People think silence means I’m coping.
They see the outside —
the routines, the smiles,
the way I say I’m fine without thinking.
But they don’t see the weight in my chest
when the room goes quiet
and it’s just me
and my mind again.

What people don’t see
is how heartbroken I am.

How badly I want a normal life.
A life where food is just food.
Where meals are moments
instead of battles.
Where my brain isn’t counting,
calculating, planning,
replaying every bite
like it means something about who I am.

I lie in bed sometimes crying,
wondering how life got here.
I don’t feel hunger anymore.
It disappeared somewhere along the way,
quietly,
like my body learned not to ask.

Now I stare at food
trying to remember what hunger felt like
before everything became rules.

But my brain still thinks about food
all the time.
Every hour.
Every minute.
What I ate.
What I shouldn’t eat.
What I might eat later.
What I wish I could eat
without fear sitting beside me.

It’s loud in my head.

People think eating disorders are about control.
But this doesn’t feel like control.
It feels like being trapped
in a house with locked doors
where the key is somewhere inside
but I can’t find it.

It feels like habits that grew slowly
until they became walls.
Skipping meals
because the clock says I can.
Waiting until everyone else finishes
so no one notices what’s on my plate.
Checking numbers.
Reading labels.
Drinking water to quiet the emptiness.
Saying I’ll eat later
over and over
until later never comes.

And when I try to eat
and I can’t —
I’m so hard on myself.
My mind turns cruel.
It tells me I should have tried harder.
That I’ve failed again.
That something must be wrong with me
for something so simple
to feel impossible.

I sit there with the food in front of me
feeling like I’m fighting my own body
and losing.

Then the guilt comes.
Heavy and sharp.
Because I know my body deserves more
than what I’m giving it.
I know it isn’t healthy.
I know I should eat.
But knowing
and doing
feel like two different worlds.

I’ve barely eaten. Four days.
Just a few pieces of baby corn.
And I’m so scared.
So scared this is going to kill me.

Some days I try.
Some days I just stare at the plate
until the moment passes
and the chance is gone.

And afterwards
I’m left alone with the thoughts again.
The counting.
The rules.
The quiet punishment in my head.

I feel stuck inside something
that has slowly taken over
every corner of my life.

Food.
Numbers.
Guilt.
Fear.
Repeat.

And I keep wondering
how something meant to keep me alive
became the thing
that makes living feel so heavy.

I want to escape it.