F-A-T

F-A-T(Ananya) Every time I looked into the mirror I saw fat. I saw ugly. I saw un-pretty and horrible. I saw imperfections. I saw chubby cheeks, a protruding belly, pimply chin, and unnecessary FAT lining my body. That word, I’m sure that no three letters put together hurt anyone as those three together would hurt me. As they motivated me, and pierced through my carefully built defenses straight to my heart. I hated them. Those three letters alone were fine to me but put together and the consequences were endless. And the word.... FAT, in reference to me, Bleurgh.

At first I tried to slowly change it. Little by little, you know? Exercise. Crash Diets. Pills. On and on and on it went. But, nothing worked the way I wanted it to. All my idols were size zero or less and my friends all sported perfect bodies. I sat next to them, piggy in the middle. So I did what any teenager would. I stopped eating.

At home I said I’d eaten a lot at school and was full. At school I told everyone that I’d eat at home. At parties I said that I wasn’t very well and would eat at home or some time. I avoided questions and suspicious glares with a smile and an angelic glance. For the first four days I went by with only a drink of water or eight everyday. Then, I started to get hungry and craved food.

Forcing myself to put away these feelings I ate nothing for a week almost. But then, one day during assembly, the horrible happened. I fainted. At first, I saw everyone look like food and then came the fast dizziness. I slowly felt myself collapsing with the numbness that spread like wildfire. SHIT! I remember thinking to myself as I fell on the asphalt.

The first thing that was asked to me was “Did you eat?” “Yeah” I lied carefully. “No, you didn’t. You were at my house,” my friend objected. “I mean, I ate yesterday” I covered carefully. “You said you weren’t well and bunked breakfast and lunch” said another friend to me. Uh-Oh. My lie was unraveling. “When was the last time you ate?” came my friend. My face drained as I saw my teachers stern face. “Last week” I replied meekly.
“WHAT?!” came the voice of all my shocked friends. “Last week?”. I hung my head and went along with the teacher to get a long lecture on my eating habits and eating properly. All stuff I had heard before. From then, I ate. I ate healthily and properly and I ate what was put in front of me, but then ten minutes later I sat down in front of the sink and stuck my hand down my throat and made myself vomit every bite that I had eaten. What can I say? I was obsessed.

My parents thought I was fine, and so did my friends and teachers, but everyday when I looked into the mirror I saw, UGLY. FAT. DISGUSTING. I saw cheeks that were too chubby, a double chin, and clothes that were too tight. I saw someone that no one could love. I saw me.

This went on for a month or more and soon people started noticing. My dads friends asked me why I lost weight and the aunts who used to pinch my cheeks never found any cheeks left to pinch. But to me it was a routine. Eat. Vomit. Eat. Vomit. Eat. Vomit. I didn’t realize what I was doing to my body. I became thin. In a bad way. I was just flesh and bones and blood. Ribs stuck out on my stomach and my shoulder bones were sharp. Of course even then, at a size less than zero, I saw FAT. Double chins, chubby cheeks and just FAT FAT FAT FAT.

I don’t know what or how it happened or what made me see. All I know is that, one morning, I woke up and saw what everyone else was seeing. I saw the lifeless eyes, the ribs, the bones, the cheeks sucked so in that no aunty could even try to pinch them. I saw the girl I had become rather than the happy girl I was before. I saw the monster that I’d forced myself to become by denying my body the food I required. I saw someone who I could not believe was me. This...... Thing.

It hit me like a brick wall. I’d read about anorexia and bulimia but I never believed that I was stupid enough to do this to myself. I always thought that those girls were stupid for starving themselves, but what the hell was I doing? The same damn thing. I realized then that I shouldn’t care about fat, because a person is beautiful, no matter their jeans size.