I wish I could tell you that I DID NOT WANT THIS. I did not want to wake up one morning several years ago and to tell myself that I NEEDED TO KEEP THE NUMBERS LOW. It took hold of me. It grew on me. I had done it not out of choice but because I deemed it necessary.

Hey, I can understand why you’re so angry at me now. You’re looking at me like I’m no longer of this world, that I am totally a different person. You may be right. I don’t know myself anymore. You tell me that I am sick. I don’t know. Maybe I am. But I don’t even know if I want to get better at all.

It’s not an easy fight. Please believe me when I tell you I tried. It’s an agonizing trip every day. I don’t even want to look at myself in the mirror yet I can’t resist. I needed to see my reflection. I don’t want to stand on that weighing scale anymore yet I just have to. I needed to see the numbers. I have to know if I had managed to KEEP THE NUMBERS LOW.

You always tell me that I am beautiful; that my body is perfectly fine; that my weight is just right. I AM VERY SORRY. I can’t see what you mean. I don’t know if you’re lying to me just to cheer me up, or you just want me to see the reality that you see.

You can say what you want to say and I’ll try to see them to. But whenever I look at myself in the mirror, I can’t even see a trace of the person you speak so highly of. All I see is a reflection of an ugly girl, covered in layers and layers of fat. I AM HIDEOUS.

Do my eyes deceive me so badly?

I often hoped that I am just being deceived. That what I am seeing are merely conjured projections. The mind can play tricks, I know. But still, the image that stares back at me makes me sick to my stomach. How can such thing be allowed to exist?

Believe me, I had never asked of this. I never wanted any of these at all. It just managed to sneak into the cracks of my brain and embedded itself there, refusing to leave at any cost. Like a tumor, it began to spread and grow. And then it became a part of me.

I don’t know how to explain it for you to understand but I’m trying. In simpler term, it’s a sick possession of the mind and soul that consumes the human beneath it.

I can never simply ward it off. I’ve grown to believe that it is better for me this way; that I will be accepted this way; that the perfection you were talking about is within my reach if I do it like this.

And so I began my obsessive journey towards that sought after perfection. I don’t want to be called the ugly duckling anymore. I don’t want to be labeled as a pig all throughout high school. I don’t want to be bullied for being obese anymore.

There is nothing pleasant about bending over a plate, nothing elegant or graceful about scrapping the raw skin from your throat as your fingers push and prod where they should never travelled. My back aches from the repeated strain of regurgitation. Facing each meal as a war; treating each bite as a death sentence. That’s how I’ve always felt. I wanted to punish myself for being such a pig, such a glutton. I wanted to hate you and everyone else who forced me to eat.

I don’t want to eat. I don’t need to eat. That’s what my mind tells me. It’s what it had been conditioned to do so. And I follow. The mere sight of food makes me want to vomit. Its aroma makes me sick. I can’t stand it. I had to stay away.

No.

I am not totally blind to the health facts. You’ve been saying them to me over and over. There’s a possibility that my desperate chase to perfection can lead me to my doom, but I can’t afford to fail that voice inside my head. The guilt rises whenever I eat. The guilt remains whenever the number rises. And so, I continue to count the calories.

I need it. I had to do it. So I can be pretty; so I can be thin; so I can be accepted; so I can be perfect. Then, I can kill the devil in my soul; the one that makes me feel sick all the time.

I’m sorry. I know you’ve done your best to help me. Really, I am just fine. I can’t stop now. Not with this much further I can go. I have to be perfect.

I HAVE TO KEEP THE NUMBERS LOW.

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