It’s the not feeling good enough. That’s what it is. That’s where you start. It starts with that initial feeling of being certain that you know how worthless you are.
It’s the one off comment about how pretty you’d be if you were skinnier. Or someone telling you how pretty your face is. Or any other compliment about your body instead of your being.
It’s skipping one meal. One meal and knowing that you already feel lighter; maybe not physically but emotionally. Then skipping another made you feel alive while simultaneously killing a part of your spirit.
It’s ignoring the rumble in your stomach that’s been a constant reminder that you haven’t eaten a real meal in a week or more. It’s a dull pain. A real dull pain that you try to silence with calorie free water and maybe a bit of raw vegetables, if you’re treating yourself.
It’s looking into the mirror and seeing something completely different than reality. Someone who’s ugly. Someone who doesn’t deserve anyone else’s love until their perfect. You must be perfect.
It’s avoiding your friend’s calls or text messages. You don’t want to go out and pretend that you’re going to eat. Then make up some excuse about how you’re broke or just not hungry. It’s simple if you avoid people, you avoid the temptation to give into food.
It’s the lonely, a deep seeded lonely that not many people would understand. You’re alone on this self-destructive path of what you think gaining self-love is. One that none of your friends would get. You’re losing you.
It’s forgetting what hunger actually feels like because you’re too far gone to remember. Your brain has stopped telling your body that you’re hungry.
It’s the two a days at the gym where you feel the need to run. Run away the calories you’re not eating.
It’s the feeling of control. Control you get by deciding if you want to eat or not. Controlling what your body will look like. This isn’t controlling you, you’re controlling it.
It’s the constant craving of compliments. The ones that you got in the beginning when you began this journey. The smiles from people who you thought wouldn’t have given you the time of day before. The outside validation from everyone else makes you sure you’re doing the right thing.
It’s the shivers that come late at night. You haven’t felt warm in a while. Not since you started your path to being what you should look like.
It’s when people start to ask you if you’re eating. They’re worried looks when you do muster up the strength to see people. They watch every bite you pretend to eat wondering if you’re going to go into the bathroom after to throw it up.
It’s the over-reactive ‘of course I’m eating.’ It’s the strong response to anyone who questions your diet. When people wonder why you’ve lost so much weight so fast you just tell them you’re not sure why.
It’s having no energy. No energy for anything or anyone.
It’s comparing yourself to every woman smaller than you. Because they’re better than you. That’s what you tell yourself anyways. You aren’t good enough.
It’s getting to your goal weight and not being satisfied. You’re never going to be satisfied until the person looking back at you is perfect. But what really is perfect anyways? Does it even exist?
It’s finally realizing that you’ve lost control. That you don’t have the power anymore. That you’re starting to feel like you’re caught in a prison; mentally, physically, emotionally.
It’s taking that first step admitting to yourself that you need help. Then taking that next step talking about your struggle with someone you trust. Then slowly but surely it’s getting back to who you were. Who you were before this monster controlled you.
Because you as you are, is perfectly imperfect. 
