So much to gain....

Doctors always seem reluctant to discuss a target weight with me, presumably because they think I will freak out at the thought of being healthy, at how much weight I will have to gain. If numbers are mentioned, they say I can consider just getting to a 'safer' body mass index of around 15 for now (anything below 17.5 is classed as anorexic and 'healthy' is around 20-25). That has never actually been acceptable to me - if I am to recover and gain weight, I need to do it properly, and remaining at a low BMI feels like a bit of a cop-out to be honest. It is allowing myself to remain anorexic and unhealthy, albeit healthier than right now.

Yet just to get my body back into the range where my BMI is no longer 'anorexic', I need to gain a good two stone. And to be back at a 'healthy' BMI of 20, it turns out I'll have to pack on three stone. Those numbers truly stagger me and I can't quite make sense of them. How can I actually be so underweight but feel so fat? If I can't look at myself in the mirror now, if the sight of my body at my current weight makes me want to cry, how can I possible tolerate it any bigger?

Strangely enough, the abstract idea of having to gain all that weight in the future doesn't scare me as much as you might expect. But if I were asked to gain a couple of pounds in the next week, my reaction would be one of horror and I would downright refuse. Stepping on the scales and seeing a gain feels to me like a failure, and I want to howl with rage and despair and actually hurt myself for being so fat and disgusting. I claim I want to get better, but I suppose I am still hoping there is a way of doing that without gaining weight!

Right now even drinking a glass of water makes me feel full, which equates to dirty, fat and revolting. I have to shower first thing in the morning before I put anything inside my body and I have perfected the art of doing that and getting dressed without seeing myself naked. My Grandmother thinks I wear baggy clothes to hide how much weight I have lost - really it is because I can't stand to look at myself, and any clothes which fit closely convince me I have gained weight and am fat. If I don't have to see myself properly, I can pretend the fat is not there. Last time I was this weight I had stopped drinking alcohol because of its calorific content, so people around me see the fact that I will now do that as a positive sign and an improvement. The truth is, I only drink because it numbs the voices in my head, because it dulls the pain of how wretched and wrong I feel in this skin.

So I am torn, because I certainly don't want to remain miserable and ill, but if I don't even want to maintain my current weight, let alone gain any, do I really stand any chance of getting better?

'I don't care if it hurts, I want to have control.

I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul.' 

~  Radiohead, Creep