GUEST POST & POEM by Janice about her journey with Anorexia and giving hope and awaeness

I cry myself to sleep most nights not knowing what to do, but then I stop and think a while the words "I need you". My mother often tells me she needs me by her side back to the girl I was with my bubbly happy smile. I often stop and watch a while the normal world I see, and think of all the reasons why normal don't suit me. Why am I the way I am, why won't it go away, I hope and pray that someday soon the pain will go away. But all I can do is wait and see just what my future holds and take each day, each hour, each step each single thing life throws. I hope someday that I can say the demons have now gone, but until the time that this day comes i sure will battle on.

I have battled anorexia, depression, suicidal thoughts for years now. But I'm trying my best to recover, to live a "normal" life. I was doing my nursing degree when I became very ill with anorexia and had to be hospitalised. Since then I've had many admissions with my last being told that they didn't know how I survived. My organs were shutting down, I was totally bed bound with a nurse sitting at my bed 24/7 in case my health deteriorated as I was at a high risk of cardiac arrest. But thankfully my body fought back. I began to get stronger and could see a glimmer of hope.

I'm a lot better now but I can't say I'm fully recovered as recovery is a very long journey but I'm out of hospital living my life to the best of my ability and fighting the demons in my head every day. 

To anyone who thinks anorexia is a lifestyle choice, a fad I can say it most definitely is not ! It is a potentially fatal mental illness that tortures you every second of every day it takes over your brain tells you your fat, you don't deserve food and it eats away at you until your are too mentally and physically ill to fight back and it won't stop until its consumed every part of you. It would like all of you and it won't stop until it gets what it wants! 

For anyone who is suffering from an eating disorder I urge you to get help right now no matter what weight/age/gender you are. You don't have to be skeletal to suffer from an eating disorder. One thing I will also say is anorexia is not glamorous you think you will lose weight and be beautiful but your not your only an empty shell consumed by the demons. With anorexia you feel like you are in control, losing weight is something your good at you get happy every time that number goes down but believe me that happiness is short lived and no matter how low the number is it will never be low enough, you will never say ok I can stop now because by this stage anorexia is the one controlling you!!