Reading Test

On the rare occasions that they realise they shouldn't have said something, they make the huge mistake of just assuming that the young one's won't remember. That the words they uttered are meaningless and won't leave an impression on their children.

The small comments on their own aren't that affective, but when you hear small comments like that throughout your life, the weight of them starts to become a heavy burden. Especially to impressionable young children and teenagers.

I was seven years old when my mother first made this mistake. We were playing around together, like we usually do, just having some typical girly fun. Out of nowhere she decided to give my stomach a gentle and loving poke. "You're getting chubby there, missy," she had said.

It didn't really bother me at that age, but once I started my high school career and the bullies would make similar comments, the memories of the playful, yet hurtful comments, came flooding back. That is when they implanted themselves into my mind and started eating away at my self confidence.

By the time I was well into my first year of high school, I would stand in front of my bedroom mirror and poke that same stomach. Instead of gentle and loving, it was rough and hate filled. "You're getting fat," I had started saying to my reflection.

I hated myself, I hated my body, and I hated looking in the mirror. All I saw were the bits of fat hanging off of me, and my reflection repeating the words my mother had spoken to me when I was just seven years old. "You're getting chubby there, missy."

When I was nine years old, my parents were having a discussion about me, while I was in the same room. "We need to get her into some kind of sport. She getting lazy, and she's becoming bigger than most children her age," my father had said.

When I was fourteen, I had joined every sports club that I found. "You're getting lazy!" I would tell myself whenever I felt too exhausted to play.

It got so bad at one point, that I didn't have a minute of free time. It really took a toll on my social life. Which only gave my parents another thing to lecture me about.

After every game or training session, I would run up to my room as soon as I got home, and look in my bedroom mirror to see if I could notice any physical changes with my weight. I often didn't, which led to me starving myself to help it along.

The only thing that satisfied me, were the number displayed on my scaled slowly dropping. Kilogram by kilogram disappearing from my body.

Even then I was never fully satisfied. It seemed like no matter how much weight I lost, I wasn't getting any thinner. It was the same old image in the mirror. The same fat body, the same reflection repeating the same words to me. "You're getting chubby there, missy."

On the night of my sixteenth birthday party, my self esteem was destroyed forever. I had come down from my bedroom, in a red dress that I had absolutely adored. I did my best to make my hair and make-up look perfect, and I thought I looked amazing in the dress. All the sports and years of near starvation had made me look extra thin, which made my grin larger than should be possible.

For once I thought that I was in the same league as my friends. I would finally be like them, and I would finally be confident for the first time in a long time.

That all started crashing down when my mother saw me. "Are you sure you should be wearing that dress?" She had asked. When I just looked at her in confusion, all she said was, "well, I mean, it's not exactly flattering for your body type is it? I think a floor length dress would look better."

I tried my best to ignore her comment. Maybe she hadn't meant it the way I took it. It still hurt, though, and it was hard to forget that she had said it. All of my friends complimented me, saying that I looked amazing, but the words my mother had spoken, outweighed theirs by a mile. Her words were the ones that affected me the most.

When dinner was ready and I was serving myself my second plate of food, my father came up to me with a smile on his face. "How many plates is that now, sweetie? You'd wanna be careful. What is it you girls say? It'll go straight to your thighs? Besides, all of your friends are finished eating." That second plate of food ended up in the bin, and I didn't eat anything else for a week. A birthday dinner might not seem all that significant, but when you starve yourself, planning every single bit of food that you eat, weeks and months ahead, a small plate of food becomes a promise that you make to yourself.

It's an accomplishment, and sometimes it's even a step towards recovery. It's something to be proud of. That birthday dinner was my planned meal. It was supposed to be my accomplishment.

It was the one night that I promised myself that I would eat more than a piece of cheese, and my father shut that idea down. He made me break the promise I had made to myself, and he had never once apologised.

From as far back as I can remember, the slight remarks that my parents would make, made me had myself. I was never once happy with the way I looked. My parents never noticed. I tried my best to make my parents happy, to make them proud of me. No matter what I did, and no matter how hard I tried, they never did seem proud of me.

With the comments they would make about it, it seemed that they were never happy with the way I looked. They never gave me any compliments when I attempted to dress up and make myself look nice.

They were always comparing me to my younger sister. Comparing our grades, our social lives, and our eating habits. They didn't realise how much it hurt to be compared to someone who they viewed as perfect.

Although starving myself was good for my weight, it wasn't at all good for my energy and my body. I became too exhausted to play any sports. My body was too weak, and it only disappointed my parents when I ended up having to quit. I didn't have any energy left to stay up at night and study or finish homework, and I was falling asleep at school. My grades were dropping as well, which only disappointed my parents more.

They never gave me any encouragement or praise for trying my best in my sports, or trying my best to pass an exam or assignment. All I received were lectures and comments about how disappointed they were, how they expected so much more of me, how I wasn't doing my best and that I could do so much better.

I started to realise that because they saw me everyday, the changes in my body weren't all that significant to them until it became painfully obvious. It was only a few months after my sixteenth birthday that they actually started noticing that something was wrong. I refused to look in any mirror, I never ate any full meals, if any, and when I look at photo's of myself back then, I'm baffled as to how they didn't notice the awful changes my body went through.

Of course they blamed me, though. It was my fault for being self conscious. "You shouldn't listen to those other girls, and you shouldn't pay attention to the models in those fashion magazines," they had said.

Maybe it was partly my fault. Maybe I just wasn't a strong enough person to prove them wrong in the correct, healthy ways. However, it was wrong of them to assume that their comments and, at times, their judgemental behaviour, weren't a contributing factor to my eating disorder.

After numerous failed attempts at helping me get better, they were reaching the end of their rope, much like I was. They decided that it was best for me and my health that I get checked into the hospital.

I was in and out of the hospital for two years. My parents couldn't afford the specialist rehab clinics, so I was just sent to a community hospital, where I also had to see a shrink. I hated it in there. They were so overstaffed for a majority of the time, and so busy with all the patients, that they barely had enough time to properly nurse everyone back to health and give us the help and attention that we desperately needed.

Due to this, I quickly realised that if I pretended I was fine for just a little while, and told the shrink some of my problems, they would think I was better and let me go home. Then I would go back to living my life how I wanted, without any pressure from nurses and doctors telling me that if I didn't fix it, I would end up killing myself.

One of the only things I've ever wanted from my parents, was an apology. Maybe some encouragement and praise to go along with it. I never got any of them, though. I was reaching the end of my rope, and I needed to do something about it.

Dear self,

I know you can't take this anymore, and by 'this', I mean your life. The way you have been living for the past eleven years was just too horrible, and it's way too hard to continue living like this. You need to fix it. You have faced all of your fears. You may not have overcome them, but you faced them. Maybe one day, you will be able to overcome them.

No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't do anything right in their eyes. It seemed that they only wanted to add more problems to a never ending list of problems that you already had. They never really tried to help you find a solution to your problems.

You thought that this world was supposed to be kind and beautiful. In your eyes, it is neither of those things. Not your world anyway. As your parents, they were supposed to make it beautiful for you, but they never did. Forgive them for it, and do not blame them. Forgive them, but don't forget it. Let it give you strength and inspiration to make your own world beautiful.

I know it's getting hard to find the strength to live anymore. Every time you try, you just get knocked back down again. Just know, that despite their lack of showing it, your family and friends love you.

Maybe an apology from both of your parents would have helped you, but you need to be strong. You need to prove to them that they were wrong for all those years. Show them just how much strength you have. You can fix this, and you will face all of your fears. 

You have a choice of whether to live or die. Ensure that you make the right one.

Remember that you are a beautiful person. Love yourself, so you can see why others love you too.