Okay, so as I've said before a few times, I do not soley blame the media or the fashion industry for anorexia or bulimia, or for my own problems. I do though, give them partial credit for my self esteem issues, and our societies warped ideal body images. That's fair, right?

So, we know that a little over a year ago that the big head haunchos in the fashion industry claimed they were going to address the issue of their models becoming way too thin by raising the bmi requirement for some of them and firing models that were too thin. But over this past year since then, I have seen no change. I have watched the models get thinner or stay the same. I have watched fellow bloggers actually go into the fasion industries front offices and ask to speak to the manager about improvements in our stick thin situation and so far they have done nothing but hand people sheets of paper that they were giving out last year about how slowly but surely they are "working on it".

Obviously it's not a top priority...maybe not even a priority at all. Let's be honest here, did we really expect the fashion industry to just change everything and switch out models at the drop of a hat? No, I didn't. But I do hope that my siblings children will not have to grow up exposed to this kind of stuff. This is disgusting, and I'm so tired of being told that an eleven year old's body is what a WOMAN should look like.

I am no longer purchasing fashion magazines and I will continue to write into Teen Vogue (whose models are deathly thin) and other magazines, asking them to reconsider the kind of message they're sending out to my peers and I.

Just because I am a victim of this mind warping does not mean I can't do anything about it. I'm not that weak yet.

My mother hugged me this morning and for the first time addressed what's going on, "You're withering away, sweetie." And then she smiled. So maybe it was just a joke, maybe it's not.

I have lost another pound...pound in a half. I don't know. I keep getting caught up in this cycle of not eating at all, and then eating really crappy food and throwing it up. I haven't held anything down but fluids yesterday. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. I was gagging in my sleep last night, trying to keep some bread down. I finally had to get up, against my will, and throw it up, and then go back to bed exhausted. I was really upset last night because I wasn't able to post a blog then and this is like my lifeline. This blog is what keeps me connected to the outside. The outside world that I feel like an outsider to. It's my last thread before I become estranged completely.

Today I'm going to try to just eat soup throughout the day so I won't feel so weak and so that maybe I can keep it down. If a doctor heard this, then I'm sure I'd get locked up or put on even more meds so I'm saying it here: part of me is making myself throw up, I think. She's making me starve. There is a voice in my head when I eat calling me a fat pig, there is a voice in my head that says...it's okay, throw it up and it will be okay. It feels like it's not me, but I know it is. It's just another part of my subconcious desires to waste away, to wither away.

But I don't want to be that way. I just want to lose a little more. I know that's the understatement of the year and that I'm always saying this, but I feel like I can stop once I get to my goal. I don't know what I'm going to do then but I look the same even though I have lost weight, I look like the exact same. I'm sure of it, because no one but my mom has said anything and she had to hug me to even tell I've lost anything.

I don't really want to talk about how I'm doing right now because it's basically same old, same old and I know that gets boring. I feel like a lost cause, a loser. So I try to keep on the subject of the things around me, on making a difference about them. Because I know I sometimes feel hopeless to make a difference when it comes to myself.

Anyway, I'm seeing all of my friends do things like get boyfriends or have crushes or secret admirers, going places...doing things. I envy them but at the same time I don't. I just want to stay here until I get to my goal and then go out and do stuff. But I know I can't think that way, because my goal is endless. So I'm trying to do things. I'm trying to go somewhere. It's hard when you feel like a failure and your mind is telling you you suck at everything. I haven't seen my therapist since last week. I don't know what I will tell him when I do. I don't want to talk to him.

I'm so tired of this, you know? I really want to turn my brain off for like one second to see what other people think about. Whenever you're wondering what I'm thinking about, it's always this. Never anything interesting or productive. Just this. I'm going nowhere.

A few nights ago I considered getting help because I'm so tired. I'm tired of this and I just want to stop myself. But then the voice in my head said that I'm way too big to get help, and that compared to all the other girls who are anorexic, I'd look fat. This goes against everything I stand for but I listened because it's all I have.

I have lost nine pounds since I began this online journal. But I have at least maintained my weight since then for the last three days. I am ashamed that I can't lose more but at the same time I am relieved.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about.

I don't know if anyone has ever been through this. But have you ever watched someone in the early stages of an eating disorder slowly progress to getting sick and sicker? Doesn't it feel like something inside of you is dying when you look at them, hear the things they say...and remember yourself once saying the same thing? It reminds me of those "good old days" (which were never good to begin with) when I still had a chance to get out. When I still had a fighting chance to change my ways. I mean, I still do...but now it is nearly impossible and so complicated it's not even worth going into at the moment.

In the early stages...you can see yourself stopping when you hit your goal weight. You can see yourself "pulling away" from this situation and stopping because you are in control. You think that once your hair starts to fall out, you'll stop. When your blood pressure goes down, you'll stop. When you get institutionalized you'll stop. When you fit into that dress, you'll stop. Once you see how far you can push yourself, you'll stop.

So you think.

And then...somewhere, unseeingly, you cross some invisible line. You know you are out of control and under control and you don't care. Your hair falls out and you decide that it's a small price to pay. Your doctor tells you you are killing yourself and you decide that this is also just a small price to pay in order to not eat and stay thin. Or to get thin. Thinner. More. More. More. And then you're nothing...and you disspear. You become a statistic for the new set of girls to try to live up to. You become an idol, one of the few "strong" ones.

We are so weak.

I don't want to be a statistic. And I can't stand to see what I feel is a former version of myself begin to fall into an ED when she still has a chance to get out.

You think that you want to just not eat a few days, lost a few pounds.

Next thing you know you are trapped for the rest of your life, and die. Or worse...you live with it. You let it literally eat away at you and you get to watch the others slowly fall into the same pattern and you are helpless to stop them.

I know there is nothing I can say or do to my friends who have these problems except for that I love them because I was once them and I know that there's nothing I can do.

I hate them. I hate them. I hate them.

God....fine. Kill yourself. Do it. Do you think you'll be tragic? Do you think anyone is going to care? Do you think that not eating makes you stronger? It makes you weak. It makes you weak in every way possible. Only the strong, only the ones with the REAL self control can eat and live and not waste their lives. I hate you and I love you, so screw you. Go ahead, you'll only dissapear like I did. I've lost everything to this. EVERYTHING. There is nothing left except for my diets and my scale and the food. I HAVE NOTHING. Except for my life - which I am wasting.

That's what I want to say to them. to my friends who think that it's okay. That there's no problem. It will be all right. It will be okay.

No, it won't. It never will be.

I've had a hard time keeping food down...like it's physically impossible. My family's going out to eat to this nice restaurant. Basically, they left me here. They would be so much happier without me. I just made my brother and sister cry, my mom freak out. So they dropped me off at home while we were on the way there to eat. I'd gone pretty much all day with nothing to eat besides some greenbeans so I guess I panicked when we were on our way to eat and just...someone else...I feel like it wasn't me, burst out and was screaming and saying the most cruel things to hurt them. I don't know why I did that. I just, don't feel like it was me.

A lot has happened lately but I don't really want to talk about it. Basically...I want to sleep right now. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. For a long time.

I'll be okay.

I feel exposed. I think that people think I have an eating disorder and I'm not sure what to do. This is the thing: I know that it's wrong to say this because I'm writing on a site for people who suffer from eating disorders, but I'm having such a hard time accepting that I might have one. I consider myself recovering, but know that it's probably getting worse. I consider myself a strong, open voice to support my fellow sufferers...yet I hide and deny that anything's wrong.

And now that I've discovered that someone relatively close (as close as "close" can get for me) has made it clear that she obviously believes me to be suffering from an eating disorder. I know I already was open on my other blog to people about my problems...but I never said anything specifically about an ED. I skimmed the surface of it on that one.

I don't know. Do I? Do I have an eating disorder? Am I killing myself? Is the only way to acceptable beauty dying? Can I get better if I do have a problem?

See, I must be the hugest hypocrite on the planet. I have no problem spreading the word about how you don't have to be skeletal to have a problem, and how you shouldn't let other people set the standard for your beauty ideals. But I do these things all the time. The one thing that is keeping me back, I think, from believing that I have a problem is this: I feel I am not thin enough. That's what makes me a hypocrite. I know, no matter what I say, in my heart that I am not thin enough to have a problem. That may or may not be true.

I suppose you could call me slim. According to my BMI, which I find highly inaccurate, I am slightly considered underweight. I do not find this cause to worry or change my ways.

I say I'm looking to get better....today I realize that I probably am not. I am looking for a place to healthily vent. Right now I am typing this to get my mind off hunger pains? How can I call that a step towards health?

I know for a fact that at this moment you would have to hold me down and force me to eat if you wanted me to put anything in my mouth and digest it.

Do I have an eating disorder?

Maybe that's not the question I should be focusing on, maybe that's not the problem. The question is: How long can I keep on going like this? Am I dying? Everyone is, but am I speeding things up? Am I truly living or just existing? I'd say it's the latter. And for that, I am ashamed...and in some silent, dark way, I am proud.

For the first time in a long time, I binged. I have to say I don't remember feeling so terrible before in my life. I know it may not be the same amount of food as other's use when they binge but it was still terrible. I wasn't eating because I was hungry, I wasn't tasting the food, I was just inhaling it, shoving it into my mouth and crying but I felt nothing. I did it all while my friend was in the other room. Six slices of pizza and a can of cheese spray and a box of crackers.

I threw up for about an hour. My voice is all raspy now and I'm dealing with terrible backlash because my body isn't used to this, it's been so long.

I don't know where all of this is coming from. Things have been stressful lately though. I'm seeing my ex who I haven't seen in almost a year, he was just recently dating an eighty pound something girl. I guess that added to the stress. I don't know but my stomach is still bloated and I feel terrible and I picked up the phone later and called my mom and without even thinking said that I need to talk with her.

I have no idea what I'm going to say. I guess I should make something up but I don't have the energy. I hate to say it, I really do, but I looked in the mirror and just started bawling, I've never felt more disgusting and obsese in forever. I feel weak about that, I want to be confident but I will never let myself. I want to enjoy life but I don't let myself.

I don't let myself get away with anything. 

That's something I've had to deal with for quite some time now. Doctor's don't know how to classify it because I fit into both categories of bulimia and anorexia and so I am "Unspecified". This leads to the common, terrible misconception that I do not have an eating disorder or that I am "not as sick" as the other anorexics or bulimics or binge eaters.

The thing is, I don't think that this dilema is mine and mine alone. I believe that almost every other woman I've met has an eating disorder. I don't mean they all have a 17.5 bmi and they all throw up their dinners. No, I mean, they have unhealthy, ...disordered approaches to food and emotions.

The problem is that when I approach someone carefully about their eating habbits and tell them I've been there and wouldn't mind hearing them talk about it sometime, they all say, "Oho, I don't have an eating disorder! Do you see me stick thin and not eating?" No, but that's just the problem. Since when was it that to qualify to be starving to death did you have to be thin? Since when are you only eating unhealthily if you're a stick or a whale?

This ignorant thought process is what I think is partially responsible for doctors who turned me away when  I still had a fighting chance to get better and wasn't so far gone. But no, I wasn't thin enough to have an eating disorder. Another thing I failed at, another thing I wasn't good enough for. That just made things worse, that just made me want it more, crave it like I craved acceptance, to do something right for once.

"I am too fat to have an eating disorder."

Shockingly, it is not uncommon to hear this. The idea of this is very appalling. The fact that after all the standards and things that we set for ourselves, that we can't even let ourselves be healthy unless we're sick enough, good enough to realize that we have a problem and we need to get better. Can we not even give ourselves the right to be sick? Are we not good enough unless we meet someone else's preconcieved standard of what "too thin" or unhealthy looks like?

It seems to me these days that eating disorders are glorified too much. They are not seen as psychiological diseases but merely extreme lifestyles for the tragically self controlled lucky few who got magically thin.

I am so tired comparing myself to something that does not matter. Tell me this: what is your standard of living? How do you know if you had a good day? If you're in a good enough mood? If you're looking good today? If you're looking bad today? What is your comparison.

I bet that the answer is not a simple one. When you think you're too fat, who are you comparing yourself to? When you think that your hair looks bad? What is it that it should be and why is that?

It is my belief that we are taught at an early age to hate ourselves. To hate our natural, instinctual needs. To fear imperfection. And to endlessly, tediously compare. We compare our cars, our bodies, our friends, our lives to others that we do not understand. We don't know why these compared, unattainable things are better than what we have but all we know is that we want them. We need them, or we are not good enough.

What this all comes down to is that we need to watch ourselves. When you're thinking something, think about that thought. I know it sounds redundant, but it's important. What are you really thinking? Are you thinkinig for yourself?

Watch what you say and think and be careful because your words have such an amazingly strong affect on others.

The thing is what are we reaching and trying so hard for? What is it that's good enough for you?

Because you know nothing is, I know nothing, no number on the scale will ever be good enough for me. Nothing is ever good enough for us, is it? Things could always be better, smaller, kinder, prettier, perfect.

But what is our goal? What is it that we're shooting for?
It is after your life has been reduced to nothing but wasting away and trying and trying only to fail repeatedly and never be good enough for yourself, that you will realize that what you have been craving is: unattainable, unreachable, and unspecified.

So I met with the new therapist today. He's a nice guy. But that's all I can say for him. The thing is, a nice guy is not going to be good enough. He met with my mom one on one after talking with me for almost an hour, and I know I shouldn't expect much on the first meeting but something he said to her urked me.

She came out happy, but my mom told me that she told him she was worried about my eating and I had some issues but she didn't know how to classify them. She says he told her that it's just my anxiety and that we're going to work on that and get to the eating thing later. What he doesn't understand is that the "eating thing" is all I know right now. That is my life. I'm sorry to say it, but that's why I got help again in the first place, is the eating. I guess I can't say it's his fault. If I want someone to treat me for anorexia then I have to come right out and say, "Hey, I'm anorexic and I need help." But I can't say that. I'm not even totally sure if I have a problem. I mean, that's stupid, of course I do. But I don't know...I almost feel like this is something maybe I can do on my own?

Another thing, with my experience with doctors, I know that they're not exactly usually sensitive to the subject of eating disorders. I didn't expect any huge ordeal, and in a way I'm relieved. I'm not in trouble. No one's going to lock me up and obviously, I'm not dying. In a sick way, that appeals to the sick part of me, I'm almost hurt that I don't look thin enough for when my mom said I had eating problems for him to tell me it was nothing. Maybe, I can't help but wonder, if I weighed a lot less, he would look at me after my mom said that and say, "this girl needs help." But I'm just rambling, I really don't know.

Basically, he told me about how I crave attention and I overthink things and bla bla bla. He's actually really cool. But right now I can already feel my "outsider's persona" showing up when I talk to him. It's not me talking. It's someone who I want to be, someone healthy with a good head on her shoulders. Someone who I am not. I feel like I ruined my chance for myself, and I feel even worse wondering if I even need to get help. Maybe I'm just being a brat. But I can't stop so this must be a problem, I mean, I have a problem, right? It's almost like I need someone to point that out for me because it's not enough for just me to wonder about it.

I don't know, maybe my only problem is my anxiety attacks. But I'm not sure, I mean...why would I have this blog in the first place if that was my only problem.

There is something I need to admit to not only someone but to myself. I don't think it's a problem but I'm afraid to tell anyone, so I thought maybe this would be a good way to get it out.

I'm terrified. I think...I think there are like two of me. I think there's like two of me, like one girl who is really sweet and she wants people to be happy and she's honest and she wants to get better and she's selfless and she honestly does care about her friends. And then there's the one who just is so...mean to me. Like, she's this voice in my head that yells at me and makes fun of me when I'm eating, she puts me down when I look at myself in the mirror, she helps me stay away from food when I need it the most and she puts words in my mouth. She makes me lie. That's so irresponisble to say that she makes me lie. But I don't feel like it's me. Because I don't always agree with what she, with what I do. Well, I hardly ever do.

I don't know if what I say to people is a lie or the truth, because for part of me it is. The other one, she doesn't care about anything. She hates everyone, she lies and steals, and tries to get other guys to mess around with me and I don't know. I feel like when I'm alone I'm no one. And when I'm with my family I'm the more wholesome quiet one and sometimes I am with my friends too. When I feel threatened I just make up this character in my head like I do for acting, only it's real. And she comes to life and it's like I'm watching it all go on from the outside.

I feel like I'm in control, but that I'm not. I feel like this isn't really happening but it's my way of coping. I think maybe once I get better, they'll both dissappear and I'll know who I really am and the real me will be the one left.

Because there's the part of me that doesn't want to be either of them. I want to be just me. I don't want to be skinny or fat or anything. Just me. Just happy. I don't want to care anymore - about getting better or getting sick. I just want it to go away.

I think I'm having a panic attack about seein the shrink tomorrow. I don't know what to say. Will she lie or will she tell the truth? I don't know. I'm trying really hard but I don't know what I want so I don't know what to do. I just don't want to do anything. I want someone else to take over and live for me because I'm so tired and I can't sleep and I haven't slept in a long, long time. And when I do I dream about food which is disgusting. I'm afraid that my friends think there's something wrong because there's not. This is just about me and me making my mind up about whether to be healthy or not. But I know deep down that it's so much more than that.

I wish I could give advice to myself like I do for my friends. But what if it's all lies? What if just like I lie to everyone else I'm lying to myself? What if I'm lying so that in case anyone recognizes me on here I won't get in trouble. No, it's too late for that. I'm in trouble regardless.

I think my mother has given up on me. I don't mean to say she's disowned me or doesn't care, but she's tired. And I'm tired too. I think we're all tired of this.

There is a point in your life when someone you care about has a problem with alcohol or drugs or, in my case, eating. You try and try to help. You try to be supportive, you try to give tough love, you try to understand. And in the end, recovery is based on their decision and you get to the point where your hopeless. You feel as though there is nothing else you can do. So you, either conciously or subconciously, let go of that person. You have tried to save them and realize that you can't and so you stop fighting, your heart and soul can't take the hurting anymore...so you silently let them go.

I think that's what my mom has done to me, and honestly I can't say I blame her. She doesn't even try to ask me to eat with the family anymore. She doesn't make sure I take my medicine, she doesn't badger me. She didn't bother to pick up dinner for me tonight.

The funny thing is, I think this thing not only started for me as a way to gain control, but I think it was also my own way of getting the attention and recognition I wanted. I needed to be needed and loved and so I put myself in danger. And now...I don't feel like I'm in danger, it is only when I'm sickest when I feel safe. Now, I have lost a lot of affection and caring from people closest because I feel they have let go in order to save themselves from anymore hurt.

I just think this is all so messed up, and I'm tired of it. I think that maybe I wish I were just fat so I knew I was fat and I could accept that and eat. I don't think that makes sense and I probably sound stupid and spoiled right now but I have no idea what to do. It's all messed up and jumbled up and I'm doing this three ring act of trying to lose weight, trying to be healthy and yet not be healthy, and trying to make things appear as if they're all under control and I'm okay. They're not. Things were never okay.