Ed

I never was too much into the personification of Ana (or Mia, depending on your personal food kink/disorder type).

But I’ve seen a few people in recovery jokingly speak of Ed (E.D. – Eating Disorders), as a non-glamourized personification.

And I was thinking about this other day and it occurred to me, living with Ed is so much like living with an abusive man.

You don’t want anyone to know Ed is hurting you. So you hide the harm Ed does. Ed leaves you bruises and you joke about how clumsy you are. But Ed is hurting you. His physical abuse leaves you bruised, tired, sore. Your very bones ache. You feel nauseated and sick. Sometimes he knocks out your teeth. Sometimes he cuts you. You wear long pants and long sleeved shirts in the summer and say you’re cold (which is true, because he denies you enough food with iron in it to stay warm). Sometimes Ed hurts you so badly you end up in the emergency room.

He controls everything you do, deliberately isolates you from your friends so you can spend more time with him, criticizes you constantly, picks on your clothes, your looks, your makeup, relentlessly points out every flaw. If you gain even one single pound he notices, and bullies you until you do something to take it off, and five more. Ed points out other women and tells you they are prettier, thinner, more desirable. Ed points out other joggers or bikers who go faster than you, even after you’ve been going for miles, and tells you that you’re lazy if you can’t keep up.

Ed keeps you from sleeping at night, bothering you, keeping you up late, reminding you of every mistake you’ve made that day, sometimes yelling at you until you get out of bed and promise to fix your mistakes.

Ed watches your every move, and if you sneak away to have some “bad” food, he catches you at it and screams at you till you cry, sometimes until you throw up.

If you tell people about how badly Ed is hurting you, he threatens to leave you, threatens you that you’ll never find anyone else because you are so worthless, you are nothing without him, and next thing you know you are telling everyone that maybe you were just being too hard on him, or denying it all again. Sometimes you can tell people what Ed is doing to you and they just don’t believe it. They insist you look well and fine, they joke that maybe they need someone like Ed around to help them improve themselves, they tell you a little constructive criticism can be motivating. Unless Ed hurts you so badly you go into the hospital, people just don’t want to believe he can be that bad – he’s such a charming guy.

But mainly you don’t complain about him because you can’t imagine life without Ed. He has made himself the center of your world. If Ed demands you quit seeing a friend, you quit seeing them. If he demands you quit doing something, you quit doing it. After all, before he came along you were just dumpy, ordinary, lazy, clumsy, selfish, but you had such potential, and well he recognized it, and promised you he’d help you become the beautiful woman he could see inside you – just as long as you went along with a few ideas he had for you to improve yourself. No pain, no gain – no beauty comes without a price – right?

One day you wake up and you realize your life is out of control. And maybe you need help to get away from Ed. So you leave, and go to someone for help. But Ed stalks you. You look up and see him when you’re grocery shopping, when you’re at a restaurant. You’re afraid he will come around if you are alone at night, when you are naked and defenseless in the shower. At first maybe he just talks to you. You can try to tell people about it but unless he’s actually physically hurting you they tell you just to ignore him or refuse to talk to him and he’ll go away. But he keeps coming back. Maybe even 5 years later when you think he’s forgotten you cross the street one day and there he is, behind the plate glass window of a store, staring back at you. Letting you know he’s there. Always watching. Always waiting.

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