BDD

January 31, 2007, excavated today:

Lord, give me the courage to fast. No, not be fast. Give me the courage to fast.

I want to be anorexic. I long to be anorexic. I want to switch to a diet of caffeine and cigarettes and smell terrible but wear size two clothes. I want to be my teenage shape, petite to the point of tiny. Everyone gripped my forearm and said to me, “God, your arm is so thin I could break it with one twist.” Proud—I felt pride. I was so fragile I could be broken or protected. Or both.

But even then I didn’t see my body as magazine thin—and that was fifteen years ago, before models looked really anorexic. Not that I was allowed to read magazines other than peeks sneaked at my mother’s Southern Living. What I saw when I looked down were jiggly thighs and loose abdomen. Looking down I saw imagined cellulite and pasty skin.

Psychiatrists call it body dysmorphic disorder now. Fuck that. Fuck them for making it a disorder. I want to be size two again. I remember when I grew to size four and I was devastated. Fast forward to size fourteen, and I’m a hulking monster.

God, I want to be anorexic.

Maybe I want to be a zero. Maybe I want to be nothing. Nothing at all…

***Update, 2/5/2008: That whole bit was from a year ago. I don't feel like being nothing right now. I found that unposted blog entry and thought it was interesting that at a year ago I was having a tough time too. It felt parallel. And the message was never about suicide--it was about dissolving into un-being. Write me if you're worried and you need to talk about this. I won't tell you I'm OK, but I will tell you that I'm getting help and that I'm positive I will be OK. See? Not so bad after all, right?