when i started to restrict, it was nothing obvious so that no one would know, but maybe just a lunch here or a breakfast here or maybe i'd just work out an hour longer and no one would notice because i needed to lose weight anyway so instead of getting asked, "are you okay?" or "why aren't you eating?" i was told, "you look great!" and "i'm proud of you!" so i kept cutting back and i kept counting calories and i kept weighing myself before and after every apple i ate to make sure that at the end of the day the number on the scale would be smaller than it had been when i woke up that morning
and suddenly that wasn't enough for me and instead of having an apple everyday i realized that i could only have an apple every other day because people were still proud of me for losing weight, i was still the fat girl who needed to be skinny, so i kept cutting back and drinking water and black coffee to keep me going so that i didn't have to admit that maybe i wasn't okay because i wasn't skinny yet so i didn't deserve the help that deep down i knew i needed
and so the months passed and i went from a size 12 to a size 4 but it still wasn't enough because pretty girls weren't a size 4, they were a size 0, and the girls that my boyfriend wanted instead of me were a size 0, and so i needed to be a size 0 and so i began to stick my fingers down my throat and throw up every last shred of dignity that i had in a desperate attempt to be what everyone seemed to want me to be and what i felt i had to be if i wanted to be loved
and i thought i was okay because i could continue to live like this for a few more months, at least until i was skinny, then i would be fine and i would be back in control and i would have everything that i wanted and i would be beautiful and sexy and loved if i could just make it through a few more months at least, a few more months of feeling like nothing more than an empty shell of a dying girl, who couldn't even feel anymore because she was too tired and too hungry
but then i realized that maybe there was more to life than how much i weighed and maybe life shouldn't be measured by a number on a scale but by the laughter that i shared with my friends over dinner, real honest laughter that came from the depths of my full stomach, not a fake hollow laugh that came from my flat stomach. and maybe life is more than having a thigh gap and protruding collar bones, it's about having a light in your eyes from having a healthy soul, and it's about having a genuine smile, one that isn't corrupted by decaying teeth from all of the vomit and self destruction i used to indulge in
and there are days when i feel that old familiar tug to restrict again, and the thought that maybe all this weight i've gained back now is the reason why people have left me comes creeping into my brain unannounced and causes me to question if maybe having prominent hip bones would be better than sharing ice cream with the man i love or maybe it's worth my hair falling out to fit into my old jeans, and some days those familiar dangerous thoughts win but most days they lose and that's enough to keep me going for now
