Let me explain...

No one who has an "eating disorder" or who's "anorexic, bullimic, etc" wonders why anyone else lives the way they do because they understand.  They understand the compulsive obsession that the girl across the room has with being as thin as possible.  They understand why the girl who sits on the other side of the bus hasn't eaten in three days.  They understand why the girl with the blog name "i'll die before i'm fat again" is obsessed with going to the gym and will knock out anyone who stands in her way.  Despite all this, everyone has their own story.  Everyone has their own drive.  I think it's important to know everyone's story to understand why they are so atimate about doing anything humanly possible to be thin and perfect.  Here's my story.

 This isn't just something I woke up and decided to do one day.  I didn't wake up and decide I want to be obsessed with being thin and starving myself.  My aim was perfectionism and I decided to alter the one major thing I had control over.  I had a boyfriend who cheated on me for years but continued to tell me he loved me.  I gave him chance after chance knowing that I had the upper hand.  I even cheated on him a few times just out of spite and in hopes that it would make me feel better.  Surprise, surprise.. it didn't.  It actually made me feel worse.  Coming around year three I decided to do something.  It was sort of a subconscious decision because I don't recall ever deciding to work out like a nutcase and eat less and less everyday -- it just sort of happened.  I started going to the gym daily to make myself feel better and it totally worked!  I kept this up and people started noticing how great and different I was looking.  The added attention was probably what got me to push myself to be -- as a doctor may put it -- "out of control" or "compulsive."

I of course loved the positive attention I was getting.  This only fueled my drive to be perfect and thin -- maybe if I looked different my boyfriend wouldn't want to cheat on me anymore?  WRONG.  After all this I realized that my boyfriend didn't cheat on me because I wasn't good enough ( this was about the only positive and factual insight I got out of therapy for my anorexia.)  I was encouraged to take a step back and look at the girls he had cheated on me with.  Once I did this I realized something HUGELY important. All of the girls he cheated on me with weren't any special.. they weren't cuter, more fun, more outgoing and even more important, THINNER than me.  I know what you might be thinking -- that I'm just saying these things to make myself feel better -- but I tend to be brutally honest with myself as most girls like myself do.

Anyway, for the most part I am completely over him now.  I go to school about three hours away from him and rarely think of him.  He texts me every now and then, probably to try to keep me from completely getting over him but it doesn't make much of a difference to me.  With all that said, he was a huge influence in driving me to be obsessed and insistant on being thin -- but not the only reason.  Now that I am over him, and somewhat back to my normal weight, I STILL want to be tiny tiny tiny again.  And I will be with the help of some of you.  I encourage everyone to take a step back and think about what is driving them to "Ana".  It's hugely helpful and motivating.  Tomorrow starts my diet and I will not let all of you down!