Never Enough

       "Soon I'll be thinner than all of you, she swore to herself. And then I will be the winner. The thinnest is the winner." -Steven Levenkron 

       Back in 8th grade, I never really liked how I looked. I acted like I did not care. I never saw fat. It never mattered what I or anyone else looked like. This all changed that fateful year. Here I was, this plump, 145-pound girl. I had a muffin top, acne, and no idea what I was doing with my look. Even though I was not happy about my weight, I never did anything to fix it. I covered the acne with makeup, and I tried my best to make myself feel beautiful. I cared so much about what other people thought about me. Every morning I would wake up two hours early just to do my makeup, hair, clothes, all of it. I walked in that school every day with a smile on my face and confidence that was never really there. All the other girls were thin. I longed to look like them, but I thought I wasn't very fat so I would think of myself as just as skinny as them. The funny thing is that the confidence I thought I had crumbled within seconds because of eleven simple words.

       "Oh my god!" My friend of 12 years said observing herself in a full-body mirror on the wall, "I am so happy I am no longer the fat friend."  

       She had just joined cheerleading and had lost weight I never noticed was even there. In that exact moment, I gazed at myself in that mirror. Am I fat? 

       In the following days, I questioned everything about myself. Maybe I am too fat. I'm not thin enough! Perhaps if I lose weight, the other girls will like me more. 

Poisonous thoughts began to take over my brain. I heckled every little thing, every slight 'imperfection' I thought I saw in myself. I didn't even want to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I believed with every being that I was ugly. I was no longer me. I begged my mom for diet pills. She eventually gave in, and I started taking them. I joined cheerleading with that same friend that ruined my self-image. Within a month, I had lost 10 pounds. I began to feel good again. That is until I walked past the boy's table in the cafeteria the very next day. 

       "What about her?" One of them asked, "Is she hot?" 

       "No way," another responded. "Way too fat. She is so thick. I wouldn't be caught dead with her." 

My eyes filled with tears. I threw the lunch I had just purchased away in the trash. I need to lose this weight. Working out isn't doing it. I will do anything possible. Then it hit me. I need to vomit.

  I was bulimic for two weeks. This was probably one of the most painful experiences I have ever been through. I switched to being anorexic after those two terrible weeks. This was still very painful, but not as bad. The constant gnawing of hunger lingered in my stomach, but I was a girl on a mission. Not one bite, I would tell myself. Skipping meal after meal, I became weak. Days and weeks went by without a single crumb touching my lips. Eventually, I lost the feeling of hunger altogether. I didn't know when I was hungry anymore. My whole body was numb. I would still work out, as usual, pushing myself to my absolute limit. I collapsed during exercises both at cheer and running at home. But I had gotten what I wanted. I was 110, 105, 100lbs. I was never happy, so I kept going. No amount of starvation or weight loss satisfied me. Every time I looked in that mirror, I saw the same girl I was before. I kept going and going. I reached my all-time low when I was 95 pounds. My hip bones protrude through my thin, pale skin. You could count my ribs. It still wasn't enough. 

No one could change my mind. I was fat and ugly. I deserved every bit of pain I felt. This went on for two years. But then one whispered voice came from a crowd of thoughts. My friend told me, "You are never going to be happy with who you are until you accept that you are you. You can be the thinnest or most beautiful person in the world, and that won't change who you are. You are never going to be happy. You need to realize you are beautiful, strong, resilient, and perfect. You are the only person that will ever be you. You are here for a reason." 

I stopped in my tracks. Those words were the beacon that lit the way back to my sanity. I saw myself for who I was for the first time in years. I wasn't fat. I never was. 

It has been three months since I have gone days at a time without eating. I still can't feel hunger and will accidentally go a day or so sometimes without eating. This experience didn't leave me unscathed, however. I have a severe fear of gaining weight, and I am still very hard on myself when it comes to my looks. I mustered up the strength to gain the weight I needed. I now am back to 110 pounds. I still have problems with my self-image, and I probably always will. 

 If I had the choice, I wouldn't go back and change it. As bad as this experience was, it taught me something fundamental. I couldn't please everyone. I wanted to be beautiful to everyone. The problem with this is that every person is unique with their personalities and likes. Not everyone is going to like you, and that is ok. Being thinner didn't do anything except make the boys talk about me more. I never felt better about myself, and I never needed to prove anything to them. In the end, I only hurt myself and the ones that tried to help me. I hope someone will read this and it changes their perspective about how they think about themselves and prevents them from making the same stupid mistakes I did. Moreover, I end the same way I started with a quote. 

"Let the truth ring clear, for you are perfect just the way you are."