Beauty and the Beast, Part 2

by Ashleigh Stewart

(Page 2 of 2)

Nobody really knows how it is to have an eating disorder unless they have had or are suffering from one themselves. Binging and purging seems like your greatest ever idea at the time, a way to eat all of the things you deny when you are in the process of starving yourself. But it is simply not clever at all and guess what? You don't lose weight, you put it on! Now there's a thought!

You don't succeed in losing weight from binging and purging, maybe the first few times, but eventually you do end up in gaining weight and you will be able to see that gain if you are an obsessed anorexic and bulimic which will only result in you feeling more depressed about yourself. During a binge and even if you think you have emptied the contents of your stomach completely, you have not. Your body will only rid itself of approximately 2/3 of the food you have consumed and the other 1/3 stays there. That is a HUGE amount of food and calories considering the amount you just ate and in terms of what a large amount of food is in the eyes of someone with an eating disorder.

Bulimia will never ever make anyone feel good or even better about themselves they will only end up feeling much worse! If you do this, you will end up gaining weight which contradicts the intention of the meaningless act in the first place. Your body will ache, your face and neck will become visibly fatter, you end up drained, depressed, your head will be throbbing with heavy, dull pain, you become irritated and will not feel like socializing at all, your teeth will become black, rotten and decayed and just wait until your hair starts to fall out in clumps, wow, isn't that beautiful now? Your skin turns yellow, your eyes red and bloodshot, blood vessels will burst in your face and the list goes on and on. So you see, from my account of my experience, you should be able to understand that bulimia does make you look and feel much worse about yourself than you do already.

These are all of the things that happened to me as a result of my habits with bulimia and as you can see, it is not the results I was trying to achieve in the first place! So there is the irony and the contradiction of it all right there! It is a waste of your health, time, energy and you will achieve nothing but creating more frustration and confusion in your mind.

An eating disorder is a vicious circle and it has to stop. There is nothing beautiful about it and those people who are responsible for sending us all those ridiculous messages about the 'ideal' body image by using skinny models in magazines etc really have something to say for themselves. If only they could see how they are contributing to destroying peoples lives, self esteem and self confidence about their bodies. Perhaps they are well aware of what they are doing and their only care is about their business, money and power and the control we allow them to over us that they are gaining out of the fashion industry.

This is what is apparent to be the case. I have had enough of it and I have suffered long enough and wasted enough of my life in trying to live up to the expectations that are set by a 'twisted' fashion image. It is devastating to me to read all of those stories from other people in other related websites who are suffering from eating disorders. If only they would waken up and see the true light of the whole charade. There really is nothing beautiful about having an eating disorder, it is disgusting! It is a trap, a mind prison and it has the opposite affect to that of which you are trying to achieve in the first place.

If you are reading this and you have an eating disorder or are thinking about 'trying' to develop one then please think twice, it is not worth it at all. The world is screwed up enough without any more of us feeling like we are useless and living an empty and purposeless existence. We all have a right to be happy, but how can that ever be when we are allowing ourselves to be dictated by the mixed messages that society is sending us. You have a responsibility towards yourself and your own health and well being and you will never be happy until you start looking inward to discover just what it is that is driving you to feel and act in such self destructive ways in the first place. Think about it and you might be surprised with what you discover about yourself when you take a change of heart and begin working towards healing yourself, now that is what is worth some effort, not wasting your life with eating disorders which will only destroy you in the end!

About the Author

www.freespiritcentre.info
Ashleigh is a keen writer and is involved in writing for an internet web site called 'The Free Spirit Centre'. This site is focused primarily on healing, personal growth and 'human' issues. Her contribution to the site is by means of her writing articles based on her own life experiences and by some editing of the other writers work.