ANOREXIA: YOU WERE BORN AN ORIGINAL, DON’T DIE A COPY.

Pain comes in many forms, but one of the hardest things to feel, is emotional discrimination. It can be from somebody you really love, or it can be from a random stranger, either way it can cut you as deep as any knife. I truly believe that’s the main culprit of why we hide behind what other […]

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Pain comes in many forms, but one of the hardest things to feel, is emotional discrimination. It can be from somebody you really love, or it can be from a random stranger, either way it can cut you as deep as any knife.

I truly believe that’s the main culprit of why we hide behind what other people want us to be, or what is excepted of us in society. There is a standard which over time has made us all look to other people’s opinions and views to decide what we like rather than depending on what we truly think in our hearts and minds.

You may hate something, but if everybody else loves it, you all of a sudden start doubting yourself. You find yourself thinking ”there must be something wrong with me.” You don’t speak up for fear you will be shut down, looked at funny, or worse yet being pushed out of the mainstream. You don’t want to be the sore thumb sticking out, so you keep your mouth shut. The problem with being afraid to be who you really are, say what you really feel, or express yourself freely causes you to build up an incredible amount of shame. You begin to resent your ideas and yourself for being a certain way, which makes you feel really guilty. Guilt isn’t something anybody should feel just for being the way they are.

Of course I don’t think if somebody is a rapist, or a serial killer they should have the right to go ravage woman and chop people up in tiny pieces. Aside from being morally and ethically responsible, there are so many people who think the way we see a color, a sex, a gender, or a size is wrong. We all cannot help being who we were born and meant to be ,and we all certainly cannot help how we choose to see the world.

So many people unfortunately are afraid of being Raw, exposed, vulnerable. They are afraid that if people really see who they are behind all the fake smiles, fake laughter, fake labels, and fake status’s they may be kicked off the face of the earth.

I myself did this for a really long time. I was ashamed of being a certain size growing up. I was afraid that my weight wasn’t normal, and that in order to be accepted by women, loved by men, appreciated by a boss, I would have to whittle my way down to double digits,fit into a size 0, and go to bed starving every single night.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Hiding Behind Anorexia Nervosa

For a very long time I hid behind the disease of Anorexia and Bulimia. So many people had no idea what I was doing to keep a dress size from going up.

They had no idea I was eating nothing, eating everything and throwing it up, running for 6 hours a day, or taking a gazillion laxatives and diet pills every night.

When I couldn’t hide the disease any longer, I was ashamed to admit that I was sick. I hid behind a mask of denial for a long time, trying to convince everybody I was OK just so I wouldn’t be looked at as Crazy.

I went from being ashamed of being too big, to ashamed of being too small. I wanted people to think I was thin, not mentally ill. I was so ashamed of the term Anorexia and probably more ashamed of the word Bulimia. It meant I was crazy, I was weak, I was damaged.

I began to lose all sense of my identity, and for many many years forgot what it was like to be true to self.

I forgot who Melissa was, and became as real as a mannequin standing in a window. I forgot what I wanted, what I stood for in life,and what I wanted to represent. I was too busy trying to have a supermodels body, with an athletes metabolism, and a healthy college student’s brain. I was going to bed every night and waking up every morning holding on to a safe full of secrets and nobody knew where the key was.

I had done for women, what Velveeta did for Cheese.

I finally after years and years of trying to fit in, found myself very very much standing out, and not in a good way. I was standing out because all that hiding had actually resulted in me being exposed as somebody who was far from sane, healthy, pretty, or happy.                                                                    

That’s when I decided to become Vulnerable, and put myself in the middle of the fishbowl. It meant scraping away all the  artificially sweet, and exposing all the sour.

It meant being completely raw, and completely organic. I wanted to show everybody what Anorexia and Bulimia was, who I had become because of it, and what it had done to by life.

In doing that I began to peel away the onion and slowly but surely began to get to the core of who I really was. Did it make my cry?…yes, but did it kill me?..no. As a matter of fact people respected me a whole lot more for being who I was, then for being who I was not.

Becoming Vulnerable was the best thing I ever did.

It brought me out of my shame, and as hard as it has been to share my struggles with the whole world, it has also reaped great benefits.

I now am not afraid at all to say who I am, what I stand for, and what I want out of life.

I was Born this way Baby, and I ain’t ever going to be anybody who I am not again!                                                                        

I encourage you all to do the same!

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