A battle field of numbers

I wish i could somehow make you understand. i didn't want this, I didn't wake up one morning all those years ago and say to myself "Right im going to become obsessed with weight". It took hold of me, and then it grew on me, I became it not out of choice but necessity.

And I know you get angry, and that's okay but please you have no idea how hard im trying. It's not an easy fight and sometimes im not even sure I want to recover, the morning routines, the traumatizing trip to the mirror.

You tell me all the time, I have a wonderful body , that im beautiful, that im amazing, and believe me when i say im sorry I can't see it, but all i see is me looking back. Im hideous, im a monster. You can say what you want and I'll try and see it. Believe me ive spent hours there infront of the mirror, tracing thin perfectly crafted lines around my ghastly existance. Scanning, shearching for some wonderful embodiement that you speak so highly of. Do my eyes decieve me so badly? Is thier even the faintest possiblity that these images are merely conjoured up projections? That infact these layers and layers of unwanted body mass are merely an illusion?

Oh Ive wondered it, Ive wished and hoped it to be true. Ive pleaded with my mind for it to be , but still the mammoth of human form stares back at me. In vain I step away in fear, each time, sick to my stomach at such a monstorsity being allowed to exist. Believe me, I never asked for this, I didn't make plans before hand. It just snuck it's way through the cracks and refused to leave, like a stray cat that grows comftorable. Lavished like a member of the family, un-noticed for it's flaws. It becomes a friend, but then it turns into much more than that. A part of you, a cell attached like a tumour. Don't you see, I can't explain it in a way you'll understand, but im trying. I cannot present it as anymore than a sick possesion of the very mind and soul, that consumes the human beneath it.

It takes you over, it inhabits your mind and there's no way to fight it off. You grow to accept it , to love it, you convince yourself it will be better this way. That mind change is livid, a bloodthirsty soul swoops in and cradels you, comforts you, rewards you for your hard work.

Noone else ever did that you see, it was always someone else praised, congradulated. Someone else's glory. The ugly, useless, failure of a duckling, your life your jounrey already etched into your parents minds. Pushed this way and that towards everyone else's dreams.

And then you find this sprite in your head laying dorment and inactive , patiently until the perfect time to strike. This false and glorified idea of perfection, your special little friend, that you can control, that noone can take from you. The numbers lower and it's there staring you in the face, that warm sucessful feeling, that inner reward , that little warped taste of an achievement.

A perfection tainted in ruin, laying waste to your body and the demons within it. You think I enjoy marticulusly examining food labels, that I dont want to be free of this distorted realtionship with such a natural human life skill.

There is nothing pleasnt about bending over a porcelin bowl, nothing elegant or graceful about scrapping the raw skin from your throat as your fingers push and prod where they should never of travelled. Your back aches from the repeated strain of regurgitation. That meal with all its sensory delights that you had adored and enjoyed, each succulent bite savoured only to leave an acid vomit filled trace behind. Only to make you feel like a criminal within your own mind, like some great and unforgiving sin was commited just as the food brushed your lips, like the act of swallowing should have you hung and beaten for being such a fat c**t. Facing each meal as a war, arguing through every bite. Your head filling with such pure fueled self hatred.

"You f*****g fat pig, look at you, you mess. You beast, choke you f*****g animal, I hope you know this will add pounds each bite layers and layers. I know ill burn it off, it's okay it's been so long, im so tired, so weak, so f*****g hungry. Just let me have this one meal, just let it stick. But what if you don't burn it off, what if it wraps around your heafty frame, what if you gain! I wont. No you wont because you'll purge and purge and purge, you fat b***h, you deserve it for being so greedy. You couldn't just have one could you? You fat greedy piece of s**t."

All of a sudden your not so hungry, the mere sight of food makes your stomach twist and churn like a cement mixture. That feeling of self-loathing that makes it easier and easier to put it off makes the time between meals so much more rewarding. Successful an achievement. Further away from a failure.

I don't want this unhealthy obsession with the human skeleton, I don't want to be flooded with satisfaction from the jaunty angles of protruding bones. This haunts me like the whaling specters of an abandoned movie theater. It lives inside me like a parasite feeding off my imperfections, I am merely a host, being shaped into this warped and decrepid idea of perfection. I have no control at all, I realise that now. It lied to me, it slithered through on negative thoughts and it took over.

Believe me, if i knew it would lead to this, if I only knew the satisfaction would be so addictive, that id fall down a hole with no way to climb out, maybe i would of been stricter on my little friend.

I still remember the first time she visited me, her acrid hatred fueling my discomfort within my own skin. Grooming my darkest thoughts till they were strong, an army of my deepest fears and insecurity's running rampage in my own brain.

It's not so easy to fight something ive grown to desperately crave. Something that seems so perfect and wonderful, something that seems so close to reach. A perfection of torture and destruction but one of such fragile beauty. its not easy to believe things i cannot see, surely you must understand that. Ive tried and ive tried but all i can work out is that your all full of such hateful lies, you must want me to be fat to be giant, to wobble and splurt out at the edges. Cause the mirror wouldn't lie, how could it, it's not even alive its an inanimate object your accusing of having its own agenda.

Surely you can't believe that im blind to the health effects, that i don't know this desperate run for perfection could very well kill me. im fully aware, but still the guilt remains when the numbers rise still i count the calories, because i need her now. She's a part of me now. She's the only one telling me the truth in a world full of spiteful liars. She tells me my flaws so I can be a better person. So i can be perfect. Beautiful, thin, so i can kill the devils within my soul.

Im sorry, I don't mean it, Im sorry, I know you get angry but i can't stop this now. Not with so much further to go. I can't fail her, I have to be perfect. I have to keep the numbers low.

Reviews

[John Phoenix Hutchinson..]

Argghhh! This piece confused me to be honest, on one hand I liked it and then on another I thought it self indulgence.

[Shimmerbliss/CAF]

I was told about this by Baby Ricochet through a moving and personal piece that he posted after being deeply moved by this one. After reading this, I can understand even more. I applaud you for being vulnerable enough to expose the tricks and traps of this affliction so that others will better understand it (if they are not tormented by it themselves) and those who are dealing with it can perhaps see it in a new light. You have extended your hand and heart to help someone else, and I hope in the process have helped yourself take a huge step toward your own healing.
Thank you for enlightening, for caring, and for your courage.

[Baby Ricochet]

Brilliant! Personal for me too.

[Lonnie Paul Johnson]

Wow, this story reads like a person personal diary very strong with emotion. Keep writing!

[Taylor H.]

Ill message you with this one

[Mackenzie Brooke]

Good one, you definatley have alot of talent keep it up ^.^