The Unperfect One! How I lived In My Sister's Shadow

The Unperfect One!

Mother, I'm anorexic ...Walking through the front door at age of 8... Me, messy, unhappy, lost little
child, and the youngest of two. The shadow to the perfect child in every way.

School peers and teachers words ringing loudly, like nails down a chalk board "why can't you be like your sister, she's pretty and smart, why aren't
you?" It was a loud ringing noise in my ears, my head, and it vibrated through my core. It wouldn't stop! Then, I hear my mother laugh and in a
happy nurturing tone "you're beautiful, did you make that for me?" I instantly move towards her voice hoping to lap up her praise... just maybe... But when I round the living room towards the kitchen, I spot the perfect girl, the pretty and smart one... it ALWAYS is!

I smile at my mother and say hello brightly, but she doesn't see me. She looks at me, but she doesn't REALLY see me. She makes a comment about my messy hair and asks why I can't be more like my sister, and all I can say is "I don't know." I run to my room and tell myself I'm useless, dumb, and ugly, over and over until the ringing has stopped taking over my whole entire being. As I lay there, wet with tears, I realize that I feel nothing... no hurt, no sadness, no happiness... I AM NUMB!

I was called down for dinner. I sit at the table, still numb. A little child waiting to be praised... waiting... nothing! The more my parents praised the perfect one the more I told my self "you're useless, dumb and ugly" to drown out the ringing that was once again threatening to take over my body and soul.

The next thing I know my mother has cleared my plate without me touching a single morsel of food. No one has even noticed. I go back to my room feeling special in my own right. The praise I'd been longing for, that something I'd been searching for to call my own, to make me special wasn't coming. I wasn't even hungry.

By breakfast time I had already planned to escape to my own special feeling once again by simply telling my dad I wasn't hungry. He gave me a piece of dry toast and said eat it on your way to school. I fed it to the next door neighbor's dog.

I planned on eating my lunch until the mean boy in my class told me I was ugly. It went on like
this for years, but still... no one noticed. This is how it all began. This is how I acccepted anorexia into my life at the tender age of eight.

I am now 27 and she is still with me. I'm caught in her vise-like grip with no hope or strength to get out. Because, I will and always need her... Don't let yourself make the same mistake.

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