Facebook memories can be great, it’s good to reflect on past memories, and fun to cringe at old photos. I love seeing pictures from freshers week, or the last week at school, and reminiscing on these times with friends.

Lately, a lot of my Facebook memories have been from a time when I was severely unwell, particularly with anorexia. I keep waking up, getting on the train to work and being immediately greeted with a image of me, at a significantly lower weight than I am now, in clothes I could only dream of fitting into today.

Immediately, my mind wants to run back to that girl. To restrict and over-excersise. I begin planning how I can avoid eating without my work colleagues or boyfriend noticing and how to fit in a few laps around our hospital courtyard without looking like a freak. The anxiety kicks in immediately and I spend most of the day feeling like a disgusting pig in my current body.

For me, these memories serve as a haunting reminder of my struggle with food and weight, and send me right back to that headspace. It’s so hard to see an image of myself, a size 10 and smiling, and then go about my day feeling comfortable as a size 16. I begin to try and convince myself my eating disorder wasn’t that bad, and going back to it will be easier to control; “I’ll just do it for a little while to lose weight, then stop.”

The reality is, I will never be able to do that. I am the size I am now because I am not in a space to restrict my diet safely. Whilst I don’t struggle with food day to day, each time I try and restrict my diet, I find myself quickly returning to obsessive, intrusive thoughts.

For me, Facebook memories can be really dangerous, and I’ve had to learn to manage that. I’ve learnt to mute them unless I’m in a really good headspace and feel I can cope with seeing those pictures.

I’ll never escape having been anorexic, but I can escape daily reminders of this traumatic time in my life.

L x