Despite almost never writing these days, I am still here and I still have the DESIRE to write, just not the accompanying drive to action. However, I find myself here with minutes to spare and the determination to put something down.

Because it’s important.

To be fair, I know I’m over reacting, which, naturally, doubles my irritation, but it would seem that I’m not beyond being stung by a throwaway comment. Damn.

I’m angry and frustrated with myself. Even more so because I should be better… and bigger… and past it… and all those things that I expect of myself. Obviously, I am not as immune or as desensitised (read: ‘protected’) as I think.

I spent a lovely weekend with old friends. It’s the first time I’ve made a reunion in a long time, and I’m so glad I went. Earlier, I was showing my youngest sister some photos and happily telling her about it, until she asked if everyone had been understanding of my… condition. Well. They were, yes.

I mean, my old friends from way back. They knew me pre illness. They know me. They love me.

Just one teeny statement though, managed to blow a hole in my surface.

“It is a choice. Anorexia IS a choice”

No it’s not.

“It is”

What do you say?

Even a few minutes walking round some rock pools don’t elicit any responses. An unexpected shot. And yeah… I have to admit, I was a little wounded.

So this is my belated response.

I’ll tell you what’s really weird… and not to be written lightly… When someone suffers with Anorexia, it can be so acute, and so very life changing, that it appears odd that it remains something ‘in the abstract’. For example, despite the knowledge that Anorexia is a MENTAL illness, if a radiologist did a brain scan, a patient with an eating disorder (and maybe their loved ones) might almost expect to see large shadows obliterating whole sections of their brain. (Nowadays of course, neuroscience and improving technology seem to be making it possible to identify all sorts of quirks and trends in the structure of the brain). But for most of us who battle this dominant demon of hunger, it remains an imagined shadow, or a toxic spillage seeping into hidden cranial cavities. Of course it won’t show up on a scan. It’s too deadly for that.

I KNOW it’s different. I know it can be a temporary coping mechanism for some, and yes it can be something of a cry to be heard, or even a teenage tantrum for a minority, but for many of us, Anorexia is as impossible to CHOSE as meningitis is to contract. You just wouldn’t think to announce to someone with brain cancer that their illness is a choice. I KNOW it’s “not the same… yade dade yada…” but I’m telling you, this thing that plagues me… this THING that has destroyed a whole decade of my life, isn’t a matter of choice. It’s an illness. As present and as torturously painful as anything physical.

Eating disorders can’t just be selected and applied. They begin so small that they’re invisible; and by the time they’re making changes to your body, they’re bedded down hard.

Choice DOES come into it. But not there.

I’ll tell you where next time.

In the meantime, telling your sick friend that they chose their illness, is as helpful as a kick in the teeth.