Inside My Head, Post-Black Hole – Navigating Eating Disorder Recovery

For City, University of London

“Have you eaten today?”, they ask, thinking they’re being helpful, unaware of the huge rift they’ve just opened in my brain. ‘Are they telling me I look fat?’, I wonder – the black hole grows. Of course they’re not telling me I look fat, they’re asking if I’ve eaten. ‘So are they telling me I look thin?’, the black hole grins as it takes the first bite of logic and reason out of my brain. ‘They must be telling me I look thin… It’s working! My eating disorder’s working! I’m getting THIN!’. The black hole swallows the last of my brain with a gulp, ‘I’ve got to stick with it now, my hard work’s paying off – don’t ever attempt recovery, you’ll just get fat again.’

Of course, when somebody asks you if you’ve eaten today, they’re actually just telling you that you look tired, maybe a tad pale, a bit unresponsive at best – they’re actually just telling you that they care. But, nonetheless, welcome to the tour, you’ve just had an exclusive sneak peak of what’s been going on in my head for the last two years. Now, reader, follow me, and we’ll go for a little wander further behind the curtain; however, spoiler alert, none of it makes any sense at all!

First off, it wasn’t always like this, things only really took a dark turn in college, November 27^th 2023 to be exact – mock exam week. I’d always been a pretty nervous kid when it came to exams, my stomach always chose the worst times to attempt to be a world-renowned gymnast; however, this day was particularly bad. So bad, in fact, that it made me sick. And, whilst sat there on my bathroom floor, it suddenly struck me that throwing up had seemingly purged all my anxiety with it. Fast-forward a bit, just a quick note to the reader here, that may have been the worst discovery anybody has ever made.

At first you just throw up when you’re nervous, then you start to do it when you’re feeling a bit too full, and then you’ll find it starts to work its way into your routine, lodging non-negotiable calendar spots after every meal, every snack, and every drink. Black holes have such a strong gravitational force that they slowly pull you further and further in, no matter how hard you try to fight it. This is because of their immense mass, which is ironic really, because that’s exactly what the black hole in my head wants to convince me I have. Joke’s on them, I guess… I hope. Another thing about black holes is they also have a point of no-return called the Horizon, beyond this point, even travelling faster than the speed of light, you simply cannot escape. Luckily, I never quite passed that point, but I felt pretty close to it at times. 

A few months in, I’d lost considerable amounts of weight, and, as messed up as it might sound, was pretty pleased with myself. But, what the black hole doesn’t consider, is the cost of achieving these goals. Sure, I was thinner, but I was at an Edward Cullen level of pale, every single joint in my body felt stiff and rusted, my eyes were bloodshot, and my lips cracked and split. I’d cry because I wanted to stop – or rather, wanted to want to stop, but even if I’d stepped away from the Horizon point mentally, you can’t expect your body to do the same overnight. Over time, you’ll actually notice that you begin to reject food, you get full much easier, and you start to take longer digesting meals, presumably because your stomach doesn’t expect them to be around long enough to be worth the effort. Fixing that one takes a bit of time, meanwhile the heightened feeling of fullness fuels the black hole, which, in the end, only makes it harder to try not to let it win. 

It’s definitely true that things get easier over time. Reader, do note that I’m not a physicist or black hole expert in any way, shape or form, and I have no clue if what I’m about to write has any scientific backing, you’ll just have to go with me on this one. As time passes, and you grow tired of the suffering, learn patterns of behaviour, seek help, and retrain your body, the black hole does really begin to shrink. It’ll happen slowly, and every now and then it might grow a little, but it’ll slowly deflate so much that there’s finally some space for your brain to breathe again. I’ve not been at this point long enough to know whether the black hole will ever disappear completely, I’d assume not, but all that means is that you stop it from growing, you stop feeding it – and you do that by making sure you feed yourself. 

According to data from the Eating Recovery Centre, bulimia cases are on the rise, now impacting around 1.5% of women, and 0.5% of men. You are not alone. If you, or a loved one is struggling with an eating disorder, speak to your GP for support. In a crisis, text SHOUT at 85258.