Enough?

I don't know what's wrong with me, but lately I've been feeling stuck in a loop. 

It's like, every time I think I've finally overcome one issue, another resurfaces. 

Funny how that works, isn't it? 

I hate talking about this particular issue, because I keep thinking I'm better, but sometimes, it kinda occurs to me that maybe I'm not after all...because today we talk about eating disorders. 

See, I remember when I was 14 and weighed 129 lbs at 5' tall and wore size 9 jeans and I thought I was fat, but not enough to seriously do something about it. I just wore skirts instead of pants, because I knew I looked skinnier in them. I mean, sure, I'd periodically decide that I needed to lose weight, but it never really lasted. I'd juice for a day or two, then I was back to normal eating.

I'd cry over my reflection, my weight, and I'd cry after hanging out with friends because I knew I weighed more than them, but due to my hate/fear of exercise, I never really fixed it. 

And then I turned 16 and accidentally realized that if I skipped lunch, I lost weight. 

So I did that until my mother got suspicious because I fell asleep every afternoon and lost all my energy. But, I had a goal. 117. I thought if I just got down below 120, I'd be happy, pretty, and, finally, skinny. 

But..things didn't quite work out that way. 

See, I reached my goal. But I wasn't skinny. I still saw fat when I looked in the mirror. And I had only lost three jean sizes, and I still was fatter than all my friends, or, at least, that's what I saw. 

So, I set a new goal. 111. After all, that's how much my mother said she used to weigh when she was at the prime of her youth and beauty - granted, she's about five or six inches taller than me, but... I thought it seemed like a fair goal. 

But, there's something else. Something called size zero. Something I've obsessed over ever since I found out what it was, which was years and years ago. And that became my ultimate goal. I swore that if I wasn't a size zero I wasn't actually skinny.

So I developed a full blown eating disorder, and eventually worked my way all the way down to 104 lbs. 

The day I bought my first pair of size zero jeans should have been a proud day. After all, I had finally done it, hadn't I? Instead, all I could see, pulling them on, were the rolls of fat which hung over the waistband and the fact that my thighs touched. I remember sighing and promising myself one last goal - 100 lbs. 

Now, not only am I short - I'm 5'1 on a good day - but I'm small boned, so 100 isn't really as scary as it sounds. 

I drove myself insane over those last five pounds, to the point of cutting if I ate, and surviving on anywhere from 0 - 500 calories a day. The fewer calories I ate, the sicker I felt, but at least I was getting skinny, right? 

Wrong. 

I didn't lose any more weight. It all collapsed and I spent a week in the hospital for trying to kill myself. 

Now, you'd think I would have learned my lesson by then, right? But nope, not me. One of the first things I did after getting home was weigh myself... I had only gained four pounds, so I tried not to worry about my eating. I just got over my fear of exercising, exercised daily, and tried to eat normally, or at least, not obsess over how many calories were in what I consumed. 

Fast forward three months, and I've gained fourteen pounds from the weight I was when I entered the hospital. 

Just typing that makes me cringe. 

But, and here's the thing, I can fit my size zero jeans. 

So why did I spend this afternoon crying over the fact that the number on the scale is so high? 

Because - and I finally get it now - it's never enough. 

There's a quote..from the book Wintergirls... which goes like this: "The number doesn't matter. If I got down to 070.00, I'd want to be 065.00. If I weighed 010.00, I wouldn't be happy until I got down to 005.00. The only number that would ever be enough is 0. Zero pounds, zero life, size zero, double zero, zero point. Zero in tennis is love. I finally get it." 

And I do. I finally get it. 

See, it's not about the number on the scale, or the jean size. It's about how it's never enough to satisfy the vicious voice in my head constantly telling me I'm fat, consuming me with despair. 

I'm wearing size zero jeans - something I've longed for for years - what more could I possibly want? 

To be 100? But then I'd want to be 95. And then I'd want to be 90. 

Because it's never enough. No matter what I do, no matter how many goals I set and how much weight I lose, and how low I can drop my jean size, it's never enough. 

And I'm torn between knowing that this mentality is the kind of unhealthy that will drive me into an early grave, and, quite frankly, prioritizing the rolls of fat on my belly and the lack of a gap between my thighs over my life. 

Ridiculous? Yeah, probably. 

Or maybe it's just what happens when an eating disorder screws with your mind. It messes things up. 

"I lift my arm out of the water. It's a log. Put it back under and it blows up even bigger. People see the log and call it a twig. They yell at me because I can't see what they see. Nobody can explain to me why my eyes work different than theirs. Nobody can make it stop".- (Wintergirls)

Nobody, that is, but God...and me. 

But do I care to make it stop? 

That.....that is the real question. 

And to be honest, I don't know. 

I really don't.