matter where you are, it's never enough. Someone who has lost weight thinks they haven't lost enough, someone who hasn't eaten all day tells themselves they should have gone loner and someone who's reached the number they promised themselves they'd stop at suddenly has a new number. The rules never stop because the eating disorder isn't trying to help you recover. It's trying to make sure you never believe you've earned it, that's why so many people wait not because they don't need help but because they're waiting for a version of themselves that doesn't exist. That version will never arrive because eating disorders don't have an end point, they have an endless list of conditions you'll never be able to meet. Every day you spend trying to become "sick enough" is another day the eating disorder gets to convince you that your suffering still isn't enough.

So if you're reading this and you're telling yourself you'll ask for help when you've lost more weight, when you've skipped more meals or when you've become sicker... I need you to read this and take it in. You're waiting for permission from the very thing that doesn't want you to recover. The eating disorder will never ever look at you and say "you've done enough now." It will never tell you you've suffered enough, it'll never decide you're finally worthy because if it did, it would lose you.

So please don't spend another day trying to prove to an illness that you're unwell enough, you don't need to convince your eating disorder that you're struggling. You already are. The moment you started wondering if you were sick enough was the moment you were already carrying more than you should have to. Don't wait until your world has become so small that there's nothing left except the eating disorder and don't wait for permission that is never coming. Choose yourself before the eating disorder chooses for you because, one day I hope you'll look back and realise this: you were never "not sick enough," you were just listening to an illness that never wanted you to believe you deserved recovery and you always did deserve recovery.

With Love, Niomi 🤎