Age 27

It's been about a year since you and I went from "it's complicated" to "in a relationship." I'm glad we took the steps to work towards this level of commitment. Thanks for waiting for me to work my stuff out. I feel much better now, and am so excited to see where this newfound love takes us.

Remember last summer when I was so distraught over the cancelled wedding, I'd just run and run and maybe eat some string cheese and popcorn and call it a well-balanced meal. Yeah, I do too. And laugh at myself. Now, I still run and run, and have added distance, Olympic lifting, and more soccer to the mix. But I eat. Damn, do I eat. Blocks and blocks of food that fuel my body, not inhibit it like last summer. And even though I eat more food than ever now and weigh more than I did last summer, I don't even feel fat or guilty about it. Because I know how good it is for my overall well-being.

Now, I know I am a vessel, my body and whole self an important vehicle to be used in my journey of life. How silly I was to not want to maintain it. I'm surprised it didn't wither away into nothing. A year later I can still fit into my size 2 jeans (okay, sometimes a size 0). I still put on the cleats and running shoes. And I'm still proud of my physical fitness. My ability to run 13.1 miles and play soccer with ease. I still like, well LOVE, how my legs look, how my arms have toned, how my back muscles are so defined and my ass…yep, my ass looks great. Thanks wall-balls and squats. I can still look at myself naked and think, "Damn, I look good."

But the key word is "self." I can look at myself, not just my body. Because my complete self is being nourished, taken care of as it needs to be. Now I am exceeding what I thought my body could do, but loving it so much that any form of abuse is not an option.

I love how I look right now. Love it, love it and want to flaunt it. And I will never doubt that thought to increase the possibility that self-hatred will perpetuate self-abuse again.

Peace and love,

The inhabitant of you, Body

Age 45

In Spanish, body is cuerpo. I love my exercise and weights, but my cuerpo doesn't want to change. I eat healthy 95% of the time, but my cuerpo doesn't want to burn off the love that has accumulated around my waist.

My therapist and I believe I have body dysmorphic disorder. All I know is that thinking about my body and its resistance to skinnying down causes panic attacks and feeds depression. Since I'm older now with this exercise and fitness routine, I feel aches and pains because really working out hurts. Ibuprofin and I have become buddies.

I don't want to so resemble my Mamita who struggled with her weight until her dying day. She had five babies while I have not, so why's the weight sticking to me so intensely? She lives on in me but I don't want that sort of resemblance. I'm considered overweight right now and need to improve due to Diabetes running in the family. And yes, liposuction has been an ongoing fantasy.

I'm angry at my body and myself. I want it to get better. Last night's Zumba class helped because it was just fun. I get lost in myself focusing on this stuff when there are many other priorities in my life that are getting lost in the shuffle.

So I'm trying to love my cuerpo that is healthy in so many ways. I'm sorry I put down my cuerpo so much and expect things that really shouldn't be so important.

Age 20

Dear Body,

We used to be good friends. Always playing sports together, we were the pinnacle of fitness. And I am sorry, but life just got so busy that we lost that slender look with those muscles we put so much into gaining.

I must apologize for what I have put you through you see, the diet
pills were just a tester to see how fast we could lose weight. And those days without food, well, we just had to get thinner.

Now that our braces are off and we lost twenty pounds you'd think I'd give you a break. And you are right. Why you ask? Because I've come to realize that there is nothing wrong with us! We tried to fit in and we just don't.

So lets flaunt our differences and make the trends our own. Because in the end, body, it's just going to be you and me.

Age 29

How'd it get this crazy?

I know I'm crazy, but sometimes I think it's not entirely my fault. When it comes to my own sense of body image, I'm pretty sure it's not my fault. And I absolutely hate myself for not being able to just be happy with myself, especially because logically I know it's not as bad as I often make it out to be. I know I'm crazy, but knowing I'm crazy doesn't seem to make a difference.

And I know it can't just be me who has these issues. And that makes me cranky. It seems like there is very little anyone can really do about the fact that somehow society has told me my body doesn't look the way it should. I wonder if men deal with these issues.

Let me give a for instance as to how crazy this really is. I'm getting ready to go to a play at a professional theater. So I thought it would be good to put on a dress, albeit a casual one. I was feeling pretty good about myself in general, so it's not like I was already in one of those moods (because yes, it happens) where I think absolutely nothing looks good and I'm just fat. I grabbed a dress that I know looks pretty good on me, but it's still pretty casual - a cotton sun dress.

By the mere fact that it's cotton, it ends up being form fitting. So I was not surprised that I would need to wear some sort of smoothing under garment to make it look ok. What I was surprised by was my reaction when I looked at myself in the mirror after putting on said undergarment. I noticed that despite the smoothing, there was still a small section of my stomach that protrudes just a bit more than the rest. This is not something most people would probably notice. But I was dismayed to realize that my stomach wasn't perfectly flat. Yeah, read that again. What woman in her right mind, especially one that hasn't been keeping up with her Pilates in the last six months, would be dismayed to discover that her stomach doesn't appear perfectly flat in a form hugging dress? It depressed me so much I had to spend about 15-minutes convincing myself that I really do look ok, other people wouldn't notice, perhaps make-up and a jacket would distract from it, oh and I really do have a moderately attractive body. I'm not even willing to say unconditionally I have an attractive body! I have to qualify it with words like moderately. I have to convince myself that I'm not disgustingly fat all because my stomach isn't perfectly flat in this dress!

Seriously, this is insane. It made me not even want to leave the house this evening. How the hell do reasonable women end up here? I consider myself to be pretty rational. I recognize that I am not an average size woman. I am overweight. But, I also recognize that in the grand scheme, I'm pretty healthy. I have a lot of muscle which weighs more than fat and I'm tall. Being a size 16-18 at 5'10" is not obese, despite what my BMI might say. I think I'm somewhat attractive. I generally accept my appearance and try to love myself. I have overcome an eating disorder as a teenager. I have some kickin' curves that many women envy. And yet, I end up looking at myself in the mirror and being dismayed that my stomach isn't perfectly flat.

So I want to call one of my female friends to cry about it. Then I realize that any of the friends I'd probably want to call also do not have flat stomachs. In fact, if I'm honest with myself, my stomach is probably flatter than many of theirs. So if I called them to complain about my not quite flat stomach, they would probably go into this “well how does she see me” cycle that I know far too well and we'd both end up hating our bodies. And I think all of them are beautiful, attractive women. So the thought hits me just how crazy I really am! How can I say these women are beautiful and attractive and that I don't think they need to change a thing and then whine about the fact that I have a small bump in my stomach? Because I'm crazy! I believe that somehow while all my friends are beautiful and wonderful and I love them the way they are, no one will feel that way about me. I must be perfect for anyone to think I'm attractive.

So I am now trying to convince myself that really I am attractive and this dress looks fine - the problems are all in my head. I'm also wondering where these issues come from. Is it somehow natural for humans to self-criticize so much, or is it passed on to us from influences like family and society? How do we keep our children from picking up these same traits? Because clearly, it's not healthy!

Eating Disorders Hit 500,000 Teens

An eating disorder study being billed as the largest analysis of U.S. teens ever is returning some depressingly large numbers: More than half a million have had an eating disorder, according to government research. Binge-eating was the most common disorder, found in 1.5% of teens studied, followed by bulimia (1%) and anorexia (0.3%); another 3% had bothersome symptoms, but not a full-fledged disorder. While the percentages may seem low, they're actually slightly higher than what have been observed in other studies, reports the AP.

17 1/2

Dear body,

Hello! It's good to see you again. You've been buried under layers of long pants and sweaters all winter, but now it's February in Georgia and that means spring. So now I'm standing in front of my vanity, looking in the mirror - hands on hips, like Superwoman wearing my swimsuit just to see if it still fits.

Hell-ooo...

When did I get gorgeous?

When did that little smirk get there, one corner of my lips up as I'm trying not to laugh?

When did my hair get so long?

And while we're on the subject, where'd that tan I had last summer go?

And I definitely don't need to ask where all my Christmas candy went. Yikes.

But all-in-all, not bad.

Sure, there's that huge burn scar on your arm, that one you haven't seen in a few months because of all the sweaters. I'd almost forgotten about it, the way people always glance at it and then look away quickly, pretending they weren't staring. And, okay, your legs aren't nearly as thin and muscular as you wanted them to be. (Hint: Running works better if you actually do it, instead of think about it.)

There's seventeen years worth of dancing and boxing and jujitsu in that mirror. Seventeen years worth of body-hating, body-loving, not caring and caring a lot looking back at me. Seventeen years of split knuckles, skinned knees, bruises, burns, scars and cuts written on my body. Seventeen years of doing my own stunts, getting into fights, hobbling around on crutches for weeks and trying to be left-handed because my right arm's in a cast.

It's looking at me in the mirror, and I'm looking back at it, trying to see what everyone sees when they look at me.

Age 45

Sometimes it takes a child to voice the truth that needs to be heard. As I watched little Sophia speak her words in the video "Beauty Is Not How Skinny You Can Be," I thought of myself as a little girl much like her and bawled. I was a little girl with long dark hair and light blue eyes, and I loved reading and writing and books and chocolate and kittens. I loved to go to school and sitting in the front row, eager to learn. But as life unfolded, I learned to dislike myself. And one day, I grew up to hate my body and did everything in my power to look and be like someone else. Anybody but me.

I have been trying to recreate myself almost since I was born. I never thought I was beautiful enough. I never thought I was smart enough. And when I got married, I never thought I was good enough for my husband. But the harder I tried to become someone else, the worse things became. Until I was lost.

Anorexia nervosa knew just when to strike. And I then embarked on a new mission to remold my body to society's idea, and I was so successful that I lost sight of everything else. The love of my husband. The friendship of others. Joy and laughter and love became buried by layers of anorexia until I couldn't breathe anymore. It wasn't just my body that became smaller, my soul became smaller.

But as little Sophia says, I am unique and there will never be another me in all the history of the world. So why in the world would I try to look or be like someone else? I am rediscovering myself; my love of writing and reading, of the joy of Celtic music and classic Elton John, of cuddling with my cat and crying because this little girl's message moves me so much I can't hold it back. I have dark curly hair and light blue eyes and my body once was strong and beautiful and it can become that again. I am opinionated and believe strongly in justice for those who can't speak for themselves. I love to study English and poetry and history and the Bible and religion. I am passionately loyal to my friends and would do anything for them. I am stubborn, and my therapist says one of my greatest strengths is that I never give up.

I believe in miracles, and the power of love and hope. I know I can recover from anorexia. I'm just starting to unravel the layers of this cloak of anorexia, but unravel it I will. I have finally learned the key is within me. I just have to unlock the door.

Age 19

No, not her
Not sure how I became this girl,
The frail shell of what used to be,
The barely existing, numb, scared child,
No longer a vibrant spirit, no longer free.

There’s only a glimmer left,
Only a faint sparkle of that old girl remains,
But she’s trapped deep inside there,
Trapped under the pain.

But don’t give up on her,
That girl is ready now to fight,
To conquer the fear that’s buried inside,
To cross from darkness into light.

She hasn’t waved the white flag,
Surrender is not a word she knows,
Because she wants to conquer the world,
Just watch the places she goes.

This girl will break the ties that bind,
That hold her underneath the waves,
The swirling current of disaster,
That has held her as a slave.

She answers no more to their voices,
Ignores their command to obey,
To let the waters of doom wash over her,
And she begins to pray.

Prayers for strength and faith,
Prayers for hope, above all,
Knowing that they’ll be answered,
Ready to face this battle, walking tall.

I am currently in recovery. I recently found this poem that I wrote during my first week in the hospital. The one year anniversary of my hospital admission is approaching and I can't believe how much has changed in a year. I would hardly recognize the girl I was one year ago...I am never turning back.

Age 19

Dear 12 Year Old Me,

You are standing in the line at the grocery store next to the studio. You don’t really know why you’re there and you’re worried that you will be late to dance class. You have one item, and it seems really important to buy. When you pay for that package of laxatives you don’t realize that you’ve started what is going to become the hardest fight of your life.

You hate who you are. Hate, perhaps, isn’t quite the right word. Hate implies too much action; it takes energy to hate, and you don’t feel that you deserve even that. You feel that you should just disappear, and rid the world of yourself. You reason the world would be a better place without you. You are a straight A student, taking advanced courses in middle school and excelling in dance classes; you’ve known what you wanted to do since you were 4 years old (oncologist) and you are determined to achieve it, and all you can think of is whether or not the number on the scale is up or down.

Soon you become sick of the laxatives, they make you cramp and feel nauseous, and you discover that throwing up really gets rid of everything faster. By 13 you are purging everything you eat, restricting everyday to under 200 calories and binging once every few weeks. You are consumed with this feeling that you don’t deserve anything that you have. That you deserve to be in pain; that you're life and your body are in gross excess, you can barely look in the mirror without your stomach churning in revulsion; you do endless calisthenics in your room at night and you beat your stomach as it cries out in hunger, and it all seems like the right thing to do; you need to disappear.

But what you can’t see is that you are crying as you write this. You would never have thought that 8 years from now you would be sitting in your room, writing this letter and crying your eyes out because you can’t stop this cycle of hatred. You can’t see the damage you’re doing to your body. How you can’t even eat now without feeling ill. How your hair is falling out. How your skin is always a mess. How your period is irregular and disappears for months at a time. How your heart beat is irregular due to electrolyte imbalances from purging.

You don’t realize that your life will become one long succession of getting on the scale and off the scale. You can’t see that, even as your twentieth birthday looms, you will still be that 12 year old girl, sad and desperate to feel beautiful and accomplished, though you’ve graduated high school a year early, worked in a biochemistry lab for almost 3 years and won a national scholarship in your field, all before the age of 20.

But now, you will choose to change. It’s not a question of want to; though sometimes you do want to be rid of your eating disorder, other times it is easier to just curl up with it. But you can’t do it anymore. You can’t fight this losing battle with your body. You are only going to lose either way. No matter how thin you get, you can’t fix an inner problem with outward appearances.

These feelings of inadequacy are not based on size. This eating disorder is not about a number. It’s about shutting out feelings that you can’t deal with. It’s about making the miserable pain you feel inside more manageable. But it doesn’t make it more manageable; you are slowly killing yourself and you can’t go on like this anymore.

You may not always love your body. But you are going to try. You are not going to fight it anymore. Even as you write this, you’ve been in outpatient treatment for two months, seeing a therapist, nutritionist and psychiatrist. And they want you to go to an inpatient clinic. You see, that’s how serious things will become! And you will probably do it. Because you’ve come to your wit's end and you’ve lost the control that you were trying so hard to gain, to no avail, with your eating disorder. You're weight's been all over the place and you've never been happy, you've never felt beautiful, the key word is felt: you've always been beautiful!

You only get one body. This life is all you have. You’re all about being accomplished and successful. And though being perfect is not what life is about, if that’s what you want, then stop focusing on killing yourself and start LIVING! It’s not a life, what you’ve been doing for the past 8 years. You’re going to start graduate school in a year and a half; enjoy this time. Embrace life with the fervor that you embraced your eating disorder. And leave this disease behind you, so you can be a productive member of society, and, above all, happy. Think about whether this eating disorder has made you fundamentally a happier person. I think you’ll find the answer is painfully obvious. You deserve better. You deserve to live and be loved. You won’t always believe it, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less true. You are beautiful inside and out.

Love,
K

Age 15

I look in the mirror, but who I see isn’t me.
Where am I?
Hiding beneath the self that I see.
Far away, trying to find me.
Where did I go?
The question stands still.
The tear that I see on that self before me, glitters and shines.
Could it be that I finally found myself.