Stop Starving. Start Playing.

Music, that is. I rarely talk about my history (however brief it was) dealing with an eating disorder. When I was seventeen, I went on a diet, along with my parents. I felt that, because of academic pressures, I was being pulled in three places at once, and had little control over where I would land. And I loved the results I achieved losing twenty pounds, so I tried to lose thirty. Only my dieting was just a little too drastic by that point. I ate eight hundred calories a day; the recommended caloric intake for a seventeen year old girl is two thousand. I would walk up to 90 minutes a day, and then go home a do an hour of advanced (We're talking Cathe advanced) kind of step.

I used to play guitar; the time I used to spend practicing was spent dieting, overexercising, and taking laxatives. My Mom used to fight with me to get me to eat. When, after a few months, she finally realized she wasn't winning, she gave me a taste of the kind of treatment I would be getting if I didn't learn to love my body...and fast. She took me to an eating disorder clinic, where I was examined as though I was a specimen or a number, and not a person. The experience scared me witless. I had no idea exactly what recovery entailed, but I knew I had to try. I only allowed myself to exercise up to 45 minutes a day, incorporated weights into my regimen (saying goodbye to the Twiggy look), and stopped weighing myself and counting calories. I went on a dieting holiday. (I eat healthier now, but I approach it from a perspective of overall health, and not a number on a scale.)

During my Senior year of high school, I barely wrote. I didn't even think of music. I wasn't naturally talented the first go round, so there was no reason to start playing now. The urge didn't come back until Crohn's Disease sidelined me from college. I had enough spare time, so I started thinking about learning an instrument. At first, I wanted to trade in my guitar for the piano. But I wasn't ready to start anything I had to commit to, so I let myself forget it. I forgot it until I returned to school in the summer. I had to take either an art or music class for a college requirement, so, naturally, I chose music.

When I first entered, I sat in the back. I had no intention of participating, let alone taking up an instrument. I wouldn't take up anything I wasn't good at, where I had to work. I took every mistake I made personally; it was a statement on me as a person. If I made a mistake, I was stupid. I tried to shut myself away from the piano in my classroom. It didn't mean I succeeded.

The way my professor played reminded me of the way I used to play. He would shoot his keys a steely look as he approached them. He was attacking them with his eyes. I saw Ana in the keys. And so I realized I had no choice. Regardless of my natural aptitude, music was a forum for me to wrestle Ana. I knew guitar, so if I was going to start playing an instrument, I might as well play one I already knew (That, and I don't have enough space for a piano). So, once summer school was finished, I started taking guitar lessons again. My chords were muffled. I didn't care.

Ana, like anything else, is a steady battle. When you just want to do something simple, like drink bubble tea, you will see her lean and hungry look. She is forcing you to be lean and hungry with her. In situations like these, you cannot always project your feelings publicly. But you can take it out on your instrument. Play as loudly as you can. Crescendo. That is Ana. In her wig and her toothless grin. She's too hungry for teeth.

Society does not always like emotion. And so we are taught to suppress. Until you come to terms with food enough to start eating freely, there is nothing wrong with this. However, you will eventually be faced with your triggers. Unless you learn how to have that battle with yourself, so to speak, you will be afraid of your triggers. Find a forum for self-expression, and they will lose significance. So that bubble tea will just be bubble tea.

One session alone does not do it. Ana does not go away, and neither should your desire to keep playing. So let her have it. You may find a talent you never knew you had.