Things can change. 

These manipulating destructive voices inside our heads may never turn completely silent, but we can learn not to listen to them. When we finally make the decision to take back control over our lives, over our actions, our thoughts doesn't affect us that much anymore. They lose power.

Three months ago I felt like life couldn't get any worse. I was in a depressive episode due to my Bipolar disorder, I was having extreme and fast mood swings due to my Borderline personality disorder, I was torturing my body as a consequence of my eating disorder and I was self-harming basically every night. 

It was long after my first stay at a psychiatric hospital, many years past my first meeting with a psychiatrist, long after I dropped out of school but only a couple of months since I had made the promise not to attempt suicide again. I never break promises. I felt stuck, desperate. It was after the time my job had offered to pay for residential treatment and I had agreed to go, actually feeling hope again - just to find out that it wouldn't happen. 

I had given up. 

The voices in my head were loud and destructive. I believed every word they said, every single lie that the bullies told and I made my truth many years ago. My therapist told me that my eating disorder was life-threatening, that I was going to die if I kept treating my body that way. I didn't care. The monster inside of me was cheering: "Yes you're doing it right! Keep going, keep pushing harder. The sooner the better." The part of me that didn't want to die, that just wanted to be thinner, to be accepted, to be liked, to be happy - was gone. I didn't think life would ever get better and Iaughed at all the people telling me to hold on. 

I don't know how it happened, but it did get better. Here I am, in New York City for a summer program in advanced acting for film. I didn't only cross the Atlantic to get here, but to get in front of the camera and up on stage I also had to stop listening to all those lies the voice inside my head constantly tells me. 

I've made friends, lots of friends: the most amazing people that I hope I stay in touch with for the rest of my life. They tell me I'm beautiful, that they love my style, that they love me. My roommate and I are going on a roadtrip to Florida once the course ends, she lives there and I'm gonna stay with her for a couple of days. I've been in several short films, I did a monologue at our talent show, I got upon stage in front of our acting class performing a poem I wrote myself ending it with ripping my long-sleeved shirt of revealing all of my scars. The most talented people I've ever met have told me that I'm good, that I'm "freakingly talented", that they think I'm actually gonna be able to make it as an actress. I don't get it. I don't understand it. Why are these people so nice to me? Why are they saying all those things? Do they mean it? The voices in my head desperately tells me not to believe them, that they are lying, that no one likes me, that I'm fat, ugly and disgusting. I still can't chose not to believe it, but I can chose not to follow what it tells me to do. I can't make it shut up, but I can refuse to listen.

I have eaten every single meal during these weeks. I haven't skipped a single meal, I haven't restricted, I haven't purged, I haven't binged. My thoughts constantly comes back to the amount of calories I've just eaten. The monster inside screams: "Too much! Too much!". I don't listen. I eat. 

I may always chose the healthiest option possible but I always eat a proper meal when I'm supposed to. Why? I need to. I need food to be able to perform my best on stage. Unfortunately that's not always reason enough. Most of the time I try to be a good role model for others. I want to be someone that others can look to and say: "Well she eats good, healthily - maybe I can to?" I hate the size zero-ideal, why should I follow it and in that way be a part of it? Once again, I want someone to look at me and say: "She isn't a size zero, but she seems to live a good life anyway - maybe I don't have to lose weight either?"

I want to live. I want to live even though it hurts. I want to feel, I want to make my dreams come true, I want to try and make the world a better place, I wanna make a difference. 

The will to live came back as soon as I started working towards my dreams again, as soon as I found something to live for. My dreams are more important than my eating disorder. My dreams are louder than the voice of my eating disorder. I'm working hard and I'm getting closer every day. My scars on the outside are healed, they will always be there but they are healed. My throat is no longer sore from purging too much, I no longer faint when exercising and I no longer need to sleep during my lunch breaks. The scars on the inside are deeper, harder to heal, but that's alright. I've got time. I've got a whole life ahead of me. 

One thing has changed in the way I look at myself: I no longer think of myself as "Diana, fat, ugly and disgusting" and neither as "Diana, mentally ill with an eating disorder". Now when I look at myself I think: "Diana; aspiring actress, passionate and hard-working - recovering from an eating disorder and mental illnesses". Cause things can change. Those manipulating, destructive voices inside my head doesn't have to turn completely silent cause I no longer listen to them. 

When I took control over my life, my actions and my dreams, the thoughts lost their power. I don't need them. They are not helpful to me anyways. 

So believe me everyone who is in the place I used to be: things does get better. Life is worth living and you are worthy of life.

My name is Diana Gimling. I am 18 years old, from Sweden. I am an aspiring actress, working hard towards my dream, even though I currently earn my living doing something completely different. I am also really passionate about music, dancing and horses. I am diagnosed Bipolar 2, Borderline and EDNOS. I have been struggling with self-harming since I was 12 years old and I definitely know what it's like being at the bottom, seeing no way out of the darkness.

Beautiful Diana! What an inspiration. Thank you so much for sharing!!!

xoxo

Tayla

One of the reasons why eating disorders remain elusive and complex is, paradoxically, their invisibility.  

In some cases, it may be more than apparent that a person is suffering from an eating disorder, merely by looking at their physical appearance.  In other cases, the illness is not so apparent, yet this does not make it any less serious.  

Eating disorders are as much of a mental illness as they are a physical one, and a great deal of the pain and torment is invisible to the outside world.  A great deal of the pain is caused by the voice many of us hear reverberating deep within our despairing minds.  

The voice.  It sounds mysterious, does it not? 

I gave my ED voice a name, just so that she was easier to live with...what a joke.  Or did she give herself a name, so that I would be more accepting of her with a pretty name, despite the foul words she incessantly spat at me?  Ana.

Ana; the voice of my self-hatred.  Ana; the voice of my self-worthlessness.  Ana; the voice of false hope.  Ana; the voice of self-purposelessness.  Ana; the voice of false promise.   Ana; the voice of my anorexia. 

She has been with me as far back as I can remember, but undoubtedly became stronger and more vicious in the form of the ED voice.  Now knowing that I have borderline personality disorder has helped me come to terms with how I latch on to anorexia’s voice so tightly.  

And me being me, wanting to please everyone, I obeyed obsequiously.  

In nursery school, I remember everyone else singing a song about how they were happy to be themselves, no matter who they were, and my voice and I sat there perplexed, utterly unhappy with myself, not even really knowing who I was – me or her.  In infant school, she led me to believe that I was fat.  In early high school she robbed me of my already dwindling confidence, self-worth and self-esteem.  In mid high school, she led me to more serious self-harm and anorexia.  By college, I was a mere shell, lifeless and just existing.  For years, I was depressed, anxious, paranoid, anorexic, covered in scars, cuts and bruises, scared, alone, hurting and just wanting out.

Ana had filled me with such hope and false promises of happiness.  Instead of feeding myself with food, Ana fed me with lies.  

I wanted to disappear to avoid getting hurt again and again; I wanted to be empty and clean; I believed that losing weight would lead to happiness and being loved, something for which I longingly craved, and so the impeccable lies Ana fed me, in my vulnerable and state of never feeling comfortable in my own skin in the world, I willingly consumed.  

These lies led me to numerous hospitalizations, with a tube thrust up my nose, a cannula jabbed in my arms and being watched 24/7, just to keep me alive.  All because of a voice full of lies which I thought was protecting me like my own personal body guard.

For years, Ana was my only real companion, the only one there for me in a world into which I did not fit, the only one that could ease the turmoil within and the only one I could be myself with.  There was no ‘myself’ though.  It was always Ana.  I lost myself, whoever ‘myself’ was, to this monstrous impostor living rent-free in my mind.  

I needed the safety she offered; but it was a sham safety and I was under her enchanting spell.  I felt threatened by recovery and scared of life without my secret magic trick, and to say that this fear is no longer here would be a lie.  I trusted this voice more than anyone; she really did have me under her spell.  

She is still there, and grows stronger the more I fight back, but the voices of those supporting me are singing louder and lifting me forward.  They kick started the fight when I was too lost to see that I was lost.  

You have to realize that recovery is a fight, before you are able to start fighting.  

This took me a long time, and I still struggle with it today because that voice niggles away, painfully.  Recovery hurts.  Being trapped inside an anorexic mind and body numbs all intense feelings, both good and bad: this and depression left me feeling nothing but numb and dead inside.  However, at the same time, BPD also means that as well as going through periods of feeling nothing, I also experience spells of feeling everything so intensely that it is beyond unbearable and I just want to get out of my skin, claw at it and get out of my body.  

With recovery, more ‘normal’ feelings are returning to me, which is terrifying, but at least it is life, and I have to work hard to convince myself that it is better than the cold, dark hell of anorexia.

Step by step, with the support of therapy, love of a best friend, and kindness of friends in my life, these changes are happening, like little chemical reactions sparking off in my head.  The more I realize anorexia’s demonic traits, the easier it becomes to challenge and distance myself from her voice.  

I was once told I need to divorce myself from this voice, yet it is only now that I am beginning to realize what this means, as well as ‘kicking some anorexic ass’, of which I literally had no idea what it meant.  I now call Ana by a different name; ‘Bub’.  It stands for ‘bloody ugly bitch’, (excuse my language) because to me, the voice is so much more than a voice.  The voice is memories and pain and torment and nightmares and despair and flashbacks, so the more I realize this, the more I can fight with a great army behind me.  

I am now strong enough to start the divorce proceedings against the voice, and long for the decree nisi to become absolute.  I still have such a long and twisting road to walk as Bub is a constant source of agony trying to break me down by using my insecurities and fears against me, but I am sick of her.  

Sick and tired.  

Although, I think you have to get sick and tired to really be able to fight back.  I long to feel safe and comforted.  I long for some inner peace from the torment within my mind.  

I long to be free of her voice.  


This freedom, is my dream.

For around nine years, I have been incredibly lost in the half-life that is anorexia. Thanks to dedicated support from the most wonderful friends, for which I am eternally grateful, I am now meandering along the ever rocky road that is recovery. Life may not yet be ideal, but at least I am now meandering, and meandering, overall, in the right direction. My goal is to return to university this autumn.  I write a blog (http://adiostoanorexia.blogspot.co.uk/) to help others and to help keep me motivated with my recovery journey. I am on a journey to finally find out who I really am, to become who I really want to be, without any shackles to hold me back. I am so lucky to have exceptional friends, support team, hope and faith. This is my fight for recovery and for freedom, because recovery from this monster is a fight, an extensive fight that I can and will win, and so can you!  

Angharad, that was such an amazing story! Thank you so much for being brave ad sharing with us:) 

xoxo

Tayla