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”.

You know why I'm obsessed with makeup?
You know why I literally BREAK. DOWN. when I see myself in the mirror on one of those REALLY ugly days that I have?
You know why I seem f!cking vain and beauty obsessed and attention seeking because of how self-deprecating I am?
You know why I am currently crying...alone...on my bedroom floor...kind of pathetically?

Because now I'm a little bit scared
That maybe I DO have a disease of the mind
Maybe I DO have something in my head that isn't right
It just seems so impossible
Because I mean
I look in the mirror
And all I see is this hideous shameful beastly girl
So ugly
In fact, I genuinely feel terrible for the people who have to look at me
and I don't know why
I just don't see how anybody could ever possibly think that I am pretty
And for some reasons I'm crying right now
And I feel really alone
But no no no
There is no way I really have dysmorphia
Is there?

I feel embarrassed
Like I come across shallow
And stupid
And makeup obsessed
Because I can't ever see myself as pretty
NOT EVEN ONCE
not even decent
Not even reasonable
I just. see. UGLY.
and ashamed of my face,
And ashamed of my obsession
With cosmetics
Because it is like the only medicine they made
To fix this affliction
Makeup can make up for how ugly I am
maybe it can fix me
maybe I won't hate myself anymore
but it never does
and I hate crying alone!

Wake up  
Look in mirror
                      fat
Take off clothes
Look in mirror
                      why is my stomach so swollen looking??
                      ******* hate this body
                      especially my stomach
Weigh  
                      102.3
                ­      finally
Breakfast  
Strawberries
                      ­10 calories
Coffee and cream
                      34 calories..
                      too many
                      need energy, though
                      fine.
strawberries+coffee+cream=­ 44 calories
Weigh
                      102.6
                  ­    **** it
*****
Weigh
                      102.4
                 ­     better
Go for run
                      burned 400 calories
Hungry
                      can't eat
Look in mirror
                      the way my fat sticks out is disgusting
Weigh
                      102.4
100 sit ups
                      burned 50 calories
200 jumping jacks
                      burned 70 calories
Look in mirror
                      why am I not thin yet
                      don't fade out again
Passes out
Go to doctor
Says too thin
                      don't lie to me
Dinner
Peach
                      36 calories
Energy drink
                      210 calories
                      ugh
                      ne­ed it desperately though
strawberries+coffee+cream+peach+energy drink= 290
Weigh
                      103.1
                      ­hate myself
Stare in mirror
Stare in mirror
Stare in mirror
Examine body
*****
Weigh
                      102.1
200 sit ups
                      burned 100 calories
Get dumped by boyfriend
                      it's probably because I'm fat
Take shower
Get out
Look in mirror
                      you are disgusting
Go to bed
                      I hate myself


REALITY
scary thin
ate too little, exercised too much
unrealistically saw herself
died two years later of a self inflicted gunshot to the head and a starved soul
**note said: “I love you, but I hate myself and the fact I'll never be small enough for you”

This useless meat sack. I am the thing watching behind the eyes of this empty meat sack. I am the one piloting this sausage of a body, directing it to walk, talk, smile.
Sometimes I wish that I could reach into my chest and tear it open. I want to rip and tear and slice past the epidermis, watch the white fatty cells and veins and arteries moving. I want to see white, bone-white, a cage for my useless heart. Watch my heart pump like those sheep hearts we used to dissect in science. I remember how they looked, white fat clinging like ivy, and greying in the cool room of the labs. Nothing but a cold, clammy lump of flesh. Maybe death smells like the butchers. Like bleach that can’t cover the festering smell of rot and ammonia.
I’m heavy on my ankles. I remember the last time I starved, and I felt as if I could fly, balanced on my tip-toes, poised to fall. And maybe falling felt just as good.
It’s so unbearably soft. My chest, my arms. I can feel my cheek meat. Fat on bones. Scrape it out with a spoon like pork cheeks, soft, tender, delicious.
A chrysalis. A cut-out, a hollow man wearing hollow shoes doing hollow things. How did that pupa feel, I wonder, trapped in darkness? No way out but forward. The growing pains, tendons and bones and muscles warping. Twisting and crawling but transforming, little by little. Into what, you can’t possibly imagine. The uncertainty, it’s almost as bad as the darkness. No change even when you open your eyes, like colours have frozen into little dizzying pixels. You can’t stop, but do you want to? On the precipice between weakness and a terrifying something else, what can you be but monstrous? Not one or the other but neither.
What are you turning into? A butterfly? A monster? Neither?
You can’t stop.

The rabble simmered to a distant dull din
muffled by thick wooden doors and hands clamped over ears.
Wanting deafness rather than to hear again
the laughter accompanied by his name spoken ugly as sin.
But who can mute memories or what screams from within?

Wilting for another night
wishing a dream would birth
enough light,
praying
to believe he could face the world
head held high,
no stoop to stop confidence
nor twist of frown to drown positive assurances.
just enough would be enough for him
if he could walk the way
the beautiful do.
Just the way they do.

There's a part of me,
that you have never seen,
it's large, burrowing, dysmorphic
and it tells
me that this is okay,
this is natural,
that the cold rush I feel
is the thermometer saying I'm cooling down
and that love that kept boomeranging
won't be able to reach me
because that part of me
is digging deep for the both of us.

And so,
stuck inside that soggy center
it burrows for fun and survival,
because it knows it can go as deep as it wants,
and no one will ever see it.

Sitting, restless

In this changeling

Sensation

Of freshness and renewal.

Running

Rat on a wheel.

Each passing day

A different way

Of feeling,

An altered state of mind.

Seeking

To find

A man within the boy.

Hoping to see

The real me.

Alive and kicking.

Hot flushed, this post determined puberty

And the desperate need to feel.

An urgent angst to Be.

Short fuse and temper flare.

I’m not really there

Yet still somehow

Everywhere and

Everything;

Else breathing.

Dysmorphic chest

Heaving

Exigency

In this

Juncture

Soul puncture,

And bloodied bandaids

Cast off

My heart

Once worn on my sleeve.

I am finger skin,

Flesh and nail

Torn

And jagged edges

Peeling.

Perplexity kneeling,

I am deeply lost inside of me.

Begging to be found.

Compund; unbound.

They say that beggars can’t be choosers

Only losers left to dreaming.

They also say

That I may be a dreamer

But I’m not the only one.

I will come undone in this undoing.

Eschewing

A life lived unalive.

Slow unravel

To once again

Begin

To belong in this

Skin

Stitched bleeding riches

To my bare and brittle bone  

He is not alone

I feel him

Running

Waiting

Sating disquietude

With an attitude

Unshackled

He is not running

Rather feet flying

A rat inside

A wheel.

I
Originations of consciousness whir into a moan of torment.
A sudden bombshell of consternation;
    her eyes burst wide.

Baby?
Sleep-laden, post-finals brain gravy:
No, can't be. Could be. Shouldn't be. Want to be? No, can't be.

Lurking beyond the reach of terror, realism slithers closer.
The hysteria deteriorates as deduction brings lucidity.

******* eggs.
They are abolished, and never heard from again.

II
Suitcase tetris, smothering each layer.
She moves without direction,
or a lazy child with ADD.

At long last, the shimmering sink full of death beckons...

Dissatisfaction erupts in a symphony of fragmented drinkware.
Her assumption lingers, cresting into prediction.
Her expectations are met.
A thorn in her paw.
     The dishwater weeps.

III
Her rage is tangible, hissing in her ears,
bashing her skull when it is ignored,
clawing at her spine.
She abandons the silverware.
They never did anything for her.

The loathsome bag swings threateningly.
She ignores it, giving it a silent challenge.

Fate strings before her eyes, yanked taut and thrumming
with inevitability.
Crimson satin sheets tangle lovingly from the rift of tender peel.
Cake-batter-in-a-mixing-bowl splatter,
the dissimilitude of children's laughter.
Wobbling, fawn-like under the density of rage gnawing at her lips,
she retreats, acknowledging her submission.

She begins as a tree, but rapidly degenerates
into grotesque dysmorphic spasms on the cheap veneer.

Hysteria threatens to burst forth, frothing, but no.
This is not my day.

bitten nails, broken skin
i speak volumes through a pen
the unkempt look of a tired teen
emotionally broken writing queen

i write melodies for the youth
the ones who know the ugly truth
and after all is said and done
i speak for the ones who stand alone

i write for the ones who stay in their rooms
who have inner horror of the imminent doom
of facing the decision to live or to die
i speak for the ones who silently cry

i write for the broken primadonnas
who realize all they really wanted
was a beautiful body (thin as a stick)
i write for the sweethearts, lovely, dysmorphic

i write melodies for the hated
the ignored, defeated, self-harming, tormented
the unloved darlings of this generation
oppressed by society’s views of perfection
the unwanted lovechild of sadness and hate
we feel in our hearts that we all are mistakes
i write for every last tired young soul
for i write as i speak
and i speak what i know.

manic episodes
social phobia
PTSD
generalized anxiety disorder
hyperactive ****** desire disorder
bulimia nervosa
body dysmorphic disorder

Thanks doc for the diagnosis