Rosie Langford: Becoming limitless
Hi warriors!
I’m Rosie and I’ve been in recovery since I was 15, I was diagnosed with orthorexia when I was 14. I’m 17 now… and I’m in a really good place of my recovery, untwisting more thoughts to become kinder ones each day.
For I while I felt embarrassed and ashamed. Orthorexia isn’t as well ‘known’ as other eating disorders and I felt inferior because of it. I compared myself to those suffering with anorexia all the time, I was envious of the acknowledgment of their illness against mine. It made me want to worsen myself even when I was already unhealthy, with unhealthy thoughts, overwhelming emotions and illogical happiness.
So I’ll start by explaining orthorexia. It’s an obsession, a mental illness and an eating disorder. “Orthorexia is an unhealthy focus on eating in a healthy way. Eating nutritious food is good, but if you have orthorexia, you obsess about it to a degree that can damage your overall well-being.”
Really it’s living life in black and white. Good and bad, no balance and no middle ground. It’s ruthless and relentless, a constant pressure to become my ‘best’ that flips the coin to being so rigid and inflexible that I hold myself back… so even if I’m my ‘healthiest self’ I still can’t go for meals with friends, skip workouts or eat a single bite of something I believe to be ‘bad’.
Everything has to be, "pure," or "clean". And while I’m not starving myself, I am hungry… really hungry for life. Really hungry to not have limitations, labels, food in boxes that stop me from just being 17 and social.
But something has changed… and that’s why I believe I’m in a good place in my recovery. Because it’s new, and exciting and encouraging.
Lots of my ‘behaviours’ are actions out of my body image. So if I’m on a good body image day my actions will align that I’ll be a little kinder to myself that day. Even if that kindness is just dreaming to be able to eat the crips that my friends offer me at school, or the sweets I always win in math class or having a slice of the birthday cake that we had for my brothers birthday last week.
I’m on the athletic team at school for long jumping and it’s something I love, really love. I’m a long jumper and I know that eating healthy is good for me… but I also know my mind isn’t. I’m aware which is good, I’m not in denial of wanting to be my healthiest self and I accept that it’s swung into a desire and need never to slip up. But my freedom is slipping due to it… so now I must focus on balance. I must focus on stopping to label foods and see everything as good as long as it’s in balance. I want to celebrate with cake, I want to say yes to being handed a crisp, I want to be able to not have boundaries or have to research restaurant menus when I’m out with friends and say no if the place doesn’t have anything.
But recently my body image is evolving into a really good, happy place. I feel mad happy about it because it’s given me the confidence to start stripping ‘bad labels’ on food. I am beginning to blur the lines! Especially with childhood food, so some of my favourite meals from childhood have reappeared into my life lately and I feel like it’s because of this!
Health isn’t just what you’re eating, it’s more importantly what you’re thinking, what you’re saying, what you’re telling yourself. Being kind with yourself is the challenge of orthorexia.
But I am learning to be kind. I want to be limitless and have food be in colourful boxes, all that I can have. No black and white. But everything I can have, I can have what I feel. I want to take rest days, cinema days, holidays! I know what I want, and it’s to recover. It’s just about my actions now and I feel like my recovery is on a new level of confidence to change my thoughts and make them for free and more flexible.
Lots of love
Rosie x