Narrative Essay On Anorexia Nervosa

In this article, I will be talking about Anorexia Nervous. I will be discussing what Anorexia is, what it's like living with anorexia, how anorexia can affect the mind and body, and overall how horrible it is. Can you believe that 1 out of 5 people with anorexia nervous pass away, which is a higher mortality rate than childhood cancer? yet nobody talks about it.

So what is Anorexia Nervosa? Well, Anorexia Nervosa is a devastating mental illness, that affects not just your mental but physical health. If you have Anorexia Nervosa you have no control really of what you say or do. Anorexia is an eating disorder where you deprived yourself of food, or exercise an excess amount. Anorexia can manifest in many kinds of ways like cutting out and restricting different foods, eating as little as two meals a day, over-exercising to the point where you feel sick, etc. Not only does anorexia affect you but also the people around you. It causes nonstop fighting with family and friends, it can extremely traumatising. When you have this devastating illness, you have a major fear of weight gain that makes you uncontrollably obsessed with the number on the scale, setting unrealistic standard’s. Anorexia Nervosa can also lead to numerus other mental health issues such as low self-esteem, anxiety, ocd, depression, panic disorder, suicidal thoughts and more. If you suffer from this illness and it is left untreated and not given professional, it can end up being fatal causing your organs to shut down and heart failure.

Living with anorexia makes you feel as though you are trapped. No matter how much people tell you are perfect, that you don’t have to lose weight or be skinny, its never enough, because now your stuck. Stuck in the idea that you won’t be loved because of your weight, trapped by food restriction, trapped by exercise, trapped with guilt, anger, sadness, trapped by feeling as though you’re going to be judged, trapped at feeling like you have to be your idea of the ‘perfect weight’. You feel trapped by the endless cycle of never being good enough, pretty enough, smart enough. Anorexia distorts your vision and no matter how much weight you lose, you will never be happy. It can cause your everyday life to change dramatically, making your brain foggy, it can cause depression, anxiety, panic attacks, OCD and more. Even recovery is a agonising process and can be extremely difficult to go through, though in the end recovery is one hundred percent worth it because it saves you and breaks you free of this constant cycle. Whenever discussing Anorexia Nervosa little people know what it actually is and seem to believe that it is a choice, the phrase that comes up a lot is “if they are hungry why don’t they just eat?” when really that’s not how it works. Anorexia Nervosa is a devastating mental and physical illness that can leave permanent damage to your body, and to your mental health in later years is you survive the illness. I once talked to a mother whose daughter had sadly been diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa and she said to me “Its like someone takes over your daughters body, it looks like your daughter, sounds like your daughter, but you know its not, like some evil being is now living in your daughters body.”

Anorexia Nervosa not only damages the mind but also the body. Every one’s body has a different body weight based on the persons bone structure and genetics, so you and the person next to you won’t have the same healthy weight as your bone structure, genetics and height are different. But it is very hard to explain that to someone with Anorexia Nervosa because they cannot fully comprehend it. If they lose weight to rapidly, they could get really sick, When your body is malnourished it can cause not just mental but physical problems, and depending on the severity of your eating disorder, if left for too long these issues can result as fatal. Due to this unhealthy weight loss, nutrition that the body needs is suddenly lost; this can end in changes in the skin, nails, hair and face. Due to lack of nutrition, our bodies try to preserve our organs for as long as they can and cut out unnecessary things like you’re hair, so the hair on your scalp begins to get thinner, and thinner until your hair falls out. This can sadly cause even lower self-esteem. Could you imagine clumps of your own hair falling out, and you have no control over it? When you starve your blood flow slows leaving you unable to bare the cold temperature, trying to retain heat our incredibly strong bodies grow exes hair on our back, lip, chine and spine. If your body weight drops 15-20 % below ideal, the slow, dreadful emptying of the stomach occurs. The little amount of food passes through the digestive system causing back pain and bloating. A study was done in 2017 showing that a person with Anorexia Nervosa's brain is “to be indistinguishable from the brain of a person with Alzheimer’s disease” (Brown & Mehler, 2017). This can sadly lead to individuals to slower functioning, memory loss, seizures, and more. Anorexia Nervosa is a huge issue that is not talked about nearly enough as it should be, leaving people ignorant and uneducated. Actually 1 out of 5 people with anorexia nervous pass away, which is a higher mortality rate than childhood cancer. Studies show that 85% of women and 26-36% of men with anorexia have either osteoporosis (loss of bone density) or osteopenia. (loss of bone calcium)

Anorexia Nervosa is an issue and a really sad one at that, that nobody talks about. "I'd rather be strong and happy than be what society thinks is thin and perfect and be miserable." (Demi Lovato) You knowing this little bit about what Anorexia Nervosa is you making a change, knowing this little information can go a long way. If you are struggling with Anorexia Nervosa or any eating disorder for that matter just know that there is help out there, you can contact a doctor, a therapist, a dietitian or you can call hotlines such as the butterfly foundation, the EDV hub and more, there’s help out there.