Every time the same thing happens. I enter the bathroom, head to a stall, latch the door. I look around, down and up and then kneel down. Tears hit the water hard like rain on the pavement. I say a little prayer, "Heavenly Father...I love your creation. Please forgive me for what I'm about to do." I let it all go.
I've had issues with food my whole life. Things like:
"You could afford to skip a couple meals."
Have stuck in my mind since I was a little girl. I am often haunted by the times in elementary school when we would line up by the door after a vigorous afternoon recess and the boys in my class would joke about how purely grotesque it would be if they ended up with someone like me as their girlfriend. Memories of when a mean girl would get on the school bus, tell me about how she lost five pounds, laugh and then go to the back of the bus and sit with her other popular friends.
It's memories like these that go through my head every time I'm about to purge. Yes...purge. Something that I have been doing since 2010 after an incident that occurred my senior year of high school. I have to coach myself into thinking, "Okay, Rachael..your body sucks. You can't stop eating when you're surrounded by your friends all the time..so puke. You're a fat ass, just do it. Everything people have been telling you your whole life is true. You're ugly. You're obese. You're an elephant. You look awful so nothing you ever do will be worthwhile unless someone else thinks you look okay."
Rituals like this I have kept track of in a notebook since I started. Making sure I didn't die or it got to the point where people would notice me leaving all the time, I logged in this notebook what times I would purge and I would also keep track of calories that I had consumed (in the roughest patch, not always). In that rough patch, I would also allow myself to have two cut days. Wednesdays and Fridays in which I didn't eat at all, but I made sure to stay hydrated and take vitamins, again so I "wouldn't die".
The hunger felt so good, the pain was my high. I would think, "This must be what it feels like to be skinny and beautiful. This is what it must feel like to belong and be wonderful. If I keep doing this, people will love me." Not eating would also give me an incomparable edge, an energy that felt like nothing else, it was wonderful.
Last night, I broke a three month no-purge streak. I was so proud of myself after listening to advice from friends, professionals and reading countless articles and journals, I had stopped this dangerous habit. But last night, I did it again. I was provoked by a group of friends (not my friends) sitting on campus having a discussion about obesity in America, their strict diet and how people who are overweight are ruining the image of the Midwest and the United States as a whole. One of the girls in the group stated that she couldn't believe that her "friends" were trying to feed her 17 year old sister candy when she's, "struggled with her weight her whole life."
I am not opposed to friends having discussions about health and well being, but they were pushing it just a little too far. A PIECE OF CANDY. Apparently to this girl that's like when a shark can smell blood up to a mile away or something.
The message that is probably muddled in this odd blog post is this: No one, unless they're a total ignorant asshole, is a complete disappointment to their NATION. The thought that human beings could think that the appearance of a certain person is, "causing the problem" or are "disappointment" is far more disgusting than the rolls around their waist. Though I still do not think that I am beautiful, or even close, which I thought before my elementary school terrors, I do think that everyone possesses beauty.
When I look at women and girls, the first thing that I look at is their face. Are they smiling? Are they happy? What's behind that perfect bone structure or those gorgeous eyes? Individuals that are smiling and happy and just...wonderful are so much more attractive no matter their size. Though I can liberally dish this advice out to others, it is extremely difficult to lay that concrete message in my own mind, but I'm working on it.
I want to make last night's mistake an isolated incident, and it more than likely will be. You know on TV and movies when you see a factory and they have to erase "100 days since the last accident"...well that's what happened in my mind and it was completely devastating.
If you or someone you know is suffering from what I like to call, a battle with food, please refer them to help. Don't be afraid of tough love. Tough love is better than no love at all.
As cliche and overused it sounds: You are wonderful, beautiful, the best, smart and kick ass. Don't forget that or I'll punch you. Okay, I won't punch you...but it'll make me sad. So don't!
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