Day 8: If I could go back in time...and speak to that girl who was once me...a girl without an eating disorder...

Since I was young I have always been fascinated by history, especially that of the medieval era, as reflected in my Morokia. And so hand in hand with that, was the whole captivating concept of time travel. Being the child that I was, I would dream about being enabled to do such a miraculous thing... I imagined myself going back, back, back to the age of castles and knights in shining armour, of pyramids and scarabs and palaces, of long dresses and grand paintings and chandelier-lit ballrooms. I could be the medieval princess, the Egyptian queen, the Victorian lady or the Roman priestess. Time travel was regularly incorporated into my childhood games and innocent play. It was something that I thought about, dreamed about, and fantasised about alot.

But now, now I am older. I am no longer the little girl that I once was.

But funnily enough, alot of the time, I still do think about time travel...

But in a different way than before.


If only I could go back to the girl I was...I would have so much to say to her...


For I wish with all my heart that I could travel back in time, to the girl that I once was. The young, happy, carefree girl without an eating disorder.

I would implore her with all my heart...to just be herself, in the years that lay ahead of her: the difficult, challenging teenhood years. And not to try to be someone else. 

Not to try to be someone else...not to be a skinnier, slimmer, bonier version of the girl that was me.

Because that was what happened to me, when I left behind the innocence and tranquility of my childhood behind, to enter an entirely different world...one which I could not find myself. I felt like I had no identity...so I told myself, that I would forge one based on how I looked, how the world would see me. And so I set off along that path of destruction, unaware and blind to the consequences and what awaited me...because I wanted the world to see, when they looked at me, a skinny, skinny girl.

I would tell that girl that i once was...to not take those lessons about obesity so much to heart. To be aware of it, but not to automatically jump to the conclusion that yes, that is me, I am fat. I need to lose weight. As this is exactly what happened.

I would tell her that to assume that weight loss and restriction would bring her success, popularity, beauty, achievement and perfection would be the most distorted and falsest of suppositions she could ever, ever make. I would tell her that is just one of the many, many lies that an eating disorder tells you. Losing weight and developing an eating disorder did not bring me success, popularity or happiness. Instead, it brought me loneliness, heartbreak, misery and wretchedness. I brought me extreme distress and drove me into isolation and depression. It brought me the body that I - no, my eating disorder - wanted me to have. A thin body, a bone thin body...starved and deprived of proper nourishment. My bones weakened and became brittle, my skinturned dry and flaky and wrinkly. The light went out of my eyes and my face became gaunt and hollow-cheeked. No, my eating disorder did not bring me happiness. It brought me nothing but suffering and nearly drove me to an early grave.

If I could go back in time and speak to that girl who was once me...

I would say to her...please, please, don't try to change yourself and who you are, in a way which is so, so destructive. It will bring you nothing, Emmy, nothing. Nothing but tears and shattered pieces and bitterness. The path laid for you by your eating disorder is one which will eventually lead to your death.