National Eating Disorder Awareness Week (NEDA) is something I hold very close to my heart. This mental illness is real, and if you have struggled, you know it's a demon. To wake up every day and absolutely hate everything about yourself inside and out is simply indescribable.

If you are struggling, now is the time to get help. You will never *feel* sick enough or thin enough to get help, but you deserve recovery. If you know someone who may be struggling, please encourage them to seek help, or at least let them know that you are there for them.

More people die from eating disorders than any other mental illness. End the stigma and start a discussion.

Mirror Mirror,

I stare deep into you, unable to break contact. You have so much power over me, and you don't even know.

I hear you.

I watch you as you make me pinch the skin on my arms. I see you as you make me try to stand a little taller, so I'll look a little thinner, so I'll look a little more appealing.

I know what you're doing.

But I need you to let go of me.

I need you to let me walk by store windows and not feel you following me, telling me to fix my hair or start wearing makeup.

Regardless if I look into you, I know exactly where that pimple is. Without looking into you, I'm well aware that my thighs touch and my jeans are tighter now than before.

I constantly look to you, or into you, for validation.

Validation that I have changed, that I need to lose weight. Reassurance that I should probably wash my hair today, or at least try to make myself look presentable.

Thank you for once again making me wish I was invisible, for making me feel like my flaws are just as amplified to everyone else who sees me. All you do is further amply his voice. The voice that, no matter how loud I blast my music, I can still hear him screaming at me to skip breakfast, run an extra mile, and pretend that all of this is normal.

You've seen me sob on bathroom floors countless times. You've seen me through my most venerable moments, and still, you persist. You have no mercy. Still, I can't seem to resist you.

I boycott the scale, I got rid of my too small jeans and threw away half of my makeup. I wish I could smash you into a million tiny pieces so that then you could feel how minuscule and insignificant you make me feel.

But you'd never know because you don't have feelings. You are an inanimate object. You do nothing but show me fragments of a body.

But you can never, and will never, be able to measure my worth.

Although at times you feel like my puppet master tugging at my strings, I'm cutting the ties loose. I refuse to succumb to you any longer. I'm reclaiming my voice and my body back.

One day at a time, I will look into you, and I will no longer feel you pinch and tug at the masterpiece I live in.

Because all I want is to be free.