Oh, you know, just things.

So I randomly am feeling the need to say lots of things today. I'm not entirely sure what I would be saying but I guess I'm about to find out. I'm still on that long road of recovery from my eating disorder. I almost called it "my own personal hell", but it ISN'T hell. Not to someone who suffers from one. It is the beginning and the end. It is everything that matters. It the only thing that matters. And yes, there are times when my disordered thinking and eating cause me so much unbearable pain, but it is also the only way that I know how to make myself valuable. It is the only way that I know how to make myself worth anything to the people around me that I love so much.

We are humans. Humans are highly evolved animals. I still see so much of our humble beginnings in the things we do in modern times. Everything still centers around sex. Everything. You name a behavior, and I'll trace it back to an animal's desire to pass on it's genes. And to be successful at that game, the only game that matters, the root of all other games, you have to be attractive. Luckily I was born with a decently attractive face and an overall healthy immune system and working body parts. But the other half of the attractive equation is the body. I have beaten myself to death trying to make mine perfect, to match it with my face and to become the ultimate super woman, the mythological creature featured in every man's dreams. Why would I chase that? Because I want to win. I want to win the game. I want to look at every face around me and know that they can't touch me. That is something that I loathe to admit,and I know that you do too. Having to see yourself this way isn't fun, or easy. But at least it's true.

I have so, so much more to offer than all of that. I know it. I am smart. I am curious about the world around me. I have a sense of humor. I like to learn. However, no one is willing to love and accept a person who ONLY has that to offer without some sort of deeply rooted sense of resignation. Even the most unattractive and uninteresting male would rather have a beautiful and intelligent woman than just simply an intelligent woman. And it would hurt me so badly to know that every time my mate looks at me, he'd rather I looked like something else. Or had a different body. How painful. And I'm not sure anyone can control it. Anyone who looks at Bar Rafaeli (google it) is going to desire that package more than the one that I come in. That knowledge is too heavy for me to bear, so the only option is to try to BE that. To try to be Bar Rafaeli with a side order of intellect and humor. This struggle has been the defining factor in my life.

I realized today that I don't even know what I enjoy. Why? Because I never viewed it as important. Life is the struggle to be a Victoria's Secret model. Anything that does not pertain to that topic isn't worth thinking about twice.

How insane is that? That I have been living like this for so many years? When I do try to do things that I like, going to Hastings to read a book or whatever, I can't spend longer than 30 minutes there. I get so anxious, like I should be doing something else. I have nothing else to do whatsoever, but somehow I still feel like I don't deserve to just sit around and do things that don't have anything to do with increasing my aesthetic worth.

Mind you, just because I've had this revelation doesn't mean I'm going to now go out and do everything I enjoy and discard my disordered eating forever. I still hate myself every time I look in the mirror. Hatred on a chemical level, even. My body feels sick at a glimpse of my thighs or stomach, and this white-hot flash of despair shoots through me. Every time.

So, mother fuckers, I am still going to go on ANOTHER diet. I am still going to disorder the fuck out of my eating. But to supplement that I will also try to figure out what activities I actually DO like, that give me joy not because they burn calories but because the untarnished ME that is still living in there somewhere gets a kick out of it. I'm not quite sure what to do with this new middle ground...of partaking in a disordered behavior while also doing something helpful and therapeutic. I can tell you what I hope to get out of it, though. I hope that I find my personality. I hope that I find that there is a side to life and A SIDE TO ME that has nothing to do with the number on a scale. Here's to hoping.