Every girl dreams of being a size 2. Well, I forced myself into a size 0. This was the night of a ‘semi-formal’ dance we had. I was dancing the night away. I had so much fun, but my head was woozy, and the room was spinning. At first, I thought someone spiked the punch. Before I knew it, I was on the floor, knocked out. I woke up 4 hours later in the emergency room. My friends were sitting around, awaiting me to finally wake up. When I did, I asked them what’s wrong,what had happened, and the doctor told them my lack of nutrition intake caused me to pass out. But let me take you back to the whole entire reason why I starved myself.
It first happened when I was 15. Freshman year. I lived a pretty active life. I played on the basketball team. I went to the gym once a week. I ate salads. But that wasn’t good enough for my mother. On summer, I become a slug, and just sat around and watched TV. It was summer, what did she expect me to do? Well, sadly, that summer was the summer she began to drink. Wine bottles were hidden in her room, beer, vodka, you name it. My brother and I never spoke of it. We thought it was just her, attempting to deal with the loss of my father, who died of lung cancer a few months before. We let her be. Big mistake. One day, she decided to take her pent-up frustration on me, when I had forgotten to water the plants. She told me I was getting fat. She told me no one liked me because I was ugly. She threw every insult she could at my face. I took it all in. Being a freshman, of course I was immensely insecure with myself. I had recently found out that I, indeed, liked girls, and I was self conscious of what people would think about me. I took her words and kept it at the back of my mind. I never told anyone what she said to me. Not even my brother.
So, whenever it was time to eat, I skipped at least one meal a day. I ate nothing but a light salad. I wanted to be pretty. Slowly, I began to eat again when I lost 20 pounds. Leading me from 110 down to 90. I gained a little weight back, and my mother thought it was a good time to take out her drunkenness on me once more. Oh, how I remember what she said so clearly. It haunts me all the time.
“Lose some weight, you fat lazy child! God, I hate you. I hate your face. Your ugly, just like your father was. God, you act just like him, too. You disgust me.”
That done it. That was when I started to ignore food. I took diet pills. I ran every morning. I wanted to please my mother. So when the school dance tickets were already being sold, I went shopping for a dress. And that’s when my eyes laid on it. This beautiful, flattering purple dress. I tried on a size 2, my normal dress size, but it fit like a burlap sack. I was excited. I was happy, as I reached to the size zero. The only one left on the rack. I tried it on, and it fit snugly.
Which leads us back to me at the hospital. They called my mother, of course, which only brought her more anger.
“Ay nako, more money gone, more money wasted because of you.”
She said that to me when I was pretending to sleep.
But why, why oh why do I put up with her? Why do I not tell anyone of her verbal abuse? Why do I not dare fight back? Because she’s my mother. Deep down, there is the kind and caring mother who raised me with such love. You praised me when I did something right. She’s still there. I’m just waiting for her.
She can trash my room, she can hit me, she can call me names, but I’ll always love her.
That purple dress is sitting on the back of my closet. On the occasion when I’m looking for an outfit to wear for the day, I would see it, and all the memories would come rushing in. But that dress did teach me one thing.
I’m beautiful no matter what people say.
This story brought back so much pain and horrible memories that I almost cried. </3
Holding back tears right now. This story really hit me hard.
