I miss you

There are times when I sit and look at old photos, knowing the torture I am putting myself through.

I sit and I cry, missing my eating disorder. Missing it for what it 'gave me'.

I miss hospital, inpatient treatment for the security and the care that I feel has always been absent in my life. There I was always supported, always listened to, always seen as important. Seen. Heard.

People sometimes do not understand institutionalisation, and I never thought it would happen to me. Missing a world of white doors, long corridors, the hardest times of my life, tears, self-harm, purging, confrontation. A world of pills, restrictions, rules, regulations and seeing the sun through a small window or through a puff of smoke. 

How could someone understand that sometimes I miss an illness which tore my life apart, tried to murder me and take me from my family and friends, and from myself.

Who could understand that?

But I don't think we always need to understand.

We just need to be able to grab reality and say, no. 

The reality is an eating disorder kills. It kills you. It kills family. It kills friends. It kills a little part of everyone who knows you.

Nothing good came from this illness, nothing good came from starving myself or attacking myself.

And its here I realise its not me that misses all of this. Its my eating disorder.

So I turn around.

I smile.

And I say out loud, "I don't fucking miss you.".