Friday, March 28, 2008

Age 24

This is not my body. This can't be it, this soft, round, jiggly blob. No, my real body is hidden under all these layers of fat, and my job is to remove the fat so I can be who I really am. So I can be a happy, confident, successful person who is loved and desired and appreciated and respected.

When I look in the mirror, that is what I think: No, please, this can't be it! I have struggled with bulimia for 8 years. My weight is normal and healthy, but it is too much. There's too much excess, too much softness and flab. I hate my eating disorder; I hate how I have allowed it to take so much from me - my health, my teeth, my time and money, my friends - but I feel that if I were to recover now, I would have failed. I never got skinny. I never achieved the goal. Recovery would mean giving up, and I can't let that happen. So I have to keep going, keep throwing up, keep dieting, keep doing all the things that make me sick and depressed, until I am thin enough that I am allowed to stop.

I know that I will never be thin enough. But I have to try.