Dear Eating Disorder,

   I loved you, with every inch of my pudgy body. 

   When I began to lose my mind, you told me to lose weight.

   You held my life together.

   "Don't eat," you whispered to me every second of every day,

   and I would follow your orders- you could give me what I wanted:

   Control,

   Stability, 

   Power,

   Beauty.

   As time ticked on, you slowly, painfully, made me numb to reality.

   Nothing in the world mattered to me besides seeing 30 turn into 20,

   20 into 15. 

   I had always planned on stopping then,

   but you would not let me. 

   15 turned into 05. 

   5'6, 105... I should have been happy- I was finally skinny!

   All I could think about was losing more and more, 

   and more and more and more of myself

   until there was physically nothing left.

   The final remnants of my sanity fled long ago;

   what remained was a hollow shell of myself.

 

   I hated you with every ounce of my disappearing body.

   You would not allow me to go out with friends;

   God forbid, there might be food involved. 

   You would not let me pick me little sister up from school; 

   I was too busy kneeling in front of the toilet,

   clutching it like my life depended on it

   and in a way, it did. 

   I came to know that porcelian bowl like the back of my hand,

   which was covered in scars from being bashed into my teeth 

   as I shoved it down my throat endlessly.  

   

   You made me feel dizzy, 

   Worthless, 

   Disgusting, 

   Lifeless. 

   But I still loved you hopelessly,

   I had nothing else left.  

   I had to get rid of you. 

   I could not, no matter how much I wanted to. 

   You were stuck in my brain

   Clouding my scattered thoughts like a tropical storm.

   So I went away to a place that could force you out- 

   force me to eat, 

   (and keep it all in)

   force me to stay excruciatingly still.

   Force me to see you for what you were; 

   Manipulative, a liar, the enemy. 

   You thrived on watching my demise. 

   A manifestation of a society that told me I have to be pretty. 

   A world in which a woman's worth comes from how she appears.

   Where growing minds are tube fed images of girls

   with perfectly toned tummies, 

   long, thin legs with gaps in their thighs.

   Pretty faces with glittering doe-eyes.

   Bubble butt, big boobs, tiny waist, wide hips, 

   skin that glows and shiny, plumped lips. 

   I would have done anything to have it all, 

   you just sat there and watched me fall. 

 

   Once I finally freed myself from your hold on my head

   I started to love you again.

   If I did not have you, I would never have seen through the deceit, 

   I would not have met the women who really knew what it was like,

   who pulled the weeds from my brain so the flowers could grow. 

   I am starting to love myself now, 

   Something I had never been able to do. 

   And I could not have done it without you, my dear disorder. 

   I know you are still hiding somehwere deep inside me,

   waiting to creep back up to the surface and strike again. 

   But this time, 

   I will be the one starving you.