You never know what others are going through

Today I was having a conversation with my mum about how we need to stand up and fight our illnesses, in order to overcome them. I tried to explain to her that while it may seem impossible to get better,  it is always possible to push through the pain, no matter hard it may seem. What she then said really shocked and angered me. She said; 'Are you trying to compare overcoming anorexia to overcoming alcoholism? Because I have recovered from Anorexia and it was nothing compared to what I am going through.'  

Now I may be being the judgemental one but for my mum too make this statement, makes me think that she never actually had anorexia, or if she did it wasn't anywhere near as severe as mine. I believe that anyone who says that an eating disorder is easy to overcome, hasn't really had one (or a serious one anyway). There reallly is nothing at all easy about overcoming anorexia and for her to say that it was easy made me angry as it made it sound as though everything I have achieved is not an achievement at all. The progress I have made so far in my recovery is the most painful thing I have ever done in my life and it really hurt to hear her say this.

My mum has spoken a bit in the past about how she had some issues with food in her teenage years and that she was quite thin however I know for a fact she was never classified as underweight. She also said that she never counted calories or anything like that. I know that she dieted and even made herself sick after eating some foods. But she says that she basically just snapped out of it and that it didn't control her life anywhere near as badly as my anorexia has mine. I may be wrong but I rreally dont think you can just 'snap out' of an eating disorder. 

I am not saying that my mum had a completely normal relationship with food as she obviously didn't but I do not think she is in any position to compare what she went through to what I am going through, especially considering she was never even diagnosed with anorexia. I would say that my mum certainly had disordered eating and I would even say that she took dieting to the extreme but I am not convinced that she had anorexia as if she did she would have been able to understand what I was going through all of these years, but she never has. 

My mum has been the least understanding person of all when it has come to my anorexia and I think in a way it is because of these issues she has had herself with food. From what my mum has told me, I think te difference between what I have gone through as far as my eatting disorder and what she went through in regards to food is that she never lost all control. She wanted to be thin and took her dieting to an extreme but she never lost total control like I did with my anorexia.

All the way through my illness my mum has acted as if anorexia is something that I have chosen and that I can choose to let go of it whenever I want too but this certainly is not the case, as all of you who have sufferered from anorexia would understand. If my mum did have anorexia when she was younger, wouldn't she be able to understand this too? I have always hated the way my mum has always made recovering from anorexia sound like such an easy thing, but I know that I really should not worry about what she thinks or waste my time trying to convince her otherwise.

I know that what she is trying to overcome herself is terribly hard but I do not think either of us are in the position to say that either overcoming anorexia or alcoholism is harder and at the end of the day who reaally cares. It is not like our illnesses are something we should be competitively comparing. No two people ever have the exact same experience of an addiction or mental illness and we should therefore never judge others or presume that we know exactly what others are going through because this is something that we will never know. 

All I do know is that anything like alcoholism or anorexia can eventually be overcome. No matter how badly someone is suffering with an illness there is always hope. In order to get better in both instances the sufferer needs to believe that recovery is possible and believe in themselves. They also need to want to get better, more then anything else in the world.