I decided that I was going to be different a long time ago. Unfortunately, it's tough to be different when you live in a world of large-breasted, wide-eyed, feminine conformity. A place where every woman, regardless of reality, is required to blossom into the stuff that Cindy Crawfords are made of as soon as they hit adolescence. I mean, try juggling school, friends, your life in general, and your supposedly flawed personal appearance all at once. I tried for a while. I failed.
Let's face it: The real beauty is inside. Your mom said it to you when you came home crying because some boy called you an ugly bitch. My mom said it to me when she found out that the only ball I was juggling was my personal appearance; the other ones were lying on the ground at my feet. She figured out my weakness: my mirror.
For about a year and a half, I was anorexic. My life revolved around my plate. In an average day, I consumed a cappucino (breakfast), a few sips of someone's soda and french fries filched off somebody's tray (lunch), and the absolute minumim of whatever mom had made for dinner, first helpings only.
"The only ball I was juggling was
my personal appearance; the other ones were lying on the ground at my feet." |
I alternately loved the food that I snuck between my teeth and condemned it for making me gain an ounce on my hips or thighs.
It was tough not eating; I was raised in a family that used food almost socially. We ate dinner together at the table or in front of the TV. Consuming food was a way of stating our togetherness. So when I came home to the table, with my bare-bones excuses of large lunches at school, I was surprised that they allowed me to eat so little. They smiled while I described what I had eaten; descriptions that I guess you could say were hopes of what I might one day eat.
I shoved the food away to worship distantly, dreaming over a slab of extra-thick chocolate cake while leafing through magazines to compare the thinner bodies of the models with my own swiftly waning one. It was vulgar, I now realize, to do what I did. I have yet to understand why I did it in the first place.
Or have I? Granted, we women live in a world where to be fat is to be disgusting.
"I only began to eat again after reading in one of my skinny-girl magazines
that screwing a skinny girl is like screwing
an exercise bike." |
To have curves is to be matronly. To have flesh covering your bones is repulsive. So almost in revenge on our bodies, we refuse food and starve to prove what the world wants us to prove: Thin is sexy. Bone is seductive. To look ethereal and vague is erotic.
I say from experience that it is NOT. In those one and one-half years, I was not kissed. I was not accepted by boys, which was one of the things that I wanted most of all. I only began to eat again after reading in one of my skinny-girl magazines that "screwing a skinny girl is like screwing an exercise bike."
Of course, to be naturally thin is not a bad thing. I was, but it wasn't enough for me. I wanted the bare bones; I wanted to see the bone and blood vessels, like I knew I could see in my magazine models. It was sick to want this, I know, but at the time it was a natural reaction to my body's "imperfections."
I have managed to regain my weight on my own, without the help of a psychiatrist or my parents. I triumphed mind over refusal of my body, but had I not realized my problem I would not have been able to come to grips with it. If you don't fit the textbook definition of an anorexic, it doesn't mean that you are an "eater." If you don't eat or refuse food for any reason (unless you feel sick and can't keep anything solid in your belly) seek help. There are people out there you can talk to.
Trust me.
