so please believe I will be dead by morning. Heh. And I promised people the entries would lighten up;-) Believe it or not, though, this entry really isn't a pity party. It's just raw truth. Whether or not you choose to pity the truth as I see and feel it is up to you, but believe me when I say I am not looking for sympathy. Au contraire, that would just be symptomatic of the problem. Read on, if you don't mind reading long-ass, incoherent and generally insipid entries from people who use their diaries as an excuse to be self-indulgent...

I am not a pretty girl. I don't want to be a pretty girl. No, I want to be more than a pretty girl.

Nah. Today is going to be one of those long-ass, angsty, pseudo=angry days where I update like a million times and rant, if for no other reason, than to get it all out and have an excuse for falling into the mirrored pool. Only half of my rants are really nothing more than stream of consciousness, as you will soon see. This will be long once I really get going.

That's what this is for, right? Reflection, honesty, self-discovery? That's what it means to me, anyway. Making it public only serves one of two purposes: 1)people close to me have a better understanding of why I think and act the way I do sometimes as I begin to open up more; 2)people close to me think I have sunk deeper into psychosis as I begin to open up more.

Ok. Onto why I am actually writing for what must be the fourth (third??) time today. And please take this as lightly as possible, as it is not intended to *truly* be, well, morbidly depressing:-) Honest! I am just ranting right now. And I have slept very little, so I babble...

So, here I go ranting about pro-Ana sites, right? I sat there and read through some of them, because I do that sometimes, you know, read things that infuriate the living shit out of me. Then I bitch about it to friends, who yell at me to "PUT THE FUCKING RUSH LIMBAUGH BOOK DOWN, ALREADY, AND COME HELP US PLAN THIS FUCKING TRIP! WE KNOW IT PISSES YOU OFF, SO STOP READING IT IF IT PISSES YOU OFF!" Heh. True story, it actually happened that way. You see....oh wait. What was I talking about again?

So, yes, I am reading these sites, getting more and more angry, especially since some of them are written by little girls that clearly have no fucking idea what they are dealing with and no idea how dangerous are those things with which they toy. Then I come across a different one. The woman moderating this site clearly has a head on her shoulders. She can at least write worth a damn and has clearly done her research.

So why would an intelligent woman CHOOSE to live this "lifestyle?" Why would they choose a disease? My answer remains that they wouldn't, although they might truly deceive themselves into thinking THEY control the disease and not the other way around. That is, after all, the essence of eating disorders: control. One cannot deny, however, that some women are tempted by this lifestyle. I believe those who choose against it actually have the greater will than those who do choose it, despite the webmaster's protests to the contrary (though, I admit, she actually makes some compelling arguments).

I admit it. I am tempted. Always have been. I have never had an ED, thankfully, but I definitely teeter on the edge from time to time. I play russian roulette from time to time and my psyche suffers for it. Truth be told, were I free of health issues and not likely to fall into a fucking coma after a few days of fasting, I would likely do more than teeter. Of course, that assumes that I would ever be able to totally give up food, which I truthfully enjoy, and it also assumes that my brain has left my head entirely.

What kind of logic, or lack thereof, leads an intelligent, seemingly empowered woman to think this way? To think that starving herself and taking complete control over what she ingests is a good idea; an idea that would manifest itself in happiness? Well, bluntly and broadly stated, society. The very thing I derailed in my last post. The fucking barbie doll image of perfection. The fucking Gisele Bundchens and Srah Michelle Gellars, both of whom I consider fantastically gorgeous, next to which I appear a trollish toad. In more words? Well, just check out this excerpt from that horrible, evil website that triggers even me:

I have completely been there. I mean, I have always known intellectually that my self/body image was wildly fucked up, but I learned to live with the fact that what I see is different than what others see. But what she describes above? Yes. I have felt that. Exactly that. Exactly.

I went from being a pretty much perfect size 4 on a 5'6 frame to about a 10-12. Doesn't sound very big, right? Well, I used to be a trim 115 pounds. Muscular as hell and still curvy. Of course, I thought I was fat then, and used to actually ask people in all seriousness if I looked fat. I didn't.

College. Gained a little weight, but no big. Soph year. Went on the pill. Gained weight. At least 20 pounds and i swear it all went to my already endowed tits. This is NOT a blessing, people. It's a fucking curse. Not to mention the weight gain, the pill REALLY messed with my moods. I am unstable enough without a pill that amplifies those mood swings to the point of needing actual therapy. So, i went off the pill. Weight stayed put, since I never bothered to try and do anything good for my body. College. It happens.

Junior/Senior year. Gained even more weight, due to extremely unhealthy lifestyle. Didn't much realize how bad it had gotten until I got back photos I took during the last month before everyone went their separate ways, possibly forever. I felt miserable looking at those photos.

First year of law school. Flew into massive depression that occupied most of my year. My best friend at the time, Keely (god, i really miss her beyond words. I don't know what happened to us, but that's for another time), worried quite a bit about me. I didn't realize how much until months later, when I was decidedly less touchy. She brought me a pot of African Violets one day, just because she worried so much. She saw what I was doing to myself and how I was ignoring the issue, hoping it would go away. I gained even more weight that year. Again, i was still only about a 10-12, but not nearly the shape I should or could be and I knew it. But didn't know it precisely. That is, until...

We went to a Michigan bar. In boston. A place where Michigan alums go to watch the games, because they get satellite (not that they need it, since all the games are televised nationally, anyway). It was the OSU game. And LOTS of OSU fans showed up, of course, to rib and taunt, because, well, that's what you do when you have an intense rivalry.

So, some OSU fan starts talking some half-ass shit. Stupid skinny little bitch who apparently knows nothing about the healthy, mature and friendly way to deal with rivalry taunts. People are shouting things everywhere, because the bar is fucking packed to the brim. I yell out some shit in response to something someone else yelled out. All in good fun, right? The girl's response? Something to do with, "25 pounds overweight." Keely, who had been telling me the whole time to fucking relax already, because she's not into the whole, "let's be barbaric, stupid, drunken football fans," thing, turns right around, yells obscenities at her and demands she apologizes for what she just said to me. Unfortunately, Keely doing this drew my attention to what was actually said, as I had not heard her the first time. I put on my aloof face and nonchalantly acted like I did not care and that I am a goddess anyway, but the truth was, that fucking crushed me.

Few months later, I got serious. Went healthy as hell, worked out like it was my goddamn religion and within 5 months, I had probably lost 40-50 pounds, which really was a tremendous amount. After a while, I didn't even notice the weight loss, but others did. I received so many compliments, it made me realize how horrible I must have looked before.

This is a delicate and unwinnable situation, because no matter what you do, the demons are fed. If people ignore the weight loss, you feel you are not doing enough, so you try harder. If people notice the weight loss, they are noticing you and so you, yet again, try harder to please both them and the inner demons. People noticing you=good, no matter what the reason. And then you obsess until you feel nothing will ever be good enough. No amount will ever be perfect enough, and...you can see where that line of thinking can guide a person. Thus, I still felt like I had a really long way to go.

Morholt came to visit and had not seen me in probably 3 months at that point. His jaw dropped. He looked at me and was just like, "Holy shit, you look really skinny." Made me lift my shirt up a little to show off my stomach. Had gotten it flat again, I now realize, but at the time, I could not bear to lift it up just that little bit, for fear he would see the massive flab rolling around.

And then I slipped. Again. And fell back into the cycle. It's quite damaging to the esteem, it really is. To go from being a sex symbol to most everyone you meet (sorry for sounding entirely narcissistic, but it is the truth. No point in being humble about the past), to feeling completely invisible and overlooked by those very same people. To feel like you're worthless without those looks.

That in itself is fucked up, since I never really thought of myself as that good-looking anyway. Average, yes. A subject of worship? Not hardly. I never understood it, but I accepted it and I adored the attention anyway. When you hear something positive often enough, you start tuning it out. At least, that is what I do. Somehow, however, the negativity stays with me forever. As an aside, anyone finally getting why I campaigned so hard for that silly sexicle award? Vidication? Perhaps. Anyway...

So, i took the attention in whatever form I could get it. Even more fucked up is how badly it pissed me off that people would pay attention to me because they liked my face, and not because I had, say, a pleasant personality, or even the most remote bit of intelligence. Now? I would be ok with someone looking at me for the face, because at least then I know they are listening. At least then, I have the opportunity to display the BETTER reasons for paying attention to me or befriending me.

Only, I never feel that way anymore. I am still not nearly as bad as I was at my worst, I do not think, but in my head, I feel like an Anna Nicole Smith: a once thin and thus, beautiful, creature that has fallen so far from where she once was and no longer looks remotely attractive.

Which brings me back to Ana. The writer of the passage I quoted was write on. People treat you differently. They look at you differently. Their judgments of your personality, intelligence and generally anything positive they can think about you is colored by what they see on the outside. As hypocritical as I am being, I not only understand her, I want to be LIKE her. It is quite difficult to resist the temptation, in fact, even when I AM quite educated on proper weight loss, weight-lifting, fitness, and diet in general, just like that webmaster. She knows the proper way to do it. She chooses what might be the easier route. Her body image was obviously destroyed by what she endured, just as mine was, even though most of it was self-induced. In actuality, though, these feelings are just symptomatic of a bigger, potentially more dangerous problem. To think one actually controls the anorexia and that the lifestyle is chosen, even when one embarks upon said path consciously, is wildly delusional. I suppose that is the main reason why I have never seriously loaded the gun. I know that the problem would spiral and I know intellectually that one can never control something that is simply an overt symptom of the underlying problem.

Am I fat? Logically speaking? No. I need to get back into shape, yes, but I probably do not qualify as fat. Do I feel fat? I feel truly obese and ugly. And like it or not, this colors self-perception in a tremendous manner. The cliches always tell you that thin is not the answer, love yourself, blah blah, your problems will still be there, blah blah, it wont change how you feel about yourself. What a load of tripe I have found THAT to be. It might not change everything overnight, but it certainly does not hurt one's self-image to conform more closely to the ideal of feminine beauty.

It does not hurt when you are unconcerned with whether people are looking at your fat, or that you are no longer distracted by your own extreme self-consciousness. Unfortunately, people respond more amicably towards beautiful people. Everyone does it. You lie if you say you have never seen a morbidly obese person IRL or on TV and passed judgments on them, despite not ever talking to them. Physical appearance matters at least a little bit to everyone and subconsciously colors our perceptions. The difference in how a person carries themself after they lose weight helps to prove the veracity of that statement. No, I am not that shallow. I am realistically astute, especially when an issue deeply affects me personally. You call it tactless, I call it pithy.

The fact that I relate to this site, that it tempts me, makes me sick to my stomach. The fact that I am so vain makes me sick to my stomach. The fact that I desperately want people to look at me and think I am beautiful makes me sick. The fact that other people's perceptions of me so greatly affect my own perceptions of me? Disturbs me to the point of vomiting. I am hyper-sensitive. Always have been. Losing a part of who you supposedly were for so long, well, it has a great affect on one's self-image (not that it was always that great, anyway....have always been own worst critic).

People's perceptions of my appearance should not matter. But, they do, for I feel if I want people to recognize the REAL ME, they must first bypass what they think of my physically and that means finding me pleasing enough to at least listen to what I have to say. They have to get past the outer shell to reach the chewy tootsie roll center. And that makes me the biggest hypocrite in the world. And I probably should delete this entry, for fear that everyone I know is going to lose all respect for me. But, I won't. I hope they do not lose respect, or regard me in a negative light based on these entries, but I refuse to sugarcoat anything in this diary. Sometimes I know I will write about things that really should never be said out loud. But, at least I walk away knowing I was honest, at least with myself.

The irony of this is that this is an ONLINE diary, one in which the listener does not see your appearance. One in which the listener can perceive the "real you" without physical appearances masking their judgments. That really is the beauty of being online and is why I appreciate so many of my online friends so dearly. I know why they are my friends. It's because I am me. It's one of the few places I truly feel comfortable in my own skin these days. That makes me very sad and I hope to pull out of it one day.

Note to the few who might actually read this and who actually are still listening, by some act of god: Do not fear that I have an ED or that I am in the process of developing one. I teeter, for sure, I have always teetered, but I am a bit smarter than that. I can resist the temptation. In fact, I have to. Besides, I value my muscle tone far too much and as everyone should know, starving one's self is the fastest way to lose muscle mass:-)

Sorry this is so fucking long. Sorry this might be depressing, or even annoying. I really am not trying to be. I guess I just want to write things down that I have long felt and wanted to say, just never had the energy to deal with hand cramps to write out by hand.

::stretches cramped fingers::

You really don't need to worry about me. As Tristan is fond of noting, my head and my heart tend to disagree. They don't like each other much, which explains my seemingly schizophrenic personality. It seems, however, that amidst the war declarations between the two, the soul comes in and pretends to be the U. fucking N. and mediates the situation until the two can come to a reasonable compromise. In short, for all my claims of weakness, I actually am a survivor. I have surivived worse than this petty, vapid shit.

Oh, and a special treat, because it is fitting in light of these long ass, nonsensical ramblings...