5 months

It's been five months since we lost Alyssa.

5 months worth of tears shed, do you know how much that is?

It's been 5 months and we just received her death certificate stating the cause.

probable heart attack.

And do you know why? Because that's what usually ends up happening to people

suffering from an eating disorder. After awhile, the heart just can't take the abuse that

has been put upon it. Eating disorders are so misunderstood, so private and so so very

lonely. They are slow killers...slow suicides.

One of the cruelest things anyone could ever say to me about Alyssa or directly to her was,

"Geez, why doesnt she just eat something, eat a hamburger or something..."

It's such an insensitive thing to suggest....eating disorders when you get right down to it don't

even have anything to do with food, it's a control thing, it's the one thing that a person can have

control over while everything else in their life is spinning out of their control. I watched Alyssa

struggle daily with this, every bite was taken with such an overwhelming fear and literally paralyzed her

after it was taken, it's as if every single bite was another another form of abuse that was being put

upon her. Eating disorders always have a root, and hers were deep rooted, abusive, dark, and

sufficating, her roots were slowly taking up residence in her and choking her to death. She had things done

to her when she was little by someone who should have been a person of trust....this is a part of her

story that I don't feel as though I should tell because it's very private, its very painful and it is hers to tell,

which I think....she did in many ways...she told her story through her art, her drawings told her story,

My girl was sad, my girl was tortured, my girl was two different people. When she was home with us, she

was laughing, she was drawing, she was singing, she was loving, she was happy....but at the same time,

internally she was broken, she was hurting, she was empty, she was scared, she was lonely, she was

fighting one of the hardest fights, she was begging to let it be over, she wanted so badly to stop her

eating disorder, she wanted so badly to be able to sit down with all of us and not have the topic of

food and eating send her to a place so dark and scary....I remember seeing her struggle so badly when

ever it was time to eat, or when she was put in a place where everyone was about to eat, all of us would

be eyeing the food, smelling it thinking, AhhhhI can't wait to dig in! Alyssa would be dying inside thinking,

how am I going to get out of this? Where can I go to throw up? How am I going to get alone? how much time will I have to sit with this food in my stomach before I can slip away without anyone noticing

and go take care of getting it out of me?

I wish to God so badly that Alyssa could have known the girl that I knew, it's like she just couldn't find

her, she couldnt see her, she was so enveloped in pain, in hurt, in sorrow, that she couldn't see the

amazing girl that I saw....who we all saw. My word...watching her slowly dying nearly killed me,

even though she was 22, she was still my baby, its as if I was watching my little baby laying in her crib

slowly dying from malnutrition and there was nothing that I could do about.

I still can't believe she is gone, I find little notes that she wrote, silently at night time when she was alone with

her true thoughts and feelings, my girl tried and longed so much to be "normal" she wanted so badly to be

amongst the "living" she wrote....."I want so badly to be done with all of this, I wish that I could stop, I know that one day this is going to kill me" and I feel as though she knew all along that she wasn't going to be

on this earth for long, Alyssa always seemed to know....and she would say things to me as if to prepare me..

and she would tell me all the time, "Don't cry over me mum" In some ways she was so strong, so vibrant, so loud with singing, so alive, yet I think the darker silent side of her was louder than anything and it took over,

it took  root and it rooted deep and it choked her, it's roots wrapped themselves around her heart and took her away.

She died in her sleep....on October 16th. In September she had told me that that is how she wanted to go

when she died...in her sleep, quiet and peaceful, in the end, I feel like that she got one thing she wanted, she

got to leave this world in the way that she wanted. I get so angry that shes gone, but then I am reminded,

that my girl didn't die crying, she didn't die struggling to get away from someone grasp, she simply just slept....

I like to think that she is sleeping....she's my little Snow White....she always was, always will be.

Alyssa Ann....I miss you so much.