Fat

Yup...I hate it (on myself...I never seem to see it on other people...in fact I think I have convinced myself that I have more of it than 75% of girls my age).

There are a lot of factors behind anorexia...way more than body image alone. There are many side affects of anorexia...way beyond the physical.

It is an extremely complicated disease but pretty much in the mind of the anorexic it boils down to how much fat is on our bodies. Ana yells that we will achieve happiness if we can bring ourselves down to a certain weight. But as I have said before...that particular weight just keeps dropping and we never acheive this happiness we were promised....but still we try with all of our mights...to the point that we will be completely brain dead and malnourished but still refuse to eat so much as a single jelly bean, convinced that anything we put in our mouths will make us gain weight.

I still partake in some of the rituals on a daily basis but I do have to laugh at myself to think of where I once was. There was a time I would weigh myself 7 or 8 times a day -- watching as the scale went up and down decimals of a point and whether it went up or down normally determined how I felt about myself that day.

The mirror right now is my worst enemy because there is no escaping them....I have the scale now tucked away under my bed but there are mirrors everywhere! And even if there is not a mirror around there is always a window you can see your reflection in somewhere and no matter how thin I am I tend to cringe at what I see. It is awful to admit it but I spend wayyy too long in front of the mirror everyday noticing every single flab of fat on my body. I will change my outfit 2 or 3 times because I have convinced myself that none of my clothes fit me anymore and will normally end up in sweatpants and a sweatshirt....so no one has to see any of my fat. And if I am in the house I prety much live in the same pair of monkey pajamas, because even out of all my pajamas they are the only ones that fit me.

I am bringing this issue up now because it is beautiful outside...meaning the summer wardrobe has to come out ...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That is what is going through my head as I try on my last year clothes to only have Ana's constant criticism in my ear, "Are you seriously going to walk out of the house in that?" "There is no way you can wear that bathing suit to the beach...every one will be staring at all your fat." "Yea that might have fit you last year, but look at what you have done to yourself, look at how much weight you have gained."It makes me just want to curl into a ball and never leave my room. At what point did my self worth get determined by the mirror and the scale?

When you develop an eating disorder your brain chemistry actually changes so you see fat where there is no fat. This video is a really powerful depiction of that. Of course though for me it is different. I can look at those girls and see how they are skeletons but I'm fat for real. I see the fat....I feel it growing on my body. How in the world can anyone tell me that it is not there? Ok...so maybe my body image is just a little distorted but these are the real thoughts that go through my head every single time I look in the mirror.

I have refused to weigh myself since I started eating more...distorted body image aside...I really have gained weight, how much I have gained is up for debate but practically every one around me can tell you that I have gained weight but they say things like "You are healthy" or "you look good and not so dead" But lucky for me I have Ana who interprets what these things really mean for me. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have her to tell me that these are really just lies...people are really telling me that I am a fat whale (gosh I am using sarcasm a lot in this entry).

The question is...when in the world did I start trusting Ana over my friends and family?

So here is the situation...I have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday. This is nothing new, I meet with him every other week. I despise doctors in general but this one I will give 5 stars to. Since my revelation that I needed to eat more, I have refused to let him weigh me. However, the last time I was there he gave me prior warning that he was going to want to get a weight the next time I came...meaning this coming Wednesday.

I have been praying fervantly every morning that he will forget but I don't think the chances of that happening are very good. I have considered canceling the appointment but I don't think I can afford losing his support. Now I know he won't tell me what the number is but that is not really the point. I have convinced myself that my weight is the most shameful part of me...and knowing that I have gained a significant amount of weight (or at least what I think is a significant amount) makes me just want to crawl into a cave for eternity. Although I know the number would send me over the edge, I would rather know that number than any other human being.

But the thing is, I don't think I really have my best interests at heart. I want nothing more than to be thin...if this means I am unhealthy I really don't care. I want to be 110 pounds again. Ana says this is what I need to do to be happy.

But why in the world do I trust Ana to any other human being? She has not given me any happiness and she does not keep her promises. Dr. Brackett hasn't given me any reason not to trust him in the past 4 months. He has been proactively trying to set me up with resources to get me out of this pit of hell I have dug myself into.

I am still reading Life Without Ed by Jenni Schaefer and she writes about a similiar struggle but how she learned to just surrender her weight to her doctor and trust that he knows what is best for her. I wonder if it is possible for me to do the same and trust that Dr. Brackett's several years or med school probably give him a lot more qualifications to tell me what "healthy" is than Ana. What would happen if I just passed the shame of that number over to him so I learned to trust his judgement over my own because right now my self perception is way off.

Would it be kind of freeing to put Dr. Brackett "in charge of the scale" instead of me. Could I trust him to tell me if I was fat or not instead of Ana? Ana told me I was fat when I was 110 pounds and I can tell from pictures that I most definitely was not. She lied. She has lied to me many times in the past but I don't think Dr. Brackett has yet to lie to me so I think I am going to choose to trust him and his medical experience over Ana... even if I still feel fat.

However, I have already told Jesus that if this is going to happen I am going to need a ton of help because the thought of stepping on that scale on Wednesday makes me want to cry.

Why do I have such a hard time trusting other people?