Blame

No, this is not a pro-ana blog. Glamorizing the damn sickness is the last thing I wish to do. If you think I sit at my computer as my leg twitches uncomfortably, wondering how many things I’ll regret at the end of the day, how many devilish calories will make it into my mouth, with the sole purpose of infecting other people with the depression I feel each day, you are so grossly misinformed. If you think the reason for my ranting is to spread misery and hopelessness and despair to unsuspecting teens, you need to switch gears and find some compassion for a desperate girl attempting to soothe her pains by expressing her thoughts, the thoughts she keeps in all day. If a 15 year-old, impressionable teen is having troubles fitting in, feeling pressured to lose that extra 10 pounds, I am sorry that she stumbles upon this as she tries to seek solace. Because I am one girl, it is simpler to blame me than Valentino, for sending skeletons down their runways, or US magazine, for printing those “inspiring” weight-loss exposés. And even the “good guys,” who are preaching about the dangers of anorexia, bulimia, dieting in general, are only bringing attention to the debilitating sickness: those lectures come with a guarantee that the first thing a girl sees in the morning is her fat ass and the last thing she contemplates at night is her caloric intake. If your daughters, sons, students, neighbours are idealizing my mental illness, I will not feel guilty, won’t let you run me out of town, pitchforks raised. This blog is my release, the voice I search for at the dinner table when the glares stab me with the force of a hundred arrows as I push the second half of my meal away from reach. These are the broken, morose, sometimes witty, words of a girl trying to cope.

I can only love myself when I’m starving.