When I graduated from high school, I met Ana. Ana was a very forceful and strong-willed entity who just enticed me to spend all my days with her. When I entered university, she was still there with me. When I refused to eat lunch with my new friends and when I made up all kinds of excuses to justify my actions. Then I got sick of her and dumped her. She was always making me hungry and faint and sickly.
Once I let Ana go, I got to know Mia. She was really nice. She didn’t care how much I ate or what I ate. But then I realized she had other plans for me; she made a deal with me: I could eat anything I want in any amount as long as I get rid of them after. In whatever way I wished to. As long as I got rid of the delicious food in my stomach. I was her friend for such a long time. Her offer seemed reasonable. But little did I know that I was doing more damage, than good, to myself. My teeth were prone to decay and I still got dizzy a lot. I wanted to exercise but the vomiting tired me out. My stomach was eating itself and I was always dehydrated.
That’s when I decided that I would eat whatever and not throw up as long as I just exercised and exercised. I became a compulsive exerciser. Which was in no way any better than what I was previously doing.
But that’s all in the past.
For me, anyway.
Today, I realize that I needed something to reaffirm my existence here on earth other than how I measured up to society’s idea of what beautiful is. I wrote about that in my previous post about jogging.
But it’s really sad that many girls and boys feel like they need to lose weight or be thin just to be happy, accepted and loved. Because that is so not the case. They don’t need to be thin to be happy. They don’t need to lose weight before they’re accepted and loved. What is even sadder is that they don’t know this. No one is telling them the realities that they need to put themselves in. Not the twisted reality that society tries to force upon them.
I am very troubled about this because I believe my youngest sister (let’s call her Summer from now on) is going through what I’ve been through. I’m not saying that we’re going through the very same thing. What I mean is that she’s in a similar situation. I don’t know what she’s thinking about when she doesn’t eat or when she decides to use laxatives. I don’t know what excuses she tells herself to justify her actions. I don’t know what tapes are playing in her head. I just know she needs help and love and positive people to surround her and love her and be there for her no matter what.
I wish that more awareness would be raised about this issue. People keep talking about healing obesity and living their best life. But there aren’t enough materials about eating disorders and ways to support and help people suffering from them. It’s just as important.
(In case you didn’t understand my little story up there, which I wrote off the top of my head, Ana actually symbolizes the eating disorder Anorexia. Mia symbolizes Bulimia. I read somewhere that Ana and Mia actually refer to the pro-EDs movement–Pro-Anorexia and Pro-Bulimia. But in my story, I didn’t really mean them that way, okay?)
