Lily Mazzullo: My struggling silence

Hey everyone,

I suffered in silence with anorexia for two years.

I starved myself because I thought my eating disorder was serving me. I thought it was an outlet for my perfectionism, self-hatred and lack of self-acceptance, obsessive compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety, past bullying and trauma, need for control, and my drive.

I would write lists and lists of things to improve on as a dancer, from firebirds to entrechats, and yet finally when m i developed my ED and was underweight I felt like i was automatically working harder than everyone else, and was so much more of a standout dancer than I ever was.

Dancing was and is my passion, but when I had to choose between eating and dancing or not eating and not dancing my ed would always win

It turned a passion into a critiquing session

Of course, I was ultimately pulled out of dance for the time being as my ed became more important

It made me fell worse and better and worse and better about myself constantly, and was a consuming mental war zone.

After dance class everyday i would go to the gym to perform one of my 10x more strenuous crunches and workout routine.

A common theme in my life was like it was as though I could see the invisible, I could always tell when someone would say one thing and do another, and i overthought everything that i felt as though something must be wrong with me. Restricting, i felt like for once I was doing something right.

My eating disorder is my way of voicing my struggles.

I thought by being physically in danger and on edge I made way and since I had gone so long not knowing how to communicate my struggles this was my message.

It was my voice for so long, and that is why I hold on.

Lie after lie I could take the abuse but not the absence

And now i can see it so clearly

Anorexia almost killed me 

And i sit here looking towards my ed to aid me

When truth be told it broke me

So I am 15 years old, and trying to recover.

After treatment in a medical hospital and residential center for a long time, I am home.

I made the most amazing friends in treatment, who I connected with so deeply as we all understood each other.

I am doing my best everyday to continue pushing even when the urges are so tempting, I know in order to stay home I need to stay strong.

I find myself holding onto the eating disorder identity, as after I complete a meal I feel distant from my ED so I feel the need to go to room and exercise or print out photos of me dancing when I was sick or journal about my ed and put it all in a box and hold onto it.

These are the behaviors, I am slowly trying to break.

I am far from recovered, but I am taking it one step at a time.

I have made far too much progress to go back

Keep going warriors!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH MARGI I RELATE TO YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING AND LOVE YOU. Lily x