Another year of my life has gone by. Most people like to look back on their year and remember all of their positive memories. I look back at my year with regret. the only memories i have are memories being tortured in hospitals and treatment centers. I always hate that famous question everybody seems to ask when it is your birthday. for me this year it was; "how does it feel to be 20?" Now how is anyone expected to answer that question? it is just another day like all the other days of the year, only that day is supposed to be devoted to you i suppose. I do not feel any older, or any wiser. although others would argue that because they are a whole year older, they are a completely different human being. Now if that is true, i would like the magic potion to make that come true for myself. i would have loved to wake up on my birthday and be rid of this awful eating disorder. instead, on the 16th i woke up with dread. dread that i wasted a whole other year on foolishness and mind games. but you see, in the moment it doesn't seem that way. in the moment when i am starving or exercising or purging, i don't realize i am wasting away such precious days. or the fact that i am actually leading myself to an early grave. most of the time i do not notice or pay attention to what i am doing. it just comes second nature. it is a part of who i am. i am not proud of this part of me though. or there are few times when i know what i am doing, but cant stop because it feels so good to see that number on the scale go down, or for my clothes to become bigger on me. and then there's the rest of the times, which is the majority of the time that i curse the eating disorder. i curse ana for grabbing control of me. i try to pry away her bony long fingers and sharp nails away from my throat as she strangles me. but it doesn't work, or at least it hasn't yet. She has become attached to me. She feels like the only thing that allows me to cope with this hell called "life." Yet in reality, the exact opposite is being done to me. she isn't providing me with the tools to grow into a person, she is like a weed sucking all of the sunlight and water for herself so i dwindle away. I keep falling into her trap because of the promises she comforts me with. but it has been 8 years with her, and not one of her promises has come true, well except for the promise of making me thin. But the thing is, i don't see this, i see fat. i see a 20 year old who needs so much work done on her that she is hopeless.
i feel dread when it comes to thinking about my 20th year. will i spend it like my last 8 years with this eating disorder? or will this year be different? i so badly want it to be different. but wanting it to be different, and it actually being different are two different stories. i can write the story i want for myself, but will this story be published?
