"Little Miss Fat with no self control."

"She was the friend that would point out the food in my teeth.... and the fat on my legs."

I can’t even seem to remember the days when I wasn’t like this. It feels as if my mind was always filled with these, ever so accompanying thoughts. I guess this was what Alice felt after she left her dear, old Wonderland. Shocked at how beautiful it was. Her only desire was to go back and continue this journey. The journey she so desperately wanted.

If my thoughts don’t deceive me, I believe I was always somewhat conscious. I have an early memory of me sitting on a couch. I was at my old house, a house I only stayed at for the first seven years of my life. It was around spring, but there were still sights of snow glittering on the ground. I was quite small so when my back was pressed against the frame of the couch, my feet didn't touch the floor. It was a couch with an orange and red plaid print. You could take one look and see the years written all over it. The rips in the seams and the stains caked on almost told a story. I lost that couch after the move.

I remember my mom telling me that to be healthy, your thighs must not touch.

People these days, on tumblr and other social media sites, act like the “thigh gap” never existed until the media spun it into people’s heads. When actually, it always existed, it just didn’t have a name to distinguish it. I recollect checking my thighs that day on the couch, to see if I was considered healthy and, to my dismay, I was.

Looking back, I realize that my obsession was always there. It just didn’t make itself known until now. Maybe, if I noticed the small clues when I was younger, I could have prevented this. That was an if.

You can’t hide the desire for wanting to be perfect.

In second grade I was the odd one. I always wore turtlenecks and my hair was put in  the highest ponytail imaginable. I had blond, curly hair ever since I was two, so I always wondering why my mother wouldn’t let me show it off. That is a question I have yet to find the answer to.

Did you deserve to be proud of it?

I had a best friend, her name was Gillian. She was my twin. Well, except for the fact her mom allowed her to dress normally. She was blond, as well but with straight hair. She was skinny. I mean, I wasn’t fat back then. Not even close to hitting the overweight mark. I was just, average. I didn’t want to be average. I wanted to be skinny, like Gillian. Now looking back, she is my biggest trigger. I haven’t seen Gillian since fourth grade when I happened to go to the same buffet her family was at. She was having spaghetti and one breadstick.

She smiled when she saw me.

Wondering why you let yourself go.

It wasn’t Gillian who did this. Nor was it the media.

What the damned, smart people out there don’t know is, the media doesn’t enforce this. No one goes into this expecting to look like a Victoria Secret model. No female or male falls with her, aspiring to look like a star on the big screen. Not the leading lady in Tom Cruise’s new movie, or the newest super hero out on the scene.  

Because they plan to be better than them, they want to be the image in their head.

Their dream is in their head, not apart of the media. A dream utterly unreasonable. A dream never attainable. One will never be good enough.

    It wasn’t my mom that did this either. Even though she may believe she did.

That’s right. You're the selfish one wanting to be perfect.

Because there is no way It ever even occurred to her, that she would be able to have a beautiful, skinny daughter. The perfect daughter. The one she should have had.

It was Ana.

Blame the skinny one.

And me. Me, because I let it get this far.

I allowed her to trick me. It was delusion. She lied.

She set me up to fail. To drown me in my very own tears.

Like Alice, in Wonderland.

At least Alice is skinny.