Starving Hurts But Thinking Is Worse.

I hate when I think too much. It makes me depressed and I feel tired and shit. And I suppose I feel like that now.

Today is the last day of the month. A month in which I again, have lost no weight. A month in which I have eaten more than I deserve to eat. A month in which I have consistently failed.
Tomorrow is the first of August and I intend on being perfect. I intend on getting back to my lowest weight. I intend on completing my school work and studying for exams like a Very Good Student should.

I have had a very tiring day today.

I woke up at 6, did three hours of exercise. Went to the doctor. Came home. Stared at my computer screen and realised I needed to study. Did no study. Attempted to clean my bedroom. Decided to lie on my floor because I was exhausted. Found a journal that I use to write stuff in for my counsellor from four years ago. Made me more tired and more depressed. Found poems I wrote in year seven. Nostalgically wished I could still write as honestly as I did back then. Stared in the mirror for awhile. Sat on my knees for awhile. Admired my thigh gap like a freak. Opened the kitchen cupboard. Stared at the food and pulled out a pistachio. Accidentally dropped it. Decided I didn’t need it. Threw it in the bin. Ate 5 chocolate almonds. Took 2 laxatives. Checked my emails. Got a lump in my throat when I saw my exam timetable.

Went back into my bedroom and laid on the floor with an old photo album I had found while I was cleaning. Stopped at a photo of my brother and I, taken when I was about 11. I am wearing a white tight cotton long sleeve shirt. I can remember that shirt. It was itchy. And it was tight and I felt fat. More photos. Me, ten years old, feeding a dolphin at Sea World. I am wearing a yellow full piece suit. I remember that day. I remember there was a whole group of us and the lady looked at us and told us what size life jackets to wear. She told me I should get a small and I remember the panic that rose in me – A small is too small and I am larger than everyone else here. I was feeding a dolphin and petting a dolphin and doing tricks with a dolphin and the biggest thing I remember about that is feeling insecure about being exposed how I was.

Closed the photo album and willed myself to stop thinking. But I couldn’t. I remembered sitting in the back seat of our old van. I would have been nine years old. It was night-time and we were driving around Kiama Bends and I looked up at the sky and wished on a star that I could be thin. I would do anything to be thin, I remember thinking that. And then I forgot all about it and ate some of my brother’s crisps.

Eight years old. At gymnastics, warming up. I was wearing blue bike shorts with yellow flowers on them and a yellow crop top. We were running around the floor. I felt exposed and I hiked my shorts up and pulled my crop top down as far was possible to close the gap and try and cover my stomach.

A friend messages me and asks if I want to go to the movies to see Inception. I accept. Two hours ago, I backed out. I am too large to be seen in public again. I am too large to leave my room right now. I am lying on my floor with an ugly blanket on my knees and my laptop on my ribs and listening to the television two rooms away.

Still, all these memories are swirling around my head and it feels okay to write about them. Keeping them inside my head, that’s a scary thing.

Gymnastics competitions. Wearing my little blue leotard, scrutinising all of the other girls. They were all short and muscular and thin. And I was the biggest one there, I was sure of it. I made sure I always sucked my tummy in. Training for gym. Eight years old. Bek, you’re a hamburger! You are as tall as you are wide. I’ve never forgotten that comment, I’ve held on to it for ten years. I believed her then, I remember that. I look back at photos now though and there was nothing of me.

Year 4. I weighed 24kg. Year 6 and my weight was around the mid 30s. I wanted to be 24kg again. I promised myself I would never get over 50kg, ever.

Memories of food: chips. Lots and lots of crisps. Every Christmas. Lots of lollies. Always licking the bowl whenever something was baked. Custard at my Grandma’s house. Grandma needing to talk to my parents and giving my brother and I money so we could walk to the shops and buy an icecream. I used to take a boy’s rollup from his bag every day in year 2. I craved sugar like a crazy kid. Spilling tuna on my white school dress in yr 6 and the boys teased me because it was chilli tuna and it looked like I had my period. Dad’s mashed potatoes, he always boasted that he made them better than anyone else. Six years old: my brother spills juice into my Fruity Bix on purpose. I cry and refuse to eat it. I never ate my cereal with milk on it, I still don’t. It was always eaten dry. I never drank my whole drink, I’d always leave some just to prove that I could. Standing in the canteen line and buying jellybeans and carob buds and Jupiter bars and slushies. I cried one year at Easter at my Grandparents house – maybe ten years old? I wanted to try some of Grandpa’s ginger chocolate! It was disgusting. Sitting at the dinner table for three hours, literally, one night because my parents wouldn’t let me leave until I had finished. I didn’t eat any. It was revolting and I wasn’t allowed to eat it anyway. I would have been seven that year. Visiting an Aunty who lived two hours away. Running away from the kitchen and in to her spare room because I didn’t like Silverside so I refused to eat a sandwich. I had no lunch that day, I just fell asleep in an extremely uncomfortable position on a table and slept the afternoon away

I have more, but this is long. And you are all probably bored out of your minds. I have a few things left to say and then I will be finished, I promise.

For as long as I can remember, my dad has always called me fat. My Mother constantly asks me if she looks fat. I always tell her no, I used to ask her why it mattered and she had no response ever really. Just that it just did.

Eight years old: At my favourite uncle and aunty’s house. I was angry. I jumped up and down on their monopoly board and it broke and we had to swap games with them. We played Hide and Seek a lot with my cousins. One cousin was six years older than me. His name was Mitchell. I don’t want to think about him because when I do my hands shake and my heart races and I can’t breathe, almost.

I haven’t seen that family in five years. That’s where all this shit started I think. How can you talk about something when you know people won’t understand? How can one find the words to say out loud, to convey what they really mean in their head and their heart? I can’t.
Sorry for the epicly long rant. As you can see, I think about a lot of things and today has just been one of those days.

My parents haven’t noticed that I haven’t eaten dinner. 8:43 PM. *saves note and clambers in to bed*

Love, Bek x