A "Self-Diagnosis"

Preamble: since junior year, I have begun to adopt new ways of dealing with my “stress”. With the help of little jabs at my physical appearance done by all walks of people in my life, I have come to the conclusion that I need to change.

Now I’ll admit, I’m quick on putting a label on everything in my universe. It helps me organize my time and attention that those things deserve. So to jump right in, per se, my self-diagnosis prevails an eating disorder.

Symptoms include:

-muscle and bone weakness

-breaking nails

-breakouts

-light headed and dizziness

-cold intolerance

-stomach cramps

-sleep problems

-I’ve been coughing and sneezing for about 3 to 4 weeks

-oh yeah, I don’t eat anything; I suppress my appetite with caffeine and nicotine.

The beginning signs were minuscule- I didn’t want to eat, food nauseated me. Now, to a sane person, those would be warning signs, but I was and am so preoccupied with school, family, and social life that they really aren’t a priority. I’ve become accustomed to my three coffees a day, my morning smoke, skipping breakfast and lunch because I don’t have time to eat, and picking at a salad during dinner. Keep in mind, I go through a pod of vape juice in two days- meaning I have smoked the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes in two days.

Now, I do eat when I’m around people or when I’m actually hungry, but being the masochist that I am, I crave the feeling of my stomach “growling”. The way it caves in and the physical image of being “pin-thin” prides me heavily.

My friends have begun to notice. They text each other saying that I’m “anorexic and on the verge of death,” but I don’t see that. At family events, I’m told that “oh, you used to be such a chubby fat kid- you look so good right now”. As I thank them for the backhanded compliment, I think to myself, “thanks buddy, that doesn’t the situation.” Sure, I see my bones in places that I’ve never seen before, but it makes me happy, as fucked up as that sounds. For fuck's sake, I have a headache and my fingers hurt typing this bullshit analysis.

My mom is a saint, and I worship the ground she walks on, but she most definitely doesn’t help the situation. One day as we were driving, I opened up to her about this issue. Concerned, I wanted to know my diagnosis. She assured me that she had the same issue. She told me that when she was a teenager, all she wanted was to be thin and she loved being thin and that stress attributed to her skinniness. My mom doesn’t believe in “eating disorders”. She takes the stoic approach that it’s a phase and it’ll pass because it did with her. It’s very difficult that my best friend in this entire godforsaken hellhole can’t sympathize and understand my problems. She explains she hated when people told her to eat as an adolescent, yet she demands me to eat. She will not leave me alone until I eat something in front of her. In her defense, her attitude towards my eating habits have changed significantly over the course of many months- her out-of-context statements were uttered from November through March. Well, she also told me that her weight has never changed, it has stayed moot since she was 13- 120 pounds at 5”4’. When I was 13, I weighed 140 pounds at 5”1’/5”2’, now, I’m 17 years old and weigh 107 pounds.

The funny thing, my mother works out almost daily. She’s had a tummy tuck after my brother was born, yet every time she wears a tight dress, she vocalizes her discomposure over a small “pouch” that sits on her lower abdomen. Ugh, the irony.

The more I think about it, the more fucked up it is. On one hand, I’m happy I noticed this but on the other end, I wonder to myself if it’s too late. It’s spring break, yet those habits follow me- the craving for caffeine and nicotine. Although I have the opportunity to eat breakfast and lunch, I refuse. I’m a creature of habit like most people.

I don’t want to become another zombie part of generation z. I don’t know how to fix this. I’m tired of being told that I have “bony elbows” or that I’m “too skinny”, or even my favorite, “anorexic”.

I’ll be completely honest with you, reader. If this does get fixed, I will miss seeing my protruding ribs and hips. I feel like they are an accomplishment of mine, that I starved myself so hard that these are my medals that I wear proudly.

Just writing this sounds more fucked up than it actually was in my head. Fuck.