don't care if it hurts, I want to have control.

I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul. 

Mirror, mirror. The unscrupulous bitch that stares back at me is unrecognisable. Silk shirt tucked into high waisted pants and a lanyard with a garish name tag. In the great hullaballoo of figures and colours and ailments rushing by, her image is the one that strikes me. Breathe in. Fiery hatred floods my being as a natural instinct, everything about the way she looks is so utterly repulsive to me. The bulge of her stomach, the way her arms balloon from her short sleeves, the way her voluptuous breasts seem to be bursting past the buttons, the subtle double chin. Hideous. 

Breathe out and stop. The hullaballoo has moved on, and it is only me who remains, staring. All the hatred, the revulsion, the disgust, the torrent of emotion that flooded through me in a river of rage has been stunned into pause. In the rush I had failed to recognise my own reflection. I had directed so much hate towards someone who I thought was a stranger, only to realise I had been looking at myself. How did I become this?

ANDREA!!!! 


I see you are back to commenting on my blog. If my posts upset you, why do you continue to read them? I think your efforts would be better employed doing something you enjoy, such as going out with friends, or undertaking whatever hobbies you may have instead of leaving abusive comments on my posts. 


Do you really expect me to change views that I have held my entire life because someone like you, who I have never met, finds me selfish and stupid (and whatever else you have called me over the years)? 


I know what I'm doing isn't normal. And I can see why you and others may see it as selfish. But you know nothing of my life and how I grew up and my motivations. Not every woman dreams of having a husband and children to cook for. Just as not every person is able to look at food normally. You can't really think that when I starve myself it is some sort of conscious effort to hurt and betray everyone who might care about me and sabotage some vague dream of an idealised family unit. It certainly isn't. Sometimes, it is a coping mechanism that I must do to make it through the day. 


Most of us who have eating disorders are highly intelligent. You obviously don't think so, as you've called me stupid many times now. But most of us get top grades and have highly paid jobs and have high functioning lives and we know more about nutrition than most people who aren't nutritionists. Nothing about ED is about getting nutrition, it's a fear of food, a fear of losing control, a fear of gaining weight that runs in our bones and it's not something that can be changed by telling us to snap out of it. 


Do I like the way I am? No. I'd change many things. And if I could look at food normally, if there was a chance of that, I would. An existence where I don't have to face my worst fear everywhere would be lovely. I would not wish this upon anybody, not even you. For you to think that this is such a simple problem is rather ignorant of you. I don't think you can understand what it's like, not unless you somehow develop an eating disorder. 


What is it that you try to achieve with your comments? Do you hope to inspire me into recovery? Do you want to shame and ridicule me until I fall into a pool of misery and kill myself? I can tell you right now that neither of those things will happen. 


Do you simply want to point out my stupidity and laugh? Feel free to laugh and jeer all you like. But you don't need to be abusive. You don't need to post those comments on my blog. You don't need to read my blog at all. I like to think I've been reasonably civil with you. And you should give me some credit and believe me when I say I'm not a silly little pre-pubescent girl who is online attention seeking. I'm an much older girl, using this as a forum for expressing my thoughts and perhaps meeting people who follow my wavelength.