why

My boyfriend tells me stop reading those "stupid magazines." I tell him that I can't help it and that I have to. I really don't, actually, yet I still do. It's a sickness, really, a learned obsession over image, appearance, sexuality, objective facial features, and the number on the size tag sewed onto the inside backing of a dress you can't zip up, no matter how much is sucked in, no matter how many desserts are skipped, no matter how many miles are ran on the treadmill at the gym. Look how disgustingly I speak of it. There's no way possible I could talk about this in a positive manner because it is in all ways very much like a sickness. It sinks deep within your skin and flesh, running through the veins of your body, imposing deterioration of the mind and soul, and eventually, you're dying...dying to be thin.

I'm a writer at heart, despite all my toss-ups of whether I wanted to be a nurse, psychologist, public health officer, and the newest, a family-marriage therapist. What I love is expressing myself through writing, revealing the deepest thoughts, ideas and pangs of life that I come across through my words and sentences. So I thought to myself, as I stared blatantly at this size 1, waiting for the same research session as me, unknowingly feeding this obsession over skinniness, why not write a diary of this sickness. I didn't see it as becoming this outpouring of emotion, where I cry, whine, and bitch over not being able to fit into size 27 Seven for Mankind jeans. I don't intend on using this "memoir" for that purpose. I want men to read about the real-life struggle with weight and appearance, and the effect of experiencing the lack of beauty because of the simple actions they do that cause us to feel such things. I want women to be able to have something to relate to, to know that yes, it is a normal thing to obsess, to feel self-conscious, to feel ugly because we all feel that at one point or another. I want women to know that we all share that raw emotion of feeling helpless under the power of a size table. I want women who feel alone in this struggle to have something to clench to and say, "this is my story" and therefore, I no longer want us women feeling alone. This is our story, and I'm writing this for me, and each and every one of you out there. To understand. To fight. To cry. To laugh. And most of all, to be recognized for our struggle.