Monica

Eat­ing dis­or­ders are like drugs. They don’t make any­body happy, they’re hor­ri­ble for you, but while you’re doing them, you’re on a high. The other day, on deviantART (a web­site where artists, quite often teenagers, can post any type of art they can think of) I was look­ing at pho­tographs for inspi­ra­tion. I don’t con­sider myself a pho­tog­ra­pher, but I do enjoy tak­ing pho­tos and shar­ing them with those who enjoy them. As I looked through the self por­traits, I began to see pic­ture after pic­ture after pic­ture of fright­en­ingly skinny girls. Many of them tat­tooed with a quo­ta­tion at the bot­tom say­ing some­thing along the lines of “my obses­sion.” When I was lit­tle, I always won­dered why peo­ple did things. Why are peo­ple embar­rassed by their par­ents? Why do kids do drugs? Why do my cousins get in fights with their par­ents over silly things? As every­one knows, ques­tions are answered with time. Peo­ple are embar­rassed by their par­ents, because it is a nat­ural part of life. Kids do drugs because its fun. My cousin Andrew is ridicu­lously picky and hard to please. Sadly how­ever, these pic­tures I was look­ing at reminded me of a ques­tion I asked quite a while ago. Why doesn’t Mon­ica eat?

My cousin, Mon­ica, had an eat­ing dis­or­der. She was one of those girls who took pic­tures of the lat­est tat­too on her rib cage. Took pic­tures of her back. She didn’t want to do it, but she did. She was beau­ti­ful, your typ­i­cal girl, with an eye that could see beauty through any lense. She died when I was four­teen due to her dis­or­der. A ques­tion that peo­ple often ask as I did, when I was young, was “why?”. Hav­ing never talked about hav­ing an eat­ing dis­or­der before today, I felt like some­thing needed to be explained. I don’t know exactly why Mon­ica did what she did, but hav­ing suf­fered from bulimia, I know that there is a feel­ing of “I am in charge” that res­onates with the actual act of throw­ing up your food and watch­ing it wash away. There’s a fright­en­ing hap­pi­ness con­duct­ing your­self in such a dis­gust­ing man­ner. That is, until you have to get up and look in the mir­ror, and look at your face cov­ered in that day’s food. So, like other ques­tions, my ques­tion was answered. By the end of sum­mer in 8th grade I weighed 80 pounds. Luck­ily, I had the love and sup­port of a fam­ily that real­ized what was wrong, sadly, Mon­ica was sim­ply bet­ter at hid­ing her prob­lems. That same fam­ily didn’t real­ize what was wrong with her until she was gone. So, like a child, I again have a ques­tion, “Why am I writ­ing this?”. I have no idea. I sup­pose inspi­ra­tion comes from oth­ers, bad or good. I just hope that maybe some­body reads this and is pos­si­bly inspired to change their ways. My beau­ti­ful cousin died, because she needed to be in con­trol. Or so I grasp from a poem she once wrote:

“I sit fac­ing this bowl
I lis­ten to the party
Some moron screams “Party hardy!”
I don’t want to be here
Where thought­less jerks drink their beer
Their par­ents pay for their mis­takes
I feel extremely out of place, could some­one pay for my mis­takes?
I take my fin­ger
Stick it down my throat
It seems my life is just a joke
I don’t really see an end
To this mess, I send
My food into the water
I won­der what my mother would think if she could see her daugh­ter
I watch my guilt swirl into some sewer
I look at myself, I wish I were newer
Refreshed, not think­ing of his death
Refreshed, not think­ing of his meth
I can’t save any­body
Because I can’t take care of my own body
I sit fac­ing this bowl
I stand up, as I lis­ten to some fool
“Could you hurry up?”
I won’t tell him that I just threw up
I wash my face and put on a smile
To go and do this again in a lit­tle while”

I have real­ized why she did this to her­self, but I still haven’t answered the ques­tion, “why aren’t more peo­ple mak­ing sure this doesn’t hap­pen to other girls (and boys)?”. Maybe this answer will come with time. Maybe I’ll find some pic­ture that explains it. Or maybe, there is no reason.

• Photo by Esther_G / Used with Per­mis­sion

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