Meet Eddie: My Best Friend

***A real raw picture of my eating disordered panic attacks***

It’s time to talk about my best friend. Meet Eddie. Eddie is 24 years old and the most intrusive entity in my entire life. Right now, in this picture, we are having a conversation I wish no one to ever have to have. It is painful, down to the core of my soul. It is a deceitful, venomous conversation. Conversations that are essentially killing myself slowly. He makes me believe I would be better off dead. These type of conversations haunt me every single day. It’s time I let you all know why I’ve been the way I’ve been. I’m sick. I’m mentally sick. I’m a work in progress, with a specialized professional team which will probably be the case for the rest of my life. All the times I’ve pushed, been uncommunicative, silent, unapproachable, outright anti-social, confrontational, invisible to the point of dropping off the face of the earth, it is because of Eddie. He is also my borderline personality disorder, my PtSD, my OCD, my introverted behaviors, my anxiety, my panic attacks, my  deep depression.

Eddie is one of my multiple and very serious eating disorders. I’ve had Eddie since I was 6 years old, the first time I remember that I had ever binge ate. Binge eating disorder is one of the most common eating disorders and it is one of the most under diagnosed eating disorder there is. Every eating disorder is serious and it can happen to young children, as it did with me, unknowingly to myself and my family. My disordered behaviors had escalated as I grew older, turning into having nearly every disorder known (bulimia, anorexia, binge eating and orthorexia-EDNOS). I say that with no bragging right or merit. This is one accomplishment I want absolutely no recognition for. Eddie had morphed or shape-shifted into every single one of them but yet he worsened into the venomous abuser he was as time passed. Eddie controls a lot in my life, much like the abuser in an abusive relationship. He controls emotions: ” You are never good enough in any avenue of your life”, he tells me. “You are not worth it, to anyone including yourself”, he adds. His abusive words cut deep but his words turn into abusive actions that speak louder. He is my internal abusive best friend, for now. The control goes as far as to what I drink, how much I drink, when I’m able to or if I even should. He controls all my food intake or if I eat at all or if it’s healthy, if it isn’t, how much I’m eating or if any food should be expelled from my body. He controls if or when I’m eating if I should have a panic attack or start crying. This can happen in public, private or just with Brian.

 Eddie, or my eating disorders and behaviors have many shapes and forms, smiles, frowns, bad hair, good hair, awful skin, beautiful skin. I can appear healthy, I can appear happy, I can appear strong, I can appear successful-when in reality it’s a living hell that I have to try and crawl out of, everyday. Having an eating disorder is deceitful. It is destructive. It is evil. It is nothing I wish on the worst person in the world.

When I speak of this entity, Eddie, he is not another personality of mine. It is the entity in my disorder that literally has control over my entire life. Wrapped around my finger. A foot to my neck. Handcuffed. It has effected my life to the fullest of negative ways. It affects my friendships: I lost my best friend of 17 years mostly because of Eddie: at the beginning stages of my recovery, in which she was involved for a brief moment, I was kicked out of her wedding being her Matron of Honor and then, eventually, uninvited to any and all her wedding festivities together. She divorced me. She didn’t understand my illnesses nor did she want to at that point in her life. She didn’t want to support me. Eddie told me I deserved all the hurtful things said and the abandonment included. We will never be friends again when our promise always was, “forever best friends until the end”. This was a monumental issue in my recovery causing a lot of PtSD and triggers for worsening eating disordered behaviors. It incredibly hurts my marriage, everyday, to the point of not dressing in front of my husband, covering myself as much as possible and worst yet, not having intimacy. The worst part? We want kids more than we could ever express and Eddie gets into the way so much so, it effects us being able to. I have to be as fully clothed as possible, lights completely off and he has to have a pillow over his face to make sure he doesn’t see me in my most vulnerable state because who would want to see a disgusting creature that way? I can’t eat with him 90% of the time we are together, out of shame or judgment. I hate eating in front of anyone actually. Eating in secret is what Eddie tells me is best. He effects my work: justifying it being OK that I skip lunch, watching what I eat, how much I eat, eating “too healthy”, if I deserve to keep my nutrition inside my body. The addiction is real-to feel empty and love the feeling of self conflicting pain. The pain of hunger, emptiness. He effects my bowling, something I’ve done since I was 4 years old, not fueling my body properly both with food and hydration. I do this when I compete in local events, small tournaments, national tournaments and professional events. I treat myself poorly no matter the level of competition. He effects if I go to the gym or what I do there: not knowing when to stop working out because three or four hours isn’t enough for body progress pictures or that I didn’t “earn” my dinner. He effects my shopping: be it groceries or clothing, I have panic attacks, anxiety, depression, self-inflicted body shaming. I must have a support system to go clothing shopping with me to help me chose, not panic and shut Eddie up. It doesn’t always work but there is a chance it helps. I have to make a list of “safe” foods before grocery shopping. I purposely avoid any seemingly “unsafe” or “unhealthy” isles. He effects my feelings on food. If I could never eat, even my favorite meal, for the rest of my life-I would still choose never eating again. He has made it a point to make me numb to any food-new or exciting, old or familiar favorites. He makes me hate cooking, something I had so much passion for. He effects my self-image: the nude blurred picture you see, is exactly how I see it-distorted, sad, depressing, painful, shame. Body dysmorphia is a true living hell in itself. I have to cover mirrors in the house of when I’m home. The only mirrors used are compact just so I can put make up on. Even then, I give myself 8-10 minutes max to do this due to the pure torture of his comments. It is physically exhausting to get ready. After I am done, I want to go back to bed due to the abusive nature of him Pure exhaustion. People can call me every name in the book: healthy, skinny, thin, curvy, normal, good, beautiful, sexy, brave, cute, adorable, admirable, compare me to celebrities and all I see is this ginormous, hideous, distrusting, rotting, ugly human being staring back at me. He is always there with me when I get compliments. He reminds me of what I should be feeling: to the point of wishing I wasn’t born. Regretfully living. Shameful living. I’ve had this for years too. He also has full control on how I feel about my weight or “numbers”: all scales have been thrown out of the house because the number was too important, weighing in up to four times a day. Much like a drug addicts attitude of “one last time” I get the itch to find a scale, buy another scale-just to see the number, to hear how bad he would treat me. The scale determined if it was a good day or bad day. I’m not even sure I had a good day when weighing in. The scale determined if I was going to be any happier with a lower number. The number was never low enough. My obsession with numbers have shifted from the scale to the size of my pants and shirts. If my jeans that I just washed, fit even a little snug, my day is completely trashed and he wants to spend the entire day with me, in bed usually crying. He controls the type of clothes I wear and when I should wear them. On average, he has me changing clothes at least two and a half times a day just to find the “right” outfit-the one that doesn’t make me look so obviously fat or that I’ve gained weight: “You look hideous in that. People may point at you in disgust. They will more than likely laugh at you, perhaps even take a ‘hidden selfie’ to document your ugliness, maybe they will post it somewhere and everyone will see it. People know you are ‘recovering’ but really they just see you gaining fat. You are fat. You are on the road to being 300lbs again, fatty”.  He can even control if I leave the house for any reason. Most days, I don’t deserve to be seen, he says. He controls all of my social situations: person-to-person, social gatherings, text messages, work appointments, phone calls, Facebook and the like. He tells me all nice things said to me are complete lies, they are undeserving, people trying to be nice and he tells me people talk shit about me-my appearance, my personality, my behaviors, my everything behind my back. He says this rule applies to any and all friends and family including my own husband, my best friend. He says, “No one truly wants to be with you. Why would they? You have zero offerings to them. You aren’t a good person. You can hardly get out of bed. A true sense of the word ‘worthless’. A waste of space in the world”. He essentially controls how I talk to people and what I say, if anything at all. He has an extremely unhealthy obsession of how I talk to my self, about myself. He makes me hate myself more than anything in the world. He wishes I would die at times: “You being born into this world, are nothing but a complete mistake. The worst mistake to your family and you are a mistake to all the people you’ve come into contact with. Worthless. You do nothing. You provide nothing. Zero value. They all can do better and are better off without knowing you, meeting you or even listening to anything you say. They wouldn’t miss you if you were gone. Worthless. Just don’t bother them.” He essentially controls all my behaviors at home, my hobbies, work, parties, concerts, family gatherings, sporting events, vacations.

This will be an endless journey, like most of us that struggle with an ED (eating disorder) or any addictive behaviors, you have to work forward toward recovery because in the very end of the road, I am, we are, all worth it. Some days are harder to believe that but I’ve been told enough from fully recovered individuals, it has to be true. The seriousness of recovery is a constant and a very real thing that most people have a hard time understanding. It isn’t “just that easy” to be a happy, healthy person with an ED or multiple ED’s. People need to realize the seriousness of the illness, it even took me a long time to admit that ‘recovery’ is a serious word and I needed to make the steps to doing just that. People die from eating disorders. Anorexia is the highest mortality rate among any mental disorder. I openly admit, since my bariatric surgery, my disordered behaviors have worsened. Again, unknowingly to myself. However, with my team of support, I am determined not to let Eddie win in this battle.

I would love to apologize but I am not going to. This is the current me. All of this illness, it doesn’t define who I am, it is just part of the bumpy road I’m on. Be a passenger with me as I drive on my road to recovery or be ditched because I’m going to keep on this road with or without you. I now realize that recovery should always be the path to take. Days seemingly can be harder than others but that’s OK because it will happen. I, Kaleena, just have to be in the driver’s seat and lock the doors if Eddie needs a ride.

On a positive note outside of my recovery and treatment, I am a dangerous person when I make my mind up about something. That’s Kaleena’s mind with Eddie being an intrusive ass. A force to be reckoned with is what Kaleena can be. I have made a decision to write a book. I don’t know when it will be published or even how to start going about it but it is the newest goal and my way of giving back to people by giving them a resource of not feeling alone with any of their fucked-up-ness. We are all a little (or a lot) fucked up but it’s important to believe that it is okay to be fucked up and to know you aren’t alone. Hopeless and helpless are optional feelings. Not feeling there is only darkness is a huge part of the journey and it took going to my eating disorder group to realize that everyone has darkness to them and I am constantly reminded of their brightness, every week when I see them. My life is not abnormal or unique. My life is open and I’ve met enough people to show me that we all have something to work on and I’m excited to share those moments of the good, bad, ugly and better with all people of various stages of life.