An Introduction

Hey, everybody.

I'd like to take a chance to introduce myself.

I'm Sparks. I'm seventeen years old. I'm a senior in high school. I love photography and drawing and sculpture. My favorite color is orange, and I love dreamcatchers and clothing design.

Oh, yeah. And I have an eating disorder.

I guess in a way that's what this blog is about. My trials and progress, my successes and failures, my joys and my sorrows.

First, though, let's just get over the basics.

I've had an eating disorder since the sixth grade, or 2006. That would have made me eleven, if my math is correct.

My eating disorder (which I've nicknamed Rex) actually started as a way to self-injure without leaving scars, since the pains of hunger were far more intense and lasting than a pinch or slice of flesh. Of course, since I was also one of the most bullied girls in school, and because the Boob Fairy whacked me wicked hard, and because everybody else noticed, that self-injury rapidly developed into self-loathing, and eventually a desire for self-annihalation. I began to starve myself to disappear, hopped on the bandwagon, and slid promptly into my own personal realm of hell. The punishment took a wrong turn into Wanarexia, then into EDNOS, and then into Anorexia Nervosa.

You know that magical dangerzone that hovers between 65-70 pounds, where the slightest bit of exertion makes your vision go black and fuzzy, and you feel like you're living in a dream? Yeah, I've been there. Granted, I was much shorter at the time than I am now, but still. I could count every rib on my back without bending over. My cat liked to nestle and sleep in the hollow beneath my ribs where my stomach had once been. I could lay down on the softest mattress and still I writhed at the pain and pressure against my protruding bones.

My dear friend told me that I had to stop before I died. I relaxed my regime, but it still clung to me. I ate only the healthiest of foods when I ate at all. I played as many sports as possible.

When I was fourteen, my best friend Abbie killed herself over a slice of pizza and half of a brownie. She ate two bottles of painkillers and one bottle of sleeping pills. Then she slit her wrists. When none of them worked fast enough, she put a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.

The shock made Rex curl up into a ball in the dark rear caverns of my mind, go to sleep, and leave me alone.

She woke again six months ago.

Although I did my best to fight her off, Rex was a bit too powerful for me, and has since inhabited half of my mind. It is her wish to take me over, to seep into every fiber of my pitiful being. She wants to take my 135 pound, 5'4" tall body and whittle it away into ash and nothingness.

I've decided to let her.

I still screw up a lot. I still give into temptation. But every day I get stronger, and so does she.

This blog will keep track of my sin and my sacrifice. It will be as accurate of a journal as I can make it. I'll talk about food, and calories, and feelings. I'll talk about self-harm. I'll talk about whatever I feel like talking about.

This might be triggering to some individuals. Proceed with caution.

Welcome to the first ring of hell. Please keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times.

Cheers, kids.

> Sparks <