“Did you hear me? We don’t want you here! Get lost!” I said nothing. I hate being somewhere where I'm not wanted, but I had no choice but to wait for Sophie. I promised her I would. I didn’t even look at him this time, and after a few seconds he left with his gang following him like sick puppies.
No matter how much I hate the popular people, I’ve always wanted to be a part of them. I’ve always had hope. I would go to bed and wish I would wake up in a different body, but every time I look in the mirror, I would see the same ugly person.
When I was younger, I had no problem fitting in at all. I had tons of friends, and used to be the best of friends with some of the most popular people. But when grade two came around, I got glasses. That is when my life slowly started to go downhill.
My whole life, as long as I can remember, I had always over-eaten. Every meal I would sit down and eat until I couldn’t swallow another bite. An hour after that, I would search through the cupboard for something to nibble on until my next meal. Soon after I got my horrible glasses, my eating started to catch up with me. I watched myself get bigger and bigger, and I kept eating and eating. Eating was a drug to me, and when I looked in the mirror and saw how big I was, I would eat to help me feel better.
Even though I wasn’t huge, I was still constantly teased about my weight. It wasn’t so bad in elementary school, because people only used words. I learned to block that out, and it became a part of everyday life to me. But when I got into high school, people started throwing things at me, and even went as far as pouring juice into my hair.
I was sick of it, and I decided for myself that it was time for a change. It started by skipping breakfast. I thought of it as being better that way. After all, I was always tired in the morning, and missing breakfast meant I could sleep in a little more, even if it was only about half an hour. You would have thought that my mother would have noticed, and stopped me before it got any worse. But my mother, being a nurse, always worked crazy shifts and was never awake in the morning. I used to hate it, but when I started skipping breakfast, I loved it more than anything.
It became a vicious, overpowering disease, and before I knew it, I was skipping lunch and eating less than half of my supper. My mother didn’t notice, because my weight wasn’t drastically changing. I was still overweight, and wearing baggy clothes helped me hide any weight I did lose. As long as my mother didn’t suspect anything, everything was all right.
Then it came time for me to leave for a summer job at a camp for two months. I knew I would miss it at home, but I knew I would love it away from home even more. Two months without my mother… What could go wrong? I would finally be able to control my own life instead of being under my mother’s thumb 24 hours a day.
It was a very rushed job, and I was always on the move. I thought this would help me lose weight, but when it didn’t, I took matters into my own hands once more. When it was time for a meal, I would purposefully make sure there was still work for me to do. The meal would be served, and I would always arrive late. I didn’t want to go at all, but with not a lot of people around, it would be too obvious that I wasn’t there. I liked being late, because I worked mostly with guys. By the time I sat down at the table to eat, most of the food was gone. I took a little bit of whatever was left, and ate quietly in my own little corner. As soon as I finished, I would sneak away to the bathroom while everyone else was still stuffing their faces.
When I got to the bathroom, I would close and lock the door behind me and dreadingly turned around to see my horrible reflection in my distorted mirror. I stood there for what seemed like an eternity, and I would stare at myself, pointing out everything that wasn’t perfect on my body. That alone was enough incentive for me to lean over the toilet.
After five or ten minutes alone in the bathroom, my date with the toilet was over. I would go outside for a cigarette, sitting alone with blood-shot eyes, waiting for my co-workers to accompany me before we had to get ready for the mad rush.
Steph was always the first one out. I saw her through the window, and I just stared. Steph was my idol. She was the skinniest person I knew, and I wanted to be just like her more than anything else in the world.
The door opened.
“Are you okay? You look a little pale.” Steph was always a very caring person. When something was wrong, it was her you went to go see. But there was nothing she could do to help me. Words can’t make me skinny.
“I'm fine, thanks.” I wanted to tell her more than anything, but what could she do? She would make me stop, she would tell people. She would do everything in her power to try to help me, but really she would only make it worse. The last thing I wanted was for someone to control my life again, and it ate me up inside. I couldn’t stand the feeling of being alone, and yet it was I who not only put myself there, but who kept myself there.
That summer, I lost 30 pounds. When I got home, my mother was very pleased with my weight loss. My mother was always a huge critic, and with me she was the worst. She was always bugging me about losing weight, and when I saw that she was happy with me, I was ecstatic. So I tried to give up my “faze”, and slowly started to eat myself into my own recovery. I figured, as long as people are still noticing, then I must still be skinny. So I ate more and more, and slowly started to gain back weight. Slowly, the comments started to fade, and I actually had some people tell me that I was “getting chubby” again. That’s when I looked in the mirror and saw what I thought everybody else saw. I was disgusted with myself, and my vicious disease, once in dormancy, resurfaced itself and grabbed hold of my life once more.
This time, I planned it better. I didn’t sit down and say, today I'm not going to eat anything, but instead I planned some sort of a schedule. I told myself, I want to lose 15 pounds by next month. To do so, I would bike at least 30 minutes a day, and to bike to and from school at least twice a week. I stuck to my plan, and I was proud of it. It actually got me somewhere. After less than a month, I was at my goal weight. There was only one problem with it all. When I looked in the mirror, I still saw myself as being the same fat person I was before it all started. I couldn’t stop looking at everything wrong with my body, and my self-critical thinking dug me farther into my cold, dark hole.
My strive for perfection took hold of me, and every time I went out, all I could think about was how much skinnier everyone else was. Not only that, but I thought that everyone was looking at how fat I was.
After awhile of feeling completely alone in every way possible, I got a boyfriend, who is still very supportive of me. I’ve never told him about my condition, but I'm sure he’s figured it out by now. We’ve been together awhile now, and I’ve only eaten once or twice around him.
One of the days that I was over at his house, something horrible happened that has haunted me ever since. I spotted a scale under his dresser, and although I hate weighing myself, I can never keep away from it. I pulled it out, and stepped on, one foot, then the other, ever so delicately. 120 pounds, my goal weight! I was so happy, and when I told my boyfriend about it, he was happy about it also. Then he decided to have his fifteen minutes of fame, and step on it too. One foot, then the other, and we waited for the arrow to sit still. 115 pounds. 115 pounds! I couldn’t believe that my boyfriend weight less than me! Guys are supposed to weight more than us! How could it be possible? Words couldn’t express how angry I was, even though I didn’t let it show.
My thinking went into hypercritical mode, and I wanted even more to lose weight again. I set a new goal for myself: 105 pounds. Nobody in this world was allowed to be better than me, and I was going to reach my goal weight, even if it killed me.
