Out of all the inaccurate, over sensational videos out there right now on eating disorders, I found this one to be quite refreshing and it definitely hits home for me.

This week has not been easy. Summer is always hardest on me because that means time at home. Alone. No strict scheduales to follow, no reserved time for eating. It's all up to me, which means I have to stay in control twenty four/seven.

I have not been able to sleep for a little over a month. It's all been a bunch of catnaps basically that have gotten me by.

My brother, Peter, is coming to visit tomorrow. Going to have to head to Baton Rouge to pick him up.

Here's the thing that's been bugging me the most about summer: friends. I know that's silly...because I need them. I need them to be there so I don't do anything stupid, binge or deprive myself completely. But sometimes I feel trapped.

We went to Dairy Queen today after washing the car and my friend Ces tells me we should both get shakes. I really, really, really didn't want to get a shake.
But, as silly as it sounds, I did because I'm concerned for her health (her eating habbits aren't healthy either) so I agreed so that I could get her to eat. I guess we both needed each other's support in order to order shakes and still feel decent.

I couldn't do it. It was too sweet. I took slow, slow sips and watched everyone nervously as they devoured theirs in the heat of the summer sun.

I took a few more sips, hating myself. I could feel my stomach get bigger, I swear and I'm so afraid now that I look at it I feel I've ballooned up.

I threw it up silenty in the car. No one even noticed. That's what scared me, I've become that sneaky.

They would all be focused on the road or dancing to the radio while every few minutes I'd slyly, silently, gag into my cup and cover it with my hand. I threw it out right away.

I would say today was a good day as far as eating goes though...

To be honest, I'm posting today because I'm having a hard time not freaking out. I ate the most I have in months today. My mom bought me a burger, I ate a few bites of that....gave it to the dog, but about half of it was gone. I feel it pressing againts my throat, I want it out.

I had some rice and something to drink too.

I feel so bloated. But I guess it's okay, I had less than 300 calories yesterday so I could use this, I suppose.

Honestly, I'm terrified. I feel bloated. I feel disgusted. I feel scared. I feel ugly and worthless. That's how I feel. My stomach hurts. My head hurts.
I feel like a screw up.

It seems like the closer I get to health...the more disgusted I feel.
Why do I lie to myself like this? 

Like- but not nearly as endearing as- snowflakes, I guess you could say no two eating disorders are exactly alike. Sure, there are the simillar signs, behaviors, whatever. I've spent half my life devoted to what I thought half the time was normal, just a way of life. Another part in denial...and another (now) knowing it was a problem but not caring.

To be honest, I don't sit around and think about where this all started for me very often. I guess I'm not really sure where it did, is the thing.

My family, like the stereotypical anorexic girl's family, has always emphasized on the importance of being thin and losing weight and dieting. I distinctly remember my grandma bragging to me one night about how little she ate and how I should try it too. My grandpa has a strong prejudice against obese people and finds them "disgusting" and "lazy", he would point that out many times to me when I was little. He would always make fun at my brother for being a little pudgy, like it was a crime for having extra meat on your bones. And to us, it was, now that I think about it.

He would always praise me for my legs and my build, telling me whatever I was doing to keep doing it so I wouldn't end up like my mother or like Peter, my brother.

I was molested at the age of four, another anorexic poster-child characteristic I have.
I was mercilessly teased from fourth to seventh grade for my weight. Now that I look at pictures, though I still am not happy with what I weighed then, I can see that I wasn't fat. Just chubby, like any other girl just hitting puberty. But at the time I hated myself so much. It was not the younger kids faults for making fun of me, it was mine, I would harp to myself.

My father and mother divorced when I was little, shortly after they found out I was being molested by my older half brother. I always blamed myself in the back of my mind. I mean it made sense and still does to this day that my father's son from another marrige molesting his daughter in his new marrige would be a big factor in their ultimate split up.

I guess I was always very concious of weight and sex ever since the age of four. It was as if my eyes had been opened completely to the ugly world. I don't have any childhood memories of innocence, or cute recollections of me being naive. It was always tough love  with me, cold, hard reality.

It became aware to me at a very young age that sex and eating were two desires you gave into...dirty temptations for the weak and the sinners.

Little did I know then that later in life I would indulge and deprive myself completely from them in order to cope. My security blankets.

We moved a lot across the country after the divorce. My mom seemed restless and homesick wherever we went and I tried to be the calm one for her but mostly for myself. Life was never calm or safe for me, and it still isn't. For as long as I remember it's been scary and fast and a thing where it's every man for himself.

My obsession with food began in the second grade. What everyone was eating, how, when where. My favorite thing was to watch other people eat. Watch the way they savored each bite. See where they bit into their sandwich first...did the swallow almost immediately or chew with painful caution. I watched as if testing myself. I had a rule even back then where I couldn't eat at school until everyone else had. I watched everyone at my table until the last bite was taken by the last person. And then, with only seconds to spare, I would begin my meal.

To me, it was almost as if I had this thing where I would panic if I ate before everyone had finished. Because then i would look like I was really hungry...which would make me look like a pig. And if I was the first on to finish eating, god forbid, I would look like a fool to everyone. A fat person who has no self control.

I had so many weird little ways I would eat, but it would always seem perfectly normal to me.

I didn't start my real dieting until age 9. I mean, I'd always been weird and obsessive about food but never really restricted myself or counted calories or anything like that. I always had my rituals, but they were not necessarily unhealthy.

We moved to Texas and I met my first and only friend while I was there, Amanda. Now that I look back at it, there were so many warning signs there that she obviously had an eating disorder but I couldn't see it. All I saw was a very, very skinny girl who for some reason wanted to hang out with me.

Together we dieted. We were crazy about our diets. We valued our diets above anything else. Nine years old, mind you.

Each week it would be something new. Some new rule we absolutely had to stick to or else we were pathetic loses with no self control.

And the rules didn't even make sense. Half the time they didn't even have anything to do with fat or calories or carbs. They were just plain...well, strange. But I never questioned them, not once. I followed bravely in like a trooper. I could only see one prize in mind: THIN.

Like, one week, I remember the rule was no white foods. That meant anything with the color white in it. No milk, no eggs, no rice, no bread, no nothing. Nothing white.

The next week it was only meat. Or no meat. Or only liquids. Or only cold food. Or only hot.

Basically the pattern was not to eat healthy or to learn healthy habbits...but to restrict. To restrict  without questioning why, without caring...to control. So we could tell ourselves, punish ourselves, say: you can't have this. And then prove to each other that we wouldn't. We wouldn't eat because that was weak.

I turned ten. We moved here, to Louisiana.

Amanda was gone, hopefully she is still alive and well. But my dieting was still there, looming in and out of my control...but in my mind it was always under my control.

I guess that's where it really got out of hand.

And I don't remember the last time I've ever been on any normal diet or eating regimine.

The thing is, it's so stupid but it somehow makes perfect sense. It just has to be done.

It just has to be done.