mannequins promote unhealthy body image

As i was walking through the mall alone last night, i seemed to be more aware of the mannequins. although i dont think these deserve to be called "mannequins" because well they dont model what people look like in clothes, unless of course you have a severe eating disorder and have gotten to the point of emmaciation. and even then, a lot of people with eating disorders dont reach the state of emmaciation. i go shopping all the time and i am constantly seeing these mannequins but for some reason, they jumped out at me last night. maybe its because i was shopping alone and was more stuck in my head, or maybe its the fact that i know i am entering treatment in the near future and still have that huge fear that i will be the largest one there. whatever the reason it is, it doesn't matter. alll that matters is that these mannequins do not promote a healthy body image, or anything any women should strive to become. it makes you believe that you dont deserve to wear those clothes unless you look like those stick pieces of hard, cold plastic. for me last night, what stuck out was their legs. i kept looking at them in awe and jealousy. I then immediatly transformed these feelings into self-hate, disgust that i didn't feel my legs looked like this. disgust with how much fat i think my thighs contain. which of course gives my eating disorder the power to scream at me and rip me apart piece by piece. unfortunately, we live in  society where image has become everything and it has become hard to live without seeing the constant reminders of our "flaws." They are thrown in our face everywhere we turn. this especially effects us women. we are constantly at odds with ourselves over how we look vs. how the world around us says we should look. mannequins have given young girls and even women a false idea that these are the 'perfect' woman and cause them to strive for an unrealistic and often an unattainable goal which leads to self hate and even severe, and deadly eating disorders. mannequins are meant to give shoppers a general sense of what a store's clothes might look like on a human body. but they do not fulfill their purpose cause only an extremely small percentage actually look at these pieces of plastic junk.

these mannequins aren't the only thing that bothered me. another thing that stuck out to me was the term "skinny jeans" its forcing women to access whether they are, in fact, "skinny" enough to wear those pants. i can't tell you how many people i know have claimed that they cant wear skinny jeans because they dont think they are thin enough, me being one of them.

maybe i am overreacting over all of this because of my eating disorder and the fact that i want to prevent as many people as i can from developing one. but honestly, i think i am being perfectly reasonable. i wish so badly that the media would take their eyes of the womens body and their flaws and what we should look like. we have become bait in this crazy world.

do you ever have a new favorite song that you can play 50 times in a day and still not get sick of? well i have one right now, actually its been a favorite for the past 2 weeks or so. it is called "need you now" by plumb

i think the reason i love it so much is because the lyrics resinate so much with what i am feeling and going through right now. everytime i hear it, i just want to burst into tears, it causes me to feel so vulnerable. here are the lyrics:

Well, everybody's got a story to tell
And everybody's got a wound to be healed
I want to believe there's beauty here
'Cause oh, I get so tired of holding on
I can't let go, I can't move on
I want to believe there's meaning here

How many times have you heard me cry out
"God please take this"?
How many times have you given me strength to
Just keep breathing?
Oh I need you
God, I need you now.

Standing on a road I didn't plan
Wondering how I got to where I am
I'm trying to hear that still small voice
I'm trying to hear above the noise

How many times have you heard me cry out
"God please take this"?
How many times have you given me strength to
Just keep breathing?
Oh I need you
God, I need you now.

Though I walk,
Though I walk through the shadows
And I, I am so afraid
Please stay, please stay right beside me
With every single step I take

How many times have you heard me cry out?
And how many times have you given me strength?

How many times have you heard me cry out
"God please take this"?
How many times have you given me strength to
Just keep breathing?
Oh I need you
God, I need you now.

I need you now
Oh I need you
God, I need you now.
I need you now
I need you now

i hate to admit this, but  sometimes i almost get angry with God, angry that he allows me or anyone else to have an eating disorder. why he allows us to be in so much pain and misery both physically and mentally.  i do know through this struggle that i have definatly grown closer to God, but couldn't he have done this through a different way? a less painful way? i know i am silent, but what i am doing to myself is basically me screaming out for this to all just be taking away. not only the eating disorder, but the self-hate, the depression, the dissatisfaction my family has with me, there is just one long list but the top thing is for the eating disorder to be taking away. or least for God to provide a way out. i am at a point in my life where i feel like the only way out is death. a lot of the time i am silently waiting for the eating disorder to just take me. i know that sound messed up and the so called "easy way out" but ive been trying the "hard way out" for years and its not working. as the days go on i just feel like i am falling more and more into the trap of my eating disorder, and i didnt think that could ever be possible.  does God not hear my cries, does God not see the pain i am in? am i not worthy to be saved or free from this prison? i am not saying i am gonna give up on recovery but it is soo tempting to just throw in the towel and say screw it. i just am feeling so depressed and lost tonight. i just want to feel happy and normal in life again, i cant remeber ever feeling like that. this is how long it has been.

sorry if this post was negative but hey-this is the real me, take it or leave it.

slowly slipping away...

i can feel myself slipping away, i can feel "Bekah" disappearing into the backwards, twisted, upside down world. i have a barrier as thin as the glass of a mirror, and i never come all the way out of the mirror. i stand for the rest of my life with one foot in this world, and no one in another. there will always be an odd distance between me and the "normal people." Everything is just upside down, backwards, and disgusting. i am constantly locked in my brain, and that isnt exactly the safest place to be locked in right now, or maybe even ever.

its almost like i don't know any different. and when after 8 years of starving, barfing, continuous exercise, needles being forced into my veins, tubes being forced down my nose, monitors attached to my ice cold skin, terror, rage, medical crisis, personal failure and loss after loss. when after this, you are 20 and staring down a vastly abbreviated life expectancy, and the eating disorder still takes up half your body, half your brain, or even more with its invisible eroding force. when you have spent the majority of your life sick, when you do not yet know what it means to be "well" or "normal," when you doubt these words even have meaning anymore, there are still no answers. you will die young and you have no way to make sense of that fact, you have this: you can be thin. but is that what i really want to be remembered for ?? at my funeral do i want the only thing people to say "well she was able to control her weight." in the long run, that is not what i want to be remembered for.

anorexia tells me everyday that i am in control, this is what i want, this is who i am. but sometimes when i am in my rational mind (which isn't quite often) i can dissect it, try and "reality check it" as those fancy clinicians like to call it. refusing to eat, putting my body into starvation mode, which is hurting me, and being thinner, so thin that people notice i am underweight and being told left and right i need to gain weight is what make me who i am.  i think if i gain a pound, everyone is going to notice and they will hate me even more, I'll lose my identity, but the danger in that is that my identity is resting on a little tiny point and anything can change that and threaten to make me lose what i think is my identity.  the greatest thing i can do in life is NOT to prove to the world that i am able to get thin. i want to be thought about and regarded for WHO I REALLY AM. even if i may not know who that is. but i guess that's what life is about right? figuring out who you are, creating an image for yourself? at least this is what i have been told. i am told constantly that i was placed on this earth for a purpose. i believe this about everyone else, but am having such a hard time believing that i fit into this category. i don't know why i think i am the one exception to this vast world of people. i do not want the reason that i was placed on this earth to starve myself to death, who wants to be remembered for that? i want to change peoples lives, i want to make a difference. i have an entire list of things that i want to do. but one thing is holding me back. my ridiculous distorted fears of being "fat" or gaining weight, or giving up what i have known for so long. but giving up this one fear could unlock 100 more positive things that i am missing out on life because of a silly irrational fear. moment by moment, i have to try and convince myself to take that leap of faith into the unknown.