It's Not Me it's You

Eating Disorder, 

I met you when I was five, I spent seven years getting to know you, developing a friendship, and mastering the art of sucking my stomach in. I spent the next four avoiding you, putting our friendship on the back burner as my athletic career took off in huge ways. Then when that went to the wayside you began flirting with me and I flirted back and for the next three and a half years in a friends with benefits role as you never gained my complete attention, other things still deserved parts of me. Then it happened, and over night, it became a co-dependent relationship, that for the next two and a half years I relied upon in order to survive. 

But today, May 17th 2013, I'm ready to be done, I don't want to flirt, I don't want to date, and I really don't want to be friends. I don't ever want to hear your voice again. However, I know it isn't that easy, a relationship this long, a relationship this intense, doesn't just disappear. Even if as i completely walk away from you today, your voice will still echo in my head, still mock me in the dressing rooms as I gain HEALTH to reach my goals, you one-liners will still pierce my brain as I sit down in front of a full plate at meals or try to conquer one of your "forbidden" foods. Your voice in fact will grow louder as you watch me begin to stumble away, realizing that you maybe are losing control, so you will yell louder and louder because you know me and you know how to scare me into submission. But the things you will yell, they are lies, pure pure lies, I will not become fat, losing weight does not make me happy, or show how strong I am, and it certainly doesn't make me more lovable. 

You have broken me down and made me weak, my physical body almost unable to handle the functions required of me daily, so as first it will be a crawl, crawling away from your demanding ways as you voice screams loudly in my ears. It will take reminders, visual, mental, and sometimes outside reminders that your screams are lies and unlike others you cannot hurt me as I crawl away. Soon, I will gain the strength to walk, by giving my body the proper nutrition and vitamins, walking is faster than crawling and I will begin to truly escape then. Your screams still loud will begin to soften and then after nutrition and weight restore my body I will run, running far from you and your abusive, lying ways, your voice become a distance whisper seldom heard in the wind. 

You convinced me for the last two years I was ugly and ugly person and an ugly being. You convinced me that both my need for food and my need for help were uncalled for and made me weak. You convinced me that I was useless and had no talents besides losing weight. You convinced me that losing weight was the only way to show people the pain I was in. You convinced me that the number on the scale, in the grade book, and in my bank account defined me more than anything. You convinced me that needing help was my fault, because I wasn't good enough at not eating to make it work, and therefor made me feel my "punishment" for my being weak and getting help was watching the money come out of my account for services that I used to try to make you go away. You convinced me I didn't deserve to feel beautiful unless my bones showed through my clothes. You convinced me every time I looked into the mirror that the person looking back at me was hideous. You convinced me that I could live on pickles and flavored water and that calorie counting was a game, a game in which negative numbers were the only way to win. You convinced me that if I ate foods I liked, if I broke your rules, my punishment was to spend money, you knew how much I valued money, on laxatives and waste the few hours I may have slept on the toilet, in miserable amounts of pain, suffering because I broke rules.  You watched as I spent night after night, day after day, with my head in the toilet, throwing up every food I ever loved, and you didn't even hold my hair back. You watched as I withdrew from friends, yelled at people I loved, and sobbed over plates full of food, and you heckled "this is how you catch perfection, this pain will be worth it." 

But you were wrong. Nothing would be worth what you put me through. The only thing ugly about me was you, my past didn't make me ugly, who you turned me into, that made me ugly. I am full of talents, many of which you stole from me. I am a runner, a passionate, racing runner, you stole that away even before the doctors did. You stole the joy from running. I am a writer, but you stole my words leaving numb and emotionless unable to connect pen with paper as I always have. I am a dreamer, but you stole my ability to see the future past the next "meal". I am far from useless, I am a teacher inspiring young minds to greatness, convincing them they are much more than the battles they face. I am a nanny, flexible and dependable loving my way into the hearts of children and families alike. I am a coach teaching my athletes about so much more than the X's and O's of the game I love. I am a friend, a listening ear, a confident, much more than useless; much more than a number. My bones are meant to hold my body up, enable the structure I need to stand up, they are not meant to be seen, they are meant to be protected. I have words, spoken and written words that express my pain in a much safer and rational way. I do not need to be punished for eating, and not for enjoying what I ate. I deserve to enjoy it. Nothing was worth the person you turned me into. 

It's a messy battle, and my knees are going to get beat up from crawling, from the pushing and pulling to get away from you, the grist few steps will be the hardest, but It's time. It's time to take whatever life is throwing at me and going forward with it. To make sure I eat, to use my words and not my body to express my feelings. To make sure I take care of my body and appreciate what it can do for me. It is time I start dreaming again, and reaching for those dreams everyday. I

It is time for me to leave you. There is a brighter future out there for me, one where I can smile and laugh without concentrating on calories or pant sizes. I've been told, by people I trust more than the world, that I deserve all the happiness  in the world, and I'm not getting that from you; it's time to look in a different place. 

-- Zoe