My children

When I sit and think back to my years battling my eating disorder I feel so many different things.
To the young girl, the teenager, the young woman, I feel a sense of respect.
I am proud of her, of her battle, of her fight that she never gave up on.
She admitted her problems and took control over her life.
Them hospital admissions, she never failed. Each one brought her closer to life and closer to freedom. She held her head high, she cried, she laughed, she got her metaphorical sword and invited her eating disorder to a challenge. The prize being life. being love. being happiness.
She won.

But then, I look back to the child which got diagnosed with an eating disorder at 8.
I cannot help but cry and feel like I want to go back to her and hold her in my arms and tell her it's alright. But what would I say? That yes, dear child, things will get better. You are a princess who one day will be given a sword and will fight this evil dragon to the death, yours or its. But you will win this fight in 15 years. 15 long, long years.
It makes me so angry that I lost them precious years of my childhood, that I cannot claim them back and never will.
Them countless times being told, 'darling, you cannot go outside at playtime. You are too weak. You cannot do sport. You cannot join sports day'.
And I would sit and watch the other children play and laugh. And I wasn't a part of it.
Being bullied, called a monster, a skeleton girl.
And of course them other children would say such things. I would sit on a bench so often and someone would come and ask why I am crying. I'd scream that the voices are too loud.
For a while, I think the doctors thought I had schizophernia. I would talk about them voices that screamed all day and night.
The smell of rotten food in my bedroom and behind the couch which swiftly sift through the house like a plague, and my mum would shake me and scream 'please eat'. 'No'. would be my answer.
I went into a world of silence. Where the only voices I would respond to were the ones in my head.
I have a distinct memory of looking at myself in the mirror, taking hold of a knife and carving fat in my leg. And when the sun shines, I can still see that word. It reveals itself like a bad memory coming back to haunt me.

I just get angry, why did this poor, innocent child get this? She was too young too fight. Too young to understand.

I just want to say darling, I love you.
I just want to take her hand. Hold it. Squeeze it. And cry with her. For her.
At night, when I used to pray to God to kill me, I want to brush her hair off her face and kiss her brow.

I can sit here and do all I can to help those who have eating disorders as women and men, but for the children... I feel helpless. And when I see children on the news talking about diets, I get a pang in my heart and I cry for them, for their mothers and fathers.

What can I do?
Little. But I must be able to do something?
Yes I can. I am going to make a new channel about children with eating disorders.
I want to make a charity for these children.
I am going to do it.
Sia Jane, I know you will help me. Any others, please get in touch.

xxx