"You're fat." "Eat less you pig!" "You ate way too much." Fat Ugly Diet. "You got skinnier, you look great!" "You glowed up!" "Wow, you lost a lot of baby fat!" Pretty Happy Smile "You are as skinny a as a stick..." "Eat a sandwich or something." "Gain some weight." Cry Hide Eat "You are worthless" "You are not enough" "You are weak" I will never be "enough", nor' will I ever be as strong "enough" Because I am more than "enough" I am overqualified. and worth more than your rent at that.
I am a baddie, I am an icon. I am the moment, and yes, I am amazing. But amazing people also have their moments of faltering, whether the downfall may be a tiny dent into their success or a 100-foot cliff in the pits of hell. I was somewhere in between when quarantine hit. I was away from my friends at school, and was slowly stretching from my family dynamic as my mom went away for work purposes. I felt more alone than ever, bored out of my mind with nothing to do. That was until something else took up the empty space in my mind. The urge to be skinny, my time dealing with bulimia.
It started as how when the days went by, the less I ate. My appetite and food portions naturally became smaller after not going to school, while my height grew steadily from puberty. I gradually became skinnier and skinnier without even trying, and was growing closer to the ideal body type I would always dream of getting that I always thought I could never get. I was always insecure about my body and accepted the fact that I would always be fat.
“This may be my one and only chance to get an hourglass body, has my wish to God come true; am I becoming beautiful? Will my looks finally stop people’s hearts and make my life as easy as Beyonce’s hair moves flawlessly in wind?”
Yes, I got an hourglass body. My looks already did stop people’s hearts as easily as Beyonce’s hair flows in the wind, but yes, they led to even more jaw- drops. But little did I know, this finding would spiral into a monster that was painful to live through.
“I am getting skinny, I should keep it up and grab this glow-up by the b@1l$!” is what I would say to myself day in and day out. I was no longer eating less because of a smaller appetite at home, but instead by force. I was beginning to diet recklessly. As the days and nights went by, my weight dropped drastically. While others were growing into major glow-ups, I forced them upon myself, where, in the end, I lost my own sense of self-worth, like Britney Spears while shaving her hair during the mental breakdown she had.
Every day, I would go through either no food or a small snack, later binging on ramen and feeling horrible right after. I was not happy with my body and my image. I would force myself to starve until I felt pleased with my weight, mindlessly eating when my mind could no longer handle the lack of food. From being 110 pounds with 5 feet in height distribution, I dropped to 83.5 pounds and 5 feet and 3 inches in height. I would never be skinny enough, nor will I necessarily think I ever will be, even until this moment as I am writing. But, I now understand that beauty is not just the figure of your body.
I won’t say anything lame like “beauty is your personality!” or “personality is everything that counts” because that is not true at the end of the day. Beauty does involve your body type, but your body type is only a fragment of the image of being attractive. Beauty is the confidence, friendliness, hygiene, etc. that make up a person. I was never confident with my looks: face, body, and height. Confidence is what I was lacking, the confidence in myself that I was enough. I was always chasing the idea of being skinny when I was already skinny enough. Actually, I was underweight, VERY underweight even, just like my cousin when he was born as a premature baby a month too early.
My ideals of a body were constantly stretching to more dangerous ends as my weight went down, while the goals of beauty also became more unrealistic. I don’t have to look like a celebrity when my aura as a person is much more potent than theirs could ever be. I don’t have to barf out the food I ate and be miserable in the end for not indulging in the food I love. I don’t have to look perfect, I just need to have confidence in who I am. I am okay with the features I was born with, and I love myself. At the end of the day, I am still an icon to be feared. However, a nose job would still help. Contact me for rhinoplasty inquiries (just kidding).
“Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself” -Coco Chanel
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