Friday, August 7, 2009

An Open Letter To Wanarexics

I have an offer for all who want to be thin. There is a way. It’s a simple trade. You will be thin, just give up your joy, your happiness, your friends, your family, your sanity and finally probably even your life.

Doesn’t sound to good anymore does it? Welcome to the mind of someone suffering from an eating disorder. Food is a constant obsession, it dictates everything. You will give up moments of happiness just because they include food. Birthday? No thank you, cake. Wedding? Nope, banquet! Party? Forget it, junk food! You will become irritated because of the lack of food and push people away. You will get sick and you will become weak. And when you look in the mirror what do you see? Same ugly person you have always seen. People telling you that your are beautiful? That you are thin? Don’t believe it, they are laying obviously, look at the mirror. Or they are jealous, the people who love you are jealous of you. Did I forget to mention paranoia is part of this package?

I am 21 years old and I have spent most of that in self loathing. I did not pick to feel like this, I did not wake up one day and say: “you know what? Today I will stop eating and be so beautiful OMFG!!!11!”. I spent the better part of junior and high school denying I had a problem. After all, my mother’s cousin had an ED and I was not like her. She is so thin she is frail, she has almost no muscle mass, bony, her hair is dull, and her smile is sad. I am just skinny. Never mind that I am actually underweight and bony myself. All I saw was just a belly that has never disappeared, flabby arms, and I ate sugar and junk like a maniac. That woman never eats, and if she does she only nibbles at food, not me I down diet coke and chips! I also had great exercise, my school was all stairs and we had to carry heavy loads all the time (it was an art school; we carried big projects someone even needing another person t carry them). Also I had always had been fussy at eating it was no problem. No I was not like that woman that made all my family worry that was so deep in her sickness that she could not even feed her children well and her husband had to take over. No. At most I just had a low self esteem and I am extremely shy.

Tell me why would someone choose to follow that woman who still looks so frail and sick? Who would want to suffer, not think of anything but food get sick and end up so screwed up mentally that your mind changes what you actually see?

Eating disorders are mental sicknesses that consume every aspect of your being. It’s a problem in your mind not your body. You cannot choose to feel like this. Recovery is possible but like an addiction this is something that is not simply cured. You can’t just shut a switch and stop seeing an image that is basically in your imagination. You can’t just shut off the depression that you feel, the feeling of unworthiness. This is not a diet plan, this is a sickness. You don’t want to be skinny; you just want to love yourself. And the only way to cope you can find is this self hurt and control. You count and counts hoping that one of this days these counts will make you stop crying.

Do you want to choose to be miserable? Do you want to choose to get your day controlled by the feelings brought on by a number on a scale? Do you want to end up crawling into the dark corners of your mind and staying there thinking just a little more and I will be ok? Just a bit more and I will be loved? Just a little bit more and I will be happy? But like drugs you know you will not be happy. Like a drug you need it to make yourself feel better even if you know you are slowly killing yourself. You will try t recover and find yourself falling back because you feel insecure.

Right now, I am sick. I have BDD (Body Dysmorphia Disorder) and EDNOS. I have thought my family and friends are trying to sabotage me. People tell me I look beautiful and just smile inside thinking they are trying to humiliate me or they are just saying what people expect of them. I don’t take picture because I look bloated. I have cried in dressing rooms because once I put on something and look at myself I look horrible. I had a fight with a store clerk because the store didn’t have anything that fitted me. Even shoes! I can’t buy shoes because they look horrible!

I count calories in everything. I can’t eat without thinking every one is saying “Oh my look at that chick!”. I hear people tell me confidence is the key to looking good and all I want to tell them “what about me then?”. My family says I look skinnier I tell them I still need to lose more.

If this letter makes no sense, let me tell you something, this is the mess inside my head. This disaster is what happens every minute of every day. Do you really want to choose this still? Do you really believe this is a lifestyle? Then I guess so is depression or schizophrenia right? From now on I decide I will be bi polar and speak to voices only I hear! Not as funny anymore huh?

If you believe this is a lifestyle, get to know someone who really is deep in this like my mom’s cousin or me. Watch us, see how unhappy we are even with so much good around. And then tell yourself, do I really want this?

Get on a healthy diet, exercise, live life, don’t follow me…

Yours truly, Ana Dollhouse

5 comments:

  1. Very beautiful and very true. It makes me cry when I read something like this, it's as if you read inside my head and looked into the mirror through my eyes. I wouldn't choose this life for anyone.

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  2. this should be pasted on a bill board to the highway to hell.
    Sally.
    xo

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  3. People need to wake up and realize that eating disorder are mental illnesses. None of us who really suffer decided to wake up one morning and magically "got" this illness. The only choice we can make about it is to recover or not.

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  4. My God, she's telling the truth. Listen to her!!!

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  5. It is true, granted, it can be different for different people but, in the end, it's the same feeling of helplessness. What's worse is that it CAN come back even when you think you've beaten it. I'm fighting this for the fourth time. I am a male anorexia sufferer who's been fighting a back and forth war with this illness since I was ten. I've been at unhealthy weight three times already and I'm going downhill fast once again, but after going through it so many times I was able to recognize the signs earlier this time to try to start fighting again.

    It doesn't stop, it doesn't go away, just because you gain weight again doesn't mean that the battle is through, I'm proof of that. It can come back time and time again. You don't want this! It's not glamorous or sexy or desirable. It's a living f***ing nightmare.

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