There are a few things that I’d like to apologise for.
I realise that this comes a little late and that we’ve started, finally, to look forwards rather than backwards; but I’d like to start afresh and I want you to know – before we go any further – that I’m sorry (on behalf of my eating disorder), for some of the things that I imagine are hard to forget –
Like the times that I made you pick me up from supermarkets with armfuls of bags, or dragged you to all–you-can-eat buffets, because it was the cheapest way of bingeing and I wasn’t quite brave enough (then) to go on my own.
Or, the years that I dismissed your concerns and ignored what you were going through, because being thin was the top of my priorities and I didn’t think about what it must have been like, looking in.
For the times when I screamed and shouted and swore at your attempts to help me, and when I rejected the meals that you’d carefully prepared with an insult and an argument and a comment that was designed to hurt -
(because it was easier, you see, then doing what you had asked).
I am sorry for the family holidays that were cancelled, and the occasions that were ruined, and the obliteration of the dates which parents look forward to. For stealing my 16th – and my 18th – and my 21st – and leaving you wondering whether my wedding fund would be paying for my funeral.
I did not realise, then, that the sleepovers and schooldays were overshadowed with fear and that the whispering in the corner were not about boys and clothes and schoolgirl secrets – but about me
(because no one wants to watch their best friend whither away).
Nor did I understand, as I do now, that the anger which I reacted so virulently and violently to was directed, not at me, but at an illness -
(because no one wants to lose their child).
So, I know that we’ve moved on, now, and that I was not really me. And, I appreciate that this apology isn’t needed, anymore, because I’ve stopped saying sorry and started making it different –
But I’d like to apologise, it it’s not too late, for the pain that I caused and the things that I made you do. And I’d like to mention, just this once, the things that we have been too afraid to mention and have been too painful to discuss -
Because I can see, now, that I was not the only victim or the only one in pain -
And, I am deeply sorry.
Tags: Friends and Family, moving on, regret
