PrettyThin

Have you ever walked into a room?

I have. I've felt the eyes of the other people in the room
shift. Not long stares, just a shift. a turn of the head. Sneaking
glances out of their peripheral vision. Why? Is it because she's the
most beautiful girl they've ever seen? Of course not. I'm writing to a
pro-ana website. Of course not.

It's because I was fat.

Everyone is thinking the same thing, just for one moment.
They don't mean to. It isn't conscious.

“Oh, she's bigger then me."

After awhile you get used to it. They usually don't say
anything, you block out the stares, the looks, the air of the room
changing with your very entry. And then you stop noticing at all. It's
when the people say things. When they attack you. Being fat, and in any
sort of confrontation with someone results in the same thing, every
time; they use your weight as a weapon in their arsenal. If you don’t
let it hurt, if you're strong, it stops working. I've seen stronger
people get over, not let it affect them. But I'm not strong! I never
will be. Every jeer, every attack, every observation brought me closer
to where I am now. If it's someone you don't really know, it doesn't
matter as much. In my case, It was my brother. Day after day, since I
was nine. Some little remark about my appearance. He never knew it
affected my as much as it did. I started doing more sports, in which I
got more stares and jeers. Have you ever seen a fat girl run? It isn’t
just her that’s running, it’s her and 30lbs of fat. It’s her and the
creaking and protesting of her muscles. It’s her and all the jiggling.
It’s her and all the airspace around her. I didn’t lose enough. And when
 I did lose, no one noticed or cared. I was still fat. I remember when I
 decided ‘never to eat again’. I was in the shower after volleyball, and
 I was shaving my legs. As I flexed to get the back of my leg, I almost
threw up. My legs were disgusting and muscly. I couldn’t wear shorts
with disgusting legs like this! Not in a long shot. Not ever again. But
how do you get rid of muscle!? exercising makes your muscly legs get
bigger! So I freaked. And I saw all those ‘starving models’ . . . They
didn’t have muscly man legs. What if I didn’t eat? I learned about
eating disorders in health class. After they burn through all their fat,
 they even burn muscle!

I knew what I had to do. I needed to never eat again!

Of course, that failed miserably. I was 11 - I didn’t have
the necessary willpower. I decided then and there to be ‘anorexic’, and I
 struggled through this. Until I was in eighth grade. People were so
much more open about how they thought I looked! They were finally
comfortable with telling me how gross and fat I was. After the required
sobbing, I decided to really do something about this problem. I started
little three-day-fasts. I saw a little article on MSN on how this was
healthy, and I did these about once a week. Things started changing when
 I went to music festival for two weeks.

I fell in lust with a 21 year old, who I aspired to. He was
my first real crush, the firstie, the one that you will never, ever
forget. My love for him was the strongest I had ever felt, ever.
Different from all the other crushes I had experienced. This was
special. I wanted him to like me - it wasn’t really physical attraction,
 I just liked how he held himself.

I changed. I almost never ate the entire two-week camp, and
something snapped. To this day, I have no idea what it was. I became
extremely uncomfortable with anyone touching me, I started cutting
myself to feel better, and I started to lose weight. It was when my
shorts rode up just a tiny bit, and the guy I liked saw my cuts in
rehearsal. As any normal human would do, he pointed at my leg, finger
outstretched.

“What’s this?”

I felt cold all over. The world span faster then it did two
seconds ago. And the conductor called us to play at number 158. I was
safe. Not really, though. Throughout the rehearsal, he would say how
great I did on this part of that, complimenting me 100% more. At one
point he even patted me on the head, telling me how great I did. I had
broken him. The entire camp, no matter what happened, he was always
happy, peppy, and generally amazing. No matter what you did, he stayed
the same. And now, like a normal human, he was trying to comfort me. I
had changed him. I had changed his reaction to me. This was like a blow
to the head; a knife wound in the heart. I feigned sick, along with an
actual cold, so I had a small fever. That festival was the first time I
forced myself to throw up. I left that festival changed, and I entered
freshman year at a new school changed also.

Some guy randomly called me fat, I compared myself more, and I
 ate less. I didn’t eat anything at that school  until about two months
in. I wasn’t losing weight, I wasn’t gaining weight, no one cared that I
 didn’t eat. One of the people at my lunch table was 95 pounds, in 9th
grade. I couldn’t eat in front of her! I would go home and binge. I
remember bingeing after school, then feeling so angry at myself that I
ran upstairs and forced my entire hand down my throat until I puked a
tiny bit up. I instantly felt better, happier. As the year wore on, I
got very good at purgeing, knowing just what to do to make myself throw
up. To throw it all up.

That’s where I am now. I started my journey at 5’3 and
145lbs, and now I am 5’3 and 114. No one has even noticed because of my
clothes. I tell myself that I can stop whenever I want, but I know I
can’t. I know I don’t want to.

Most importantly, I know I won’t.