SO, i am about to get up on my soap box and rant once again. here i goooooooo
i read this {ARTICLE} the other day and it's been bugging me ever since. why on earth aren't more people speaking out about this? why are we allowing a small community (in comparison to the whole world) dictate what we should look like?
i guess i take a notice to things like this because it's effected me personally. i became anorexic by choice. most women say that it crept up on them. not me. one morning i woke up, decided that i was going to be anorexic and went to the library to check out any book i could find on the subject. i researched and gained ideas. i wrote them all down and began my eating disorder. i did it because i didn't want to live anymore and this was my way of dying. in my religion, killing yourself is pretty frowned upon and by having an eating disorder, it would be less noticeable i suppose. (that's how i thought of it at the time.)
the only problem is, is that i didn't die. i went year after year destroying my body. delving further and further into despair begging for it to just end. to just let me die. but it never happened. by the time i met the mister, he finally got me to a doctor. they took my blood and my potassium level was so low that the doctor couldn't even believe that i was alive. she had NEVER seen anyone stand before her not in cardiac arrest with a level that low. (it was at 1.2. normal is 5-8) i was immediately put into the hospital.
reading about women who die from eating disorders makes me angry at times and grateful on other occasions. it really depends on what cycle i'm in. i logically grieve for those girls who die for absolutely no reason. some stupid image that the fashion world demands. if you just google modeling and eating disorders there are page after page of young girls literally dying to be thin. it's stupid. it's ridiculous. and it pisses me off.
and then it pisses me off that i'm still here. why? why did i not die? why was i the one that made it? at this stage of my life, i'm grateful that i am alive. i'm happy to be here to be able to see my babies smile, laugh and give me hugs. that i have a body that for the most part still functions properly. with 16 years of self abuse, it truly is a miracle that i am still here. there must be some reason for that. and i've been looking for the answer ever since. i try to be the best mom i can be. i want to help others. i want my life to have meaning now that i didn't die.
don't get me wrong, i know that i will never recover from my eating disorder. and i get mad when i hear woman say that they are recovered. if you are, then you really never had an eating disorder to begin with. that, or you caught it at the very beginning. it will always be with me. it will always be the devil in my head telling me that i don't need to eat that meal today. that i'm taking up to much space in this world and i need to be thinner to be more invisible. it will always be the fight to do what's right. to eat my food and be grateful that i even have food. to exercise and be grateful that my body allows me to be active. it's a struggle, but one i think worth fighting. and i'll fight to the end of my (hopefully) very long life.
we as women need to be more vocal of what we expect of ourselves. we need to be able to talk about these things without it being taboo. i hate the look of uncomfortableness i see in peoples faces when i want to talk about my issues. why shouldn't we be able to talk about it? that's why we still have girls dying on the runways and girls dying to be just like them.
it's such a waste.
