The Face In the Mirror

I grew up in a small town in the country. I have a twin sister Kelly and an older brother Bobby. My parents were strict Pentecostals who took us to church every Sunday, Bible study and choir during the week. On the outside we looked like the perfect Christian family. But we were far from that. Our home was not a happy home. My parents were not close to any of us kids. They were tougher on my sister and I, probably because we were girls. My brother was popular and out going and I don't remember him being at home much. He had the life I dreamed of.

My parents had very old fashioned ideas about how girls ought to be. Our lives were about school, home work and cleaning the house. We never had friends over the house. My parents were very strict with Kelly and I. When I was in high school it was a very emotional time for me. My body was changing and I had a lot of questions about sex and boys but I never talked to my parents about those things because I knew they would not be open to discussing such subjects and probably would accuse me of being promiscuous if I even asked about those things. I never had a boyfriend. When I was nineteen I started starving myself. This made my parents very angry and they tried everything to get me to stop but nothing worked. We had many fights over it.

I wanted to tell them what was going on with me but I didn't trust them and I knew they would not accept anything I would have to say about the subject. They thought I was just being childish. They were embarrassed but they never got me help. Over the next few years my problem began to get  worse. I hated looking at myself in the mirror. Starving myself made me feel like I was finally good at something. I was out on my own a few times. I thought living on my own would solve all my problems but it made it worse. I was living with some friends when one friend was deeply concerned about how thin I was getting. She called my father and he made me come back home to live. I had no choice because I didn't have a job. I was working at Burger King but that didn't work out. Moving back home made things much worse. I didn't think things could get any worse but they did.

I stopped talking to my parents and tried to find ways to starve myself without my parents finding out. But they always found out and would shove food down my throat. I wanted to die. I felt like my life was over and I was afraid of gaining too much weight. My father died suddenly of a massive heart attack on New Year's day of January 1988. I was devastated. That surprised me because me and my Dad had a very bad relationship. We had been arguing a lot over my eating disorder. To my surprise I felt a deep loss. I was scared. I was the only child living at home at the time. Kelly was married and about to have a baby. Bobby was on his own. Now it was just me and Mom. How were we going to survive without Dad? Mom never worked outside the house. I always wondered what it would be like to lose a parent but I never dreamed  how awful I would feel.

It was hard coping with the loss of a father. Mom was not doing well. She was falling apart. My brother was mean to me. He was verbally abusive and I was afraid of him. Over the next two years things between me and my Mom went from bad to worse. When Dad first died she and I got along but it didn't last for long. I moved out 2 years later and my eating disorder spiraled out of control. I took odd jobs and lived in some pretty run down apartments. I didn't see Kelly much because she was married with a child of her own and another one on the way. For the next five years I was in and out of hospitals. I had lost a lot of weight and my hair was brittle and dry and falling out.

I had stopped going to church. I got counseling but I was still holding onto my eating disorder. To make a long story short after my last hospitalization I knew something had to change. I didn't like myself. All I could think about was dying. I started going to a Baptist church. It was the start of looking at what was wrong with my life. Anorexia had destroyed my life and it was now destroying my body. I didn't like the face I saw in the mirror. I got my relationship with God on track. Even though I am not fully recovered I am getting better. I do not starve my body anymore. But I have had this disease for 25 years. It has taken it's toll on my physically, emotionally and spiritually.  With God's help I will keep getting better. I hope others will read my story and teach their daughters that beauty isn't measured by how thin they are...