Dear Piper.....

Dear sweet girl,

I chose partial hospitalization for you, because you were moving in my belly, although I didn't believe them that you and I were in danger. But some part of me knew that this was not risk I could take. On some level I knew I had lost insight. I think this decision is why you were born perfect and big. I think the treatment team that supported me through that pregnancy and your first year of life is why you thrived on my milk.

I chose the birth that we had......I made sure you stayed on my chest from your first moments and looked into your eyes as we nursed. Not just through the hospital stay, but for your entire first year- you were never away from the comfort of my milk for more than two hours, and you never even had a bottle. I chose all of this because that's what *we* needed, after all we'd been through. And this took a huge level of committment from daddy. He knew it was so important for me to be with you, and also so very important for me to be in treatment, he devoted hours of driving and holding you while I kept my appointments. All so you could be right in the building if you needed me. We are so blessed. I am grateful I have this wonderful husband and that he is your dad. Because if I had anything to say about it, it wasn't gonna go down any other way. You see, my dear girl, there was so so much grief and despair and anxiety throughout your time in my belly......so many times I sat there, crying and staring at a cookie, and because of this powerful, powerful force inside of me, I just could not eat it. So many times I swam so hard I threw up, or nearly fainted, or drove in the fog of malnutrition, not to hurt you, but because the voice of the eating disorder was too loud and too intertwined with my own. I was more afraid of gaining weight than the consequences of these behaviors. Honestly, if not for you I don't think I would have believed I had anorexia. In the past I have become painfully thin and associated it with discipline and success. Anyone that dared to suggest otherwise was just trying to make me fat. But this time, even though my starving brain had left the lines between healthy eating and a dangerous obsession blurred, I chose treatment.

But I did not choose the disease of anorexia. I did not choose to fail at recovery, over and over and over again. I did not choose the eating disorder voice that resonates so loudly in my head, never dissipating, only vacillating in its intensity and the ugliness of its tone. I mostly fight it, and I mostly do all I can do- which is maintain this status quo, which is so less than perfect and barely good enough.

I did not choose the relapse I had when you were eight months old. I rapidly lost weight after I was told under no uncertain terms that there could be no more weight loss. I took exercise classes I had no business being in given my nutritional status and my weight. Also, it is an unequivocal truth that anorexics who exercise AT ALL until in a very stable period of remission, are at a huge risk of relapse. Because I really had not been able to let it go. Let 100% of the control go. I will not go into how much people misunderstand this fact, and how horrible it is for people with eating disorders to hear that they can exercise all they want as long as they eat.... because unfortunately there are so many things about ED people don't understand.

However, when I was confronted with another admission to PHP, to being unable to continue to nurse you sweet darling, somehow, somewhere inside me, I found the strength to stop that weight loss and stay with you. Every day, I manage to maintain that status quo, the number that is too low, but not low enough that it requires severe restriction to maintain. I eat. I eat a lot. Just not enough for my metabolism, my exercise level, and the fact I barely sit down all day.

I have, according to the experts, made strides. I ate at a buffet on Father's Day. For your dad. And the guilt consumed me for a WEEK. I thought of that as a failure, although I am assured that merely going and trying a few new things and eating dessert was a success- even if I hated myself a little for it.

And here I am again. I have a headache. I have a 60 day streak on a calorie counting app. I engage in triggering conversations about weight and nutrition and exercise that I should steer away from.

But I can't. Because that voice is so loud, and if I listened to it any more than I do I know what would happen- it would look to me like a beautiful snowflake, my weight going down, feeling my bones more sharply with each passing day, heading into a hypermetabolism. And then, suddenly, you look up, the anorexic, and you see an avalanche upon you, barreling down a hill, with enough momentum to not only smash into you with unbelievable force, but to crack every facet of your home and break everyone and everything you hold dear.

My weight is holding. And only because some days I eat. Some days I hate myself for eating and eat far less than I should.

But some days I eat. Some days I nourish my body simply because you call nursing your "cuddles", because you need my milk emotionally even though at 17 months old, you are eating plenty of solid food. You love to cuddle. You are the sweetest, most affectionate child. And I am your world. My therapist says I need to find another passion, something of my own to be good at besides losing weight. Because baby girl, sometimes it's lonely having five kids. I love being a mom. But this eating disorder has become the identity that I need that is just mine.

You, my darling, are my line in the sand. You are the line that I will not cross, because if I crossed it there would be no controlling the force of my anorexia. So I stay so very close to this line, hoping that  can continue this life right there on the edge without falling.

I know what I need though, ultimately, to get into true recovery. I found it once, written in a journal during a period of desperation, scrawled in red Sharpie.....

Find something else.

Find something else. It is a goal my therapist has for me to think about this week.

My daughter, I love you. I do what is in my power. I do not want you to witness this struggle as you grow. But unfortunately, wanting isn't enough. Because having an illness is just not a choice.

And for that, man I am sorry.

Love,
Mama