Trigger Warning: Mentions of an eat- ing disorder. If you are struggling with any of these issues, there are many support mechanisms in place to help. Beat offers the Studentline: 0808 801 0811; https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/support-services/helplines . You can also reach out to your GP or University Student Support Services.
Most friendships I had were through clubs and societies. But I’m not good at answering messages. I don’t return calls. I find it difficult to start conversa- tions. Video calls are exhausting. I for- get about meetings. I panic and cancel appointments.
I have autism and dyspraxia.
I kept telling myself that I enjoyed lockdown because it involves fewer dif- ficult social interactions, less sensory overload, and it should have been less physically exhausting. Instead, I have become utterly isolated. My eating disorder has worsened, softening pain- ful feelings of loneliness and anxiety and disconnecting me from the living world.
For me, lockdown doesn’t mean be- ing stuck between four walls. It means being stuck between the weighing scale, the fridge, the mirror, and the exercise mat. Weighing scale. Fridge. Mirror. Exercise mat. Weighing, fridge, mirror, exercise, repeat.
I am exhausted. I can’t read. I can’t study. I can’t go on a walk. I can’t focus on anything — even watching a film has become too hard. What can I do then, when I can’t even lay in bed and watch a film? I sit in the dark. And wait. I haven’t seen a new face in weeks. I only go out for my weekly therapy appointment and to be weighed by my doctor. More self-loathing and disgust. I walk back home fast, sometimes in tears. I want to hide. After all, lock- down is convenient. It has provided me with a perfect excuse to hide in my bedroom and cut myself off from the world.
And I think about all the people I used to spend time with. All the friends that used to make me smile, go out, laugh, go to the library, and eat, and feel alive. I miss them. I never answered the messages they sent weeks ago. I nev- er returned their calls. I never messaged them to ask how they are coping with lockdown. I wonder if they’re okay. I worry. I have no idea what is going on in their lives. I had to delete my social media accounts to avoid the tempting toxic feeds about productivity and diet culture.
I lay in bed thinking I am a failure. Mirror. I wonder what the world is like, outside of my bedroom, outside of the cage of the eating disorder. I’ve had an eating disorder for so long that it has become a part of me, a part of who I am, of my identity.
Exercise.
The eating disorder has consumed everything in my life during lockdown. I forgot what it feels like to be happy to go out of my room. I forgot what it feels like to be me, without an eating disorder. I only exist, a puppet in the reassuring cage of the eating disorder. Weighing. I stare at my scale, my only source of entertainment these days.
Exercise.
I hide from my computer where the missed deadlines and unfinished es- says are piling up. Fridge. I stare at the mirror in disgust. Weighing. I apply for ECs and I email apologies to my profes- sors for missing seminars because ‘I am unwell’— I don’t want to turn on my webcam and don’t want to be asked to do so. Fridge. I read the labels on pack- ages in the fridge and do the maths. Mirror. I scroll through the news, sometimes social media which I’ve started using again during lockdown to try not to lose all my friends. Exercise. I stare at Moodle for 15 minutes not knowing where to start. Mirror.
My four walls are the exercise mat, the weighing scale, the fridge and the mirror. And functioning within the boundaries of these expectations is dif- ficult.