Beauty and the Beast
A childhood tale of the sweetest bookworm, Belle who falls deeply in love with a man, a Beast brings to mind nostalgia and hope of true love beyond what meets the eye. Although in this case, I'm a picky reader and the Beast isn't so tender at heart. My princess story is one of loss- a love laced with fear, criticism and cruelty until all that the Beauty had was the Beast and the Beast had all of her. Entangled in a web of lies is the perception of an outsider. Dolls, my heart breaks when an outsider chooses to be playful, to joke about a situation so completely and utterly unamusing for I am the one truly cursed, burdened with the lack of laughter every waking hour of every day. I do not believe that my tale has been fortuitous and I endeavour to unglamorise a toxic love, revealing the Beast for what She truly is- Beastly.
A Beastly Obsession
Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. Go my hands as the Dettol strips my skin of bacteria. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. My fifth hand wash in two minutes as I prepare something I've finally accepted I can eat. My hands are safe enough to touch each item, the fork is clean enough to scrape the bowl and the bowl is clean enough to hold the sustenance. Is this funny yet? The next day, the next meal is the same. Unless it's less. For now, yesterday isn't safe anymore. Now, I've been convinced that the nutritional information was lying to me or that something I thought was 'healthy' is 'unhealthy' now. Today is less. Today I am less. My life a little smaller, my soul a little duller, my smile a little weaker.
Perfect Timing...
Perfectionism aligns with an incessant idea that order, structure and overall thoroughness must be achieved on any given task. The term has been tossed around carelessly, diminishing the power it holds over people who cannot escape it, people cursed by it. My perfectionistic ordeal begins with the timing between each meal, it's body is the time between each mouthful and its ending is the length it takes me to finish the entire meal. If the timing doesn't feel perfect, in my head I hear that I'm a failure, I'm not in control, I am greedy, or that if I'm eating with somebody else they are judging me, thinking I'm disgusting. Dolls, I wish I could turn back the clock to a mouthful that felt more kind. Do you remember a moment in time so simple, so good, so joyful?
The Torment Fornever In Your Favor
My sweet Shopaholics, the reason I implore you to be the most confident, sexy and beautiful version of yourself imaginable is that the antithetical feeling is debilitating. I can only describe the feeling for what it is- torment. Dolls, the joy truly begins the night before as I meticulously plan the following day. Calories, compensation and guilt are the primary topics and emotions guiding my decision making. I find it most hilarious as I hear 'This is too much.', 'This food was contaminated. You're dirty. You touched it. Go wash your hands.', 'They added something in this when you looked away.' or 'Compensate for this meal by restricting at the next.' The most joyous moments lie in the words and actions of others. Hearing a well-meaning 'good job' over a challenging meal translates to 'You're failing me. If you did well for Luka, you did badly for Anorexia.' Recently, it's all I can think about... the words are so loud it's as though they're throbbing through every conversation, every meal, every task.
I hope you can agree with me, Shopaholics, that joy has no place in the life of a person with Anorexia. She's strong-willed, she's conniving and she's evil but she is certainly not good at one thing- being funny. I think it is in the nature of humans to create humour under unforeseeable circumstances. Perhaps it's easier to cope with humour than address a reality more appropriately because it seems too dark, too sad to accept. So, although I can understand that humour arises in dismay, it feels poignant nonetheless as someone that you trusted lets themself into a room you hadn't left unlocked. Once you've made a punch line out of the restaurant I cannot go to, the food that I'm too scared to eat or the times I checked the label, you made me feel a little less than believe me, I already feel.
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