all my resistance will never be distance enough

bod·y im·age

noun

1.     the subjective picture or mental image of one's own body.

Two words that put the fear of god into me. I will do anything within my power to avoid any kind of question or discussion of any kind about body image. It fills me with fear, anxiety, and overwhelming sadness.

What has prompted this post, was a small breakdown in a changing room. I stood looking at my body and the fluorescent lighting was illuminating every single flaw of mine, like miniature spotlights drawing attention to what I don't like, presenting my body to me as though I was in some morphed fun house mirror. But no, it was just me. 

I am fat. I am ugly. I am disgusting. I am an embarrassment. I'm hideous. I make myself feel sick.

This is a monologue that goes around my head for pretty much the entire day, when it's quiet in my head, that's when it becomes the loudest. It joins forces with the "drill sergeant" voice of the anorexia in my head that berates me for what I eat and how much weight I have put on. It punishes me for taking medication that caused such weight gain. It tells me that being thin is more important than being emotionally stable. It tells me I'm wrong for fighting. 

There are moments. like earlier, when I was stood staring at this enormous, disgusting image in the mirror, that I want to just listen to that voice and believe it is right. 

Fighting it every single day is so, so exhausting. I honestly don't think people understand just how hard people in recovery are fighting every single day.

Today I'm questioning that fight. 

It would be so easy to just submit to the drill sergeant inside my head. But what would it gain? At my lowest weight, I couldn't see how dangerously underweight I was, I saw myself as the size I was now. I wasn't happy. I wasn't gaining anything from starving myself to death. I wasn't achieving anything substantial. I was damaging my organs and I was killing myself.

I wish I could be thin and happy, but I don't think that I can be both. This is my dilemma. 

I set impossible standards for myself and I am so judgemental of everything that I do. I do not judge other people, and I do not care about the shape or size of others, yet the last ten years of my life have been defined by my size. So why do I do this to myself when it's not something I judge others for? 

I want people to know that anorexia and bulimia doesn't mean that you judge other people, just yourself, constantly. I compare myself to every other woman, it doesn't matter what size you are, I will find ways that I am bigger than you. It used to happen every single time I encountered another woman, causing me to isolate myself constantly. However, now it's fleeting. It still happens every day, it just isn't as overwhelming and consuming. 

After an entire day of making myself sick on Saturday, to the point of vomiting blood and collapsing, I'm trying to keep the end goal in sight; to learn to be happy and to love myself. I am enough, and I have to keep repeating that over and over again; I am enough. You are enough.