You're so sensitive
You need to grow up
You know he was joking
So why don't you stop
He has different humour
You just don't get it
My dads in his 70's
You can't say anything
It's not like hes lying
You are overweight
It was just a joke
Don't take it to heart mate
It's weird that it hurts you
And I will never understand
Because you just sit there
With your phone in your hand

i cannot seem to forget
the smallness i had become.
bruised thighs
and sunken eyes
were my reality;
my skin was devoid of
any nutrients,
fragile and delicate.
i could vanish
into nothingness
like quicksand.

my days bled into
one another,
fingers frozen,
heart barely beating,
lungs hardly breathing.
i stared down the
barrel of the gun,
wished to purge my urges,
sat in an endlessly deep
pool of misery until
drowning was all i could do.

i replaced food with air,
consuming empty calories
and dug knives into
my skin as a personal hobby.

i am an open would
that never heals,
and i am desperate
to move on.

A tourture that breaks and distorts my mind
Every calorie cafrefully chosen
Written in a journal
Every thing ive eaten since 8th grade
No breakfast
Running out the door a weitght in my stomach
No lunch
Drinking a monster
10 more calories than I need
Vaping in the bathroom
Dinner
Dreaded dinner
I have to sit and eat with my family
No excuses
Work it off after dinner
Do I go there
Do I sit on the floor racking my lungs
I can feel the fat settle on my bones
Crying myself to sleep
Repeat

Yesterday I looked at myself in the mirror
And although I tried to take the advice given to me by my therapist
I was unable to find a single thing I might even just tolerate about myself.
Instead, my mind and heart raced each other, trying to see who would win the prize of defeating me
as I scan my naked body for each and every inconsistency and insufficiency.

You see my first memory of self hatred comes from a place most people could not predict.
Imagine me at six years old standing in the shower, so proud of myself
For finally graduating from the bathtub I had associated with childhood.
I had just finished reading “Falling Up” by Shel Silverstein.
And out of the more than 400 poems by this poet one stuck to my brain
Like peanut butter on the roof of my mouth after eating a PB&J.

Now if you’ll forgive me for getting off track for just this moment
I’d like to read you this poem entitled “Scale.”

“If I could only see the scale,
I’m sure that it would state
That I’ve lost ounces...maybe pounds
Or even tons of weight.
‘You’d better eat some pancakes-
You’re skinny as a rail.’
I’m sure that’s what the scale would say…
If only I could see the scale.”

If you’ve ever read a poem by Shel Silverstein you’d know that each of them
Are accompanied by an illustration.
This particular poem is positioned next to a drawing of a person standing on a scale
Unable to see the number because their stomach juts out just far enough
To block their view of the information that scale is providing.
I remember looking down at my naked body
Only to realize that i also could not see my feet.
My childish, growing, prepubescent tummy obstructed my view of my toes.
And I remember thinking for the first time, “Wow, I am fat.”
And that same feeling has followed me throughout these subsequent years.
Throughout elementary, middle, high school and beyond.
My dysmorphic perspective has been a shadow of which I could not shake.
And try as I might, deep down I knew that this was my fate.

I started restricting what I ate starting in 6th grade.
-I counted calories lost and gained and measured my size by the tightness of a tank top.
I watched videos of people like Eugenia Cooney,
and inspired myself through the photos I saw of
Emaciated girls kept alive by feeding tubes.
I was 12.
-I was diagnosed with Ee Dee En Oh Ess in the summer of seventh grade.
EDNOS is a catch-all eating disorder characterized by the characteristics you lacked
To be able to gain the coveted name brand DSM-5 diagnosis of anorexia.
-This I considered to be my failure.
To not qualify because of a lack of being underweight was all I needed for motivation.
So I doubled down on my efforts to lose weight and by the age of fourteen
I had finally achieved that which I so...craved.
I was the best. The skinniest. The one people whispered about in the halls and I had all the attention I could ever dream of getting.
And I was happy.
Wasn’t I?

Skip ahead to now and you will know my comeback story.
Seven years of weekly therapy, numerous psych ward stays, and one near-death experience
I can finally say that I am at a stable and healthy weight.
I continue to despise my body, but now I have the tools and mechanisms to be able to fight off the demon I had nicknamed “Ana”.
-And while I still cannot say that I truly love myself the way I am,
Slowly and steadily I continue to improve.
And I hope that one day I can look into that mirror, take in all my flaws and still be able to tell little 6 year old Grace…
“Sweet girl, you will be okay”.

Who am i?
When the scars are stripped away
the obsessions gone
the compulsions unneeded
When i don't know the taste of serotonin on my tongue
the disappointment of looking in the mirror
or the bite of metal against my stomach
When i am myself again,
bare of the illnesses that have weighed me down
Who will i be?

"Your hair will fall out"
"You'll faint and pass out"
"Why must you hurt yourself?"

I don't mean to, I swear
I try to recover
Each time I fail

Skin and bones are what I desire
At least that's what my mind tells me
As my body is starving, fading away

Recovery is hard
Relapse is familiar
My eating disorder is killing me