At age fourteen, I was a mess of contradictions. I felt like no one cared about me despite the outpouring of love I received from my family and friends. I thought my parents hated me and sent me to treatment to torture me and make me fat, not because they were at a loss for how to help me and only wanted me to be happy and healthy. I thought my boyfriend only liked me for my body, which couldn’t possibly have been true because I was well on my way to emaciation, and he put more than enough thought into my wellbeing.

At the same time, I didn’t want anyone to care about me. I often confided in my journal and to my therapist that I wished people would simply give up on me and let me self-destruct. I wished my boyfriend wouldn’t beg me to eat. I wished my mom wouldn’t confiscate my razors. I wanted people to leave me alone and let me drown in self-loathing and unhealthy behaviors. I ignored the people who loved me, misinterpreting their concern as an attempt to control me, and I was repulsed by any act of care or kindness because  I felt like I wasn’t worth it.

These days, I have a little more perspective than I did when I was first diagnosed with anorexia and depression. Sometimes, I still wish people would just leave me alone and let me self-harm or starve myself. But I’ve also learned that I can’t have it both ways. If I want to have meaningful relationships in my life, I can’t immerse myself in my mental illnesses.

If I did everything alone, or went everywhere with only Ana, things would be different. I could have purged that night at Hamburger Mary’s. But my friends were there, and Oxana followed me into the bathroom. She didn’t do it because she was mad at me or trying to control me; she did it because she was concerned. My little freak-out really scared and upset Christin. She knew exactly what I was doing when I headed towards the bathroom, and she said she felt “defeated,” when she saw me leave. That’s not how I want the people I care about to feel. I don’t get to have it both ways. I can’t care about my friends and girlfriend and not expect them to care about me in return. If the roles were reversed, and Christin were the one with the eating disorder, I would want to do everything I could to help her on her journey to recovery. It only makes sense that my friends want the same for me.

Anorexia is loneliness. It is not strength or hard work. It is a potentially fatal disease that I have to fight. My ultimate anorexic fantasy was as follows: I live alone in my own apartment. I don’t have a refrigerator because I don’t ever buy anything to put in it. My cupboards are bare and empty. I have a coffeepot that I use frequently, and I feed my dog more often than I feed myself. The fantasy never involved any friends, a girlfriend, or even a roommate. Letting anyone get close to me meant that they might care, and having someone care about me meant someone coming between Ana and me. I couldn’t have that. I see now how miserable and lonely that fantasy is. I would much rather have a full life, complete with friends, family, and Christin.

Food is not just necessary. It is fun, pleasurable, and it can bring people together. Today, I have a nasty cold, and when I told Christin that I’m sick, she offered to make me some soup. She loves to cook, but I told her not to bother with all that because I didn’t feel like I was worth the trouble. I was self-conscious at the thought of my girlfriend seeing me in sweatpants and a t-shirt, and I had been too tired to even take a shower. I fell asleep, and the next thing I knew, she was at the door with a container of homemade soup. If I was still my fourteen-year-old self, I would have been terrified that someone cared about me that much, but today I was just happy to see my lovely, gourmet-cooking girlfriend. I ate the soup without a second thought, and it was delicious. Ana was nowhere in sight; she wasn’t whispering in my ear that I needed to purge as soon as Christin left, or  that I wasn’t allowed to eat dinner if I ate the soup. Sick people should have soup. It’s a fact of life. When someone I care about cooks for me, I want to be able to enjoy it wholeheartedly, and not obsess over calories and the like. That’s exactly what I did today. I can only hope it means Ana’s grip on me is loosening.