36 Quotes by Insha Juneja

But although my body constantly reminded me that it was starving, the voices inside my mind never gave me permission to satisfy my hunger. At times, I would get affected when people passed statements like, “Why can’t you just eat?”However, I convinced myself that the only person who could understand anorexia was someone who had been through the eating disorder. I chose to remain quiet.

My life was now determined by the number on the scale or the digits behind food containers. But I was completely okay with it as long as my 24” waist size never felt even a tad tighter. But if it ever did, hell would freeze over, resulting in 21-day fasts until I felt thin enough.

Soon, everyone around me had come to terms with my peculiar eating habits and started accepting me for who I was. It felt peculiar at first, but when someone said things like, “I wish I could resist eating all that,” in whatever parallel universe I existed, I felt powerful.

My days began and ended with my fear of food. Even though all that was left of me was skin and bones, the only thing I could think was, Still not thin enough!

He helped me sit up on my bed and tried to force-feed me glucose dissolved in water and a biscuit he’d grabbed from my roommate’s bedside. But I spat it right out, still thinking about calories and numbers.“That’s enough, Amira. I’m literally trying to feed you water. It’s not going to hurt you!” he screamed.

That was when I realized I had no control over my actions anymore. All I knew was that though no one knew what hell felt like, my life had become a version of fire and brimstone. My restrictive anorexia was completely and inexorably interfering with my ability to live like a normal human being.

The better question is: Do you want to recover?”I didn’t have an answer; I wasn’t sure. Recovery sounded great on paper and in the calm and casual way he said it. But why did the very thought of recovery seem like the most excruciating and difficult thing? What if I started hating myself after a few months of making conscious efforts to be a healthy person again? What if recovery meant being fat all over again? What if I wasn’t ready?“I’m not sure,” I said.

It wasn’t like I had started magically eating two entire meals in a day. I would still survive the day with black coffee and apples, but it just seemed like I’d taken one step heavenwards. The mirror felt a little less frightening with each passing day. It was refreshing to talk to someone who was fully convinced that my eating disorder was as real as I thought.

Everything was going perfectly well until Dr. Roy paused for a long minute to stare at me with utter shock and revelation. I knew I had messed up. I should have just worn my black, full-sleeved dress instead. But again, I thought that the scars had lightened to an unnoticeable extent. But I guess I was wrong. That was when I realized that scars never went away entirely. “Did you do that to yourself?” he asked.