I'm the girl, who hides behind a smile everyday.
I'm the girl, who has a tough exterior.
But that’s not who I really am.
I'm the girl, who has a lot of problems,
But doesn’t share one thing.
I'm the girl, who keeps everything bottled up.
Sometimes I just need someone to talk to.
Someone to care about me.
Someone to listen to my problems.
Someone to hold me when I cry.
Someone to love me.
Nobody knows the real me.
Nobody knows what I go through everyday.
Nobody knows what I have to do just to make it through the day.
Nobody knows that I'm the girl who isn't who I say I am.
And I'm the girl who will cry herself to sleep every night.

Yesterday morning I remembered the comfort of hunger pains.
I ate as little as possible at lunch,
and didn't eat when I got home.

For the first time in almost a year,
I skipped dinner
and looked at photos of bodies I wanted to have.

For so long I was able to eat without worry,
and I never thought about skipping meals,
I was able to change the idea of a "weight goal"
To simply having a goal to be happy.

What is happening to me?

No matter how hard we fight do we ever REALLY recover from the habits that scared us in the past?

Are we ever really ok , even though we tell our selves everyday that we are better now?

To me it seems as if every time someone "recovers" something happens and they spiral even farther down then before.

So , recovery, does it ever truly 100% happen, or do we just try to make our selves blind to what is still there even after all of our hard work?

This time last year, my hair was down to my waist.
This time last year, I was 16 and in grade 11.
This time last year, I had a lot of "friends" I guess I was popular.
This time last year, I had a game plan, I thought I was going to be a Graphic Designer.
But this time last year was the first time I tried to **** myself.
Yes, to a lot of people this seems over dramatic, because "what 16 has anything to 'die over'", that's what my dad said anyways.
But I'm glad there are people whom are so naive when it comes to Depression.
I'm glad most people don't understand why I want to die.
I'm glad my little brother doesn't think the answer to "should I live?" is "no"
I'm glad my grandparents are concerned when I'm home alone.
I'm glad my mom gets worried when I don't answer my phone.
I'm glad my dad is scared when I'm not home by 4:30.

Seven months ago, I was put on Anti-Depressants.
Eight months ago, I finally told my parents how bad I was getting.
Ten months ago, I realized this probably isn't normal.
This time last year, I almost lost my battle to a bottle of pills,
And at this point if you were to ask how many suicide notes I had written, I would ask you to define.
Would you like to know how many separate notes I have complied into a binder, or how many notes I've left out for my parents to find after I've left the house?
At this point I can say I've had more attempts to end my life than I've had hours happy, but at least I can say I'm Still Trying.

I was sixteen years old when I effectively vomited for the first time. As my mother’s pasta and the words of a boy I thought loved me flooded my esophagus I grasped the cold sides of the toilet seat with sweaty palms and bitten down fingernails. I looked into the mirror as if my reflection had finally transformed into a wax figure I had been burning at for years and I knew it would never go back to its original form. I’d seen that look before, in girls wiping their lips in high school bathrooms, girls who wore baggy clothes and flinched when boys playfully poked at their stomachs, girls who put rocks in their pockets before being weighed at doctors’ appointments and covered up bruises over fragile bones with whatever makeup they could find in their mother’s drawer. I sit in health class as the teacher speaks of the dangers of eating disorders from a third person point of view and it seems as if the only sound anyone is hearing is the growling coming from my empty stomach. I stand up from a lunch table in the cafeteria and freeze at the words of a girl telling me I’ve gotten as skinny as my three month prematurely born best friend. I walk through the front door and immediately remove every piece of clothing that might weigh even an ounce and I step onto the scale with hopes of seeing my importance rise as the numbers fall but no one ever told me that I am worth so much more than 96 pounds.

I am nineteen years old and I am no longer drowned in a sea of panic when my father asks me what I've had to eat today. When my boyfriend glides his hands under my shirt and over the top of my waistline my head is not consumed by the thought that my stomach is not flat enough for his liking. I do not sit in class and think about the flesh of my thighs bulging from the holes in my jeans that a boy once told me looked like tumors under my skin.
Okay, there are days when the only one who knows I am my own worst enemy is the mirror and okay, I still politely insist that the lights be turned off before I let him touch me with satin fingertips and okay, I still have a way of instantaneously counting calories in my head the same way I counted on myself to stop years ago but
I only weighed myself once today.

I wanted long , thin legs
A skinny waist
And collar bones that stick out.
I wanted to be pretty.

But what I didn't want
Was the price.
Skippy meals,
Using constant excuses.

I wanted to be perfect
But instead,
I was lifeless
and years later I still pay.

I soon reached my goal,
But was the price I paid worth it?

If you give a girl a with a big heart your broken pieces,
she will gently pick them up and carry them in her soft hands,
and pay no mind to your sharp edges.
She will try to glue you back together
and she’ll do it in a way that made you forget you were ever broken.
With scratched finger tips and ****** palms,
she’ll lift you up to the sun,
letting it's blinding rays shine through you
to show you that even the worst things have things to love in them
and that even the shattered can again be whole.

If you give a girl with a big heart your body,
she will study you like an archaic God.
She will learn your curves and surfaces like braille,
she will adjust her hearing to the pitch of your laughter
so that no matter how far apart you become,
her ears will perk up like a dog's when you giggle,
and she will smile, knowing that you smile.

If you give a girl with a big heart your time,
she will make each second feel like infinity,
and each sunset like the end of the world.
You'll forget that the universe is as vast and wondrous as it is,
because you will be so captivated by the light that she emits
right where she sits,
by your side.

And if you take from a girl with a big heart,
please,
for the love of God,
do not take it all.

If you take from a girl with a big heart,
please remember that her love is not a renewable resource.
The wind and the sun and the water will forever be there to serve you but
she will run dry, and become another fact of history that will one day be forgotten.

If you take from a girl with a big heart,
please remember how sharp your edges were before her,
how lifeless your body was before she touched it,
and how meaningless time was before she made it into something magical.