TRIGGER WARNING: EATING DISORDERS & OTHER MENTAL ILLNESSES EXPLICITLY DESCRIBED

Anorexia is waking up in the morning, looking up at the ceiling, and wishing you were dead.

Anorexia is staring at yourself in the mirror with dull, lifeless eyes that scan your body with laser-like precision for flaws that you can exploit to make yourself feel worthless.

Anorexia is running your fingers along your collarbone and hips to see if you can feel the bones jut out against your skin.

Anorexia is feeling your thighs stick themselves together like a poorly glued child's craft attempt and having hot revulsion rise up in your throat, threatening to bubble over and extinguish the flames of your desire to recover.

Anorexia is preparing a meal according to certain exchanges, following a meal plan to the letter.

Anorexia is pulling out the measuring cups to make sure that your eyes are not deceiving you and you are not consuming more than is absolutely necessary.

Anorexia is eyeing the other food in the fridge with an appraising gaze, wondering what it would be like to simply lose control and eat all of it.

Anorexia is feeling nauseated at that thought, slapping yourself mentally on the wrist with vitriolic words that demean you and rip your confidence to shreds.

Anorexia is skeletal frames and full frames, knees that don't touch and arms that jiggle a little when you move, sunken cheeks and softly curved stomachs.

Anorexia is hospital beds and gowns which you decorate with personal items like blankets and necklaces to try and make them feel more like home.

Anorexia is a heart monitor attached to your abdomen that immediately sounds an alarm to alert the staff to any irregularity with the rhythm of your heart.

Anorexia is staring listlessly out the window at a sunrise without feeling any hope flutter and flare in your chest.

Anorexia is veins that stand out against your pallid skin like raindrops on the windshield of a car.

Anorexia is reading nutrition fact labels with a scrutinizing rigidity, assigning foods to either the "good" category or the "bad" category.

Anorexia is going out to a restaurant and sitting stricken with blind panic at the sight of a menu advertising food prepared without your hand in it.

Anorexia is holding a ruler up to your thigh gap and feeling a sick sense of satisfaction, as if your worth can somehow be measured in the space between your legs.

Anorexia is wasting away to an unhealthy weight yet being unable to see just how grotesquely ill you look.

Anorexia is bruises that bloom like hideous, dark flowers on your skin.

Anorexia is brittle bones that threaten to snap and break with every movement you make.

Anorexia is turning your back to the scale and carefully stepping up onto it, as if this will somehow put the thought of what the number that is revealed is out of your head.

Anorexia is appointments with healthcare specialists all prepared to catch you should you fall into the trap of relapse.

Anorexia is exercising until you tear open the skin on your back, causing blood to seep out and stain your shirt.

Anorexia is secretly hiding behind a door to do pushups, jumping jacks, and situps in massive quantities, believing the fragile lie that no one knows what you are doing.

Anorexia is collapsing into hysterics at the thought of being asked to supplement.

Anorexia is countless little pills stacked neatly in front of you like soldiers every morning.

Anorexia is looking down at your body and feeling your head spin at the sight of your bloated, distended stomach.

Anorexia is pulling at every little inch of your skin as if you are trying to loosen a particularly difficult knot.

Anorexia is spending a whole day without consuming anything, and then giving in to the hunger in your stomach that rumbles like an imminent thunderstorm and consuming whatever you can find.

Anorexia is closing your eyes and wishing that they would simply stay shut.

Anorexia is wondering if living is harder than dying, and if dying would bring you the elusive happiness you so desperately seek.

Anorexia is crippling anxiety and depression.

Anorexia is switching the radio station quickly because a commercial has come on for some sort of weight loss surgery or exercise program.

Anorexia is learning what words like "trigger" and "behavior" mean in the context of the eating disorder community.

Anorexia is staying up late with your roommate, giggling at your copious amounts of flatulence and commiserating with each other over the trials and tribulations of the day.

Anorexia is meals eaten under the watchful eye of a counselor.

Anorexia is turning your pockets out and opening your mouth for careful inspection before being allowed to leave the hell that is the kitchen.

Anorexia is endless hours of cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy drummed into your brain like rain pummeling a roof.

Anorexia is a smile that doesn't ever reach your eyes.

Anorexia is clothes that don't fit and hang baggy off your body or require you to squeeze yourself into them.

Anorexia is trying on a pair of jeans that you could fit into when you were acutely ill and feeling terror surge through your veins as you can barely close the button around your waist.

Anorexia is leaving treatment behind and feeling like this is the most insane thing you could possibly do.

Anorexia is lapse after lapse after lapse.

Anorexia is choking down a meal even though every fiber, every atom in your body is screaming at you to just please stop.

Anorexia is muting your brain while you complete the robotic motions of eating, leaving horror and disgust to overwhelm you once you allow your thoughts to resume.

Anorexia is meeting some of the best friends you will ever encounter in your life.

Anorexia is feeling like the only person in the world, even when surrounded by a crowd of others.

Anorexia is learning that you have strength inside of you that you never dreamed you possessed.

Anorexia is leaving school, friends, work, even your entire life, behind, to seek out the treatment you so desperately need.

Anorexia is tipping food off the plate into the trash or the disposal to try and get rid of any evidence that you've been dishonest.

Anorexia is blotting the grease off a plate of food with a razor sharp jab of self hatred for every dab you make.

Anorexia is performing complex calculations in a notebook to try and mathematically reason out how you can lose more, and lose it faster.

Anorexia is wanting to be smaller, smaller; always smaller.

Anorexia is visiting your home for the first time in months and feeling like a complete stranger.

Anorexia is friends and family who drop by to try and brighten your day during the limited visiting hours your treatment center provides.

Anorexia is being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, deliriously reassuring the medical staff that you are completely fine as they stab multiple IV needles into your skin and constantly plead with you to keep your eyes open.

Anorexia is having to use the elevator to go even one floor up or down, since using the stairs is considered too much exercise.

Anorexia is slowly learning how to love the person looking back at you, reflected with infuriating and frightening precision.

Anorexia is hair that comes off in clumps when brushed or washed.

Anorexia is shivering in a warm, well-heated room.

Anorexia is a perfectly healthy looking on the individual who is sick and dying on the inside.

Anorexia is people of all genders, ages, races, ethnicities, beliefs, and walks of life.

Anorexia is deadly.

Anorexia is me.

Anorexia is your best friend.

Anorexia is your distant relative.

Anorexia is millions of people.

Anorexia is misunderstood.

Anorexia is underestimated.

Anorexia is romanticized.

Anorexia is glamorized.

Anorexia is sensationalized.

Anorexia is an illness.

But anorexia is not forever.