Becoming Perfect: My parents wanting me to be perfect

Becoming Perfect

I was about 12 years old, and already, everyday seemed like a battle, even getting out of bed in the mornings was a huge effort.

My parents were so disappointed in me for being excluded from school for fighting, because I was scared I was loosing my best friend to my worst enemy, for not being an A* student, for having bad reports. They picked me apart with everything.

I was supposed to live up to the expectations they'd set for my brother. He had always been the one they were proud of. For all his achievements, for getting into the better school, for gaining a bunch of awards and all I had done was get a 'few awards' for dancing in front of someone (at this point I'd been in several shows and I had passed an exam every year since I was 4).

I was bullied at school because I was always the 'midget that follows that girl around.' I was the ugly duckling and it got to the point where I needed to take control of my life.

I'd broken my best friends heart because I told her that this would be the last time she heard from me because something was going to happen that night, she was reading my suicide note. She convinced me I was worth so much more than that, but I was loosing control. I needed to get it back, even my dancing was slipping and in my head it all made sense.

I was becoming less and less perfect and I needed to be perfect in everything. It started with my body. I needed to get back the one thing I was good at, and get a few compliments along the way. I started skipping lunch and cutting out snacks. I stopped eating breakfast and finally I got to the point where anything I did eat came back up. I was burning any calories I might of consumed accidentally vigorously.

It was me against the two most vicious disorders I've experienced, and they were winning. I ate less and smoked more to suppress my appetite, so basically I was killing myself in two separate ways. I was living on a diet of cigarettes, water, chewing gum and vinegar.

I started to worry about my parents finding out, and about other people judging me on what I was doing because they were all so happy and didn't need to forcefully take control. I always worried about 'what if I'm still not good enough, what if they still bullied me' there was always a 'what if?'

One day it got to be too much. I had a panic attack on my way to school. I was a mess. I had developed an EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified) because I had symptoms of both anorexia and bulimia. I developed mild anxiety, and because everything had to be perfect, I also developed OCD.

Nobody had noticed how skinny I was, and how little I ate, which made me more anxious because I thought I wasn't doing a good enough job of becoming perfect. I had a long way to go.

It was only when I finally got a boyfriend, three and a half years later, I realized I had less control than ever and that it was time to do something about it. I was 15 and had only put on enough weight in the last 4/5 months to have periods, but even then they were very irregular.

I had a BMI of 14.7 (healthy is considered 20-25) and considering 95 percent of that was muscle I was extremely skinny. Everyone who eventually found out about my problems claimed the reason they didn't notice is because they thought I was just late starting puberty, but deep down, I still thought they just didn't care about me.

I managed to overcome a majority of the illnesses but even now, if there's a disruption in my life, fights with friends, problems at home, or getting hurt by a guy, some form of atleast one of the illnesses will re-appear. I end up in relapse which can sometimes last for months, and then I can become close to dangerously skinny again.

Eating disorders are a type of illness that will never disappear and will always be at the back of my mind. I just have to battle against them and not life now.

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