This week, I reached a turning point in recovering from my eating disorder.

Up until now, although I’ve known how destructive my restricting has been to my body and though part of me wanted to stop, anorexia had so much control over me that I wasn’t completely willing to give it up. I said a few weeks ago that I was going to start treatment for it, but honestly, I was so depressed the day of the appointment that I couldn’t get out of bed and just cancelled it.

But one day this week, I looked in the mirror and saw my ribcage awkwardly jutting out in front of what was left of my stomach. I’d now lost seventeen pounds and weighed less than I did in sixth grade. I noticed bones in places that I’d never seen before. I realized how terrible I felt all the time: I was always cold, I had headaches every day, I couldn’t fall asleep, my brain was foggy, and I was constantly forgetting things. All of my POTS symptoms were suddenly getting worse, too. Recent blood work showed anemia, and my doctor told me I’d be in the hospital soon if I didn’t start eating more. Most frightening of all, I was having constant chest pain, which could’ve be a sign that my body was starting to break down the heart muscles as it was running out of other fuel.

Indeed, I was slowly dying. Then again, anorexia had so taken me over that I wasn’t really living anymore anyway. I was terrified to think of being in the hospital with a feeding tube—but I was even more afraid to eat. How could anything change?

I wish it were as simple as just “snapping out of it” and deciding to eat more, but it’s not. The idea of eating an extra one hundred calories is enough to send me into a panic attack. My brain screams at me to restrict so loudly that I can no longer hear the voice of reason. Even when I know it could kill me eventually, anorexia has so much control over me that I will fight with everything I am to continue to restrict. I am a slave to my own torment.

Nevertheless, I found freedom this week with my third round of IVIG. I don’t understand it, but yesterday, I ate all three meals without even trying to count the calories—usually, I have to plan everything out ahead of time and be sure I’m not going to eat “too much.” I’m normally extremely anxious about going to restaurants because it’s so much harder to count the calories, but yesterday, it was fine; I enjoyed my meals like a normal person. It’s like that terrible demon called Anorexia has left me.

You see, with every IVIG infusion, I get a dose of a steroid called Solumedrol. In the past, I’ve noticed immediate relief from symptoms because of it, so if there was any doubt that my anorexia was related to brain inflammation, it’s gone now—you’re not supposed to get better from anorexia just because you had some steroids and immunoglobulins. But the real question is: will I stay better?

As I finish up this third round of IVIG today, I’m bracing myself for the post-IVIG flare that I always have two weeks later. I’ve decided to continue to see the psychiatrist every week for therapy, because I don’t want the restriction to creep back in. I’ve told my parents how they can hold me accountable, so that they can help be sure I don’t lose any more. I’m calling a nutritionist, because even if I were somehow totally “cured” of the mental aspects of anorexia, I still have to recover from the physical consequences of malnourishment.

I don’t know if or when this eating disorder will come back to enslave me again, but I do know that this time, I’m not going to listen. I reached my physical and mental breaking point this week, and I never want to go there again. Life has more to offer than starving myself and being tormented by food. I don’t like to think of what would happen if I continued with that, so I’m running as fast as I can toward recovery.

Goodbye, anorexia. Hello, life.