Ana_Imago_Dei's Xanga

Sophie - Eleanor McEvoy

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:12:07 GMT

Sophie cannot finish her dinner
says she's eaten enough
Sophies trying to make herself thinner
says she's eating too much
and her brother says "you're joking"
and her mother's heart is broken
Sophie has a hard time coping
and, besides, Sophie's hoping

she can be like all the other girls
be just like all the other girls
living in an ordinary world
just to fit in, in the ordinary world
just to fit in like an ordinary girl

Sophie's losing weight by the minute
How did things get this bad
Sophie's family don't understand it
Gave her all that they had
And her sister wont stop crying
'cause her father says she's dying
Sophie says shes really trying
Problem is, Sophie's lying

How did she get this way
How did she get this way
Through trying to hide it
What does it take to say
What does it take to say
She's dying, Sophie's dying

Click here to listen to "Sophie"

That Girl Has Love

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:45:14 GMT

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook already know the good news, but I can't resist sharing it here as well: as of December 2nd, I am engaged! The date is either June 13th or 20th, depending on which church we end up going with. I'm really excited.

The day after Alan proposed, I went to get my nails done at the mall, something I have only done once before in my life, and then only by accident (long story - she didn't speak very good English and there was some definite miscommunication there). But I decided to go for it since a lot of people will be looking at my hands.

Something I find interesting about beauty salons is that they are not shy about pointing out your perceived flaws. The woman doing my nails, for example, asked if I would like her to also do my eyebrows. I wasn't surprised, since cultural norms dictate that my eyebrows are too thick:

Whereas a quick google search for "perfect eyebrows" reveals that they "should" look like this:

Over the years, however, I have formed my own opinion about my eyebrows: that they remind me of my Hispanic heritage; that it's nice to be able to make them any shape I want and not have to pencil anything in; that they're kind of cool; that they're just eyebrows and people can get over it. Thus, I'm not really self-conscious about them, and something that might otherwise have hurt my feelings (the manicurist offering to "fix" something about me) rolled right off my back. And yes, I turned her down.

What parts of yourself have you come to accept or even love, despite what the culture says is beautiful? What parts of yourself could you come to accept or love?

Before and After

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 03:04:36 GMT

The picture on the left is my sister Bee in August of 2007. The picture on the right is her this past May. Thankfully, she is almost back up to her original weight now. It makes me sad to look at old pictures, though.

"All change is not growth; all movement is not forward."
~Ellen Glasgo

The New Racism

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:50:23 GMT

People love to hate racism; it's almost trendy. We're quick to identify it in others and attack it with self-righteous fury. We even spot it where it doesn't actually exist.
Our basis for hating it? It's ignorant. The color of someone's skin is not important; we can see past that. People are people, and we are far too open-minded to make little of someone's humanity just because they don't look quite like us.

But maybe we're not as enlightened as we think we are. Maybe we've just redirected our dislike for those who are unlike us, and maybe this new direction is more socially acceptable.

I'm speaking, of course, about fat people. This post was actually prompted by a "fatspo" post, complete with comments like this:

"omg, theyre all so discustingly fat and ugly!! UGH!! I will never be that"
"my fostermother is 300 pounds!!! GROSSNESS"
"Ewwwww! I can't believe these ppl would even let their pic be taken!"
"dunno how they can look even proud of their bodies, aaagh!!"
"I puked. Alot."

Oh yes, I forgot that it's okay to say things like that about fellow humans as long as they're overweight.
I'm not trying to be down on the person who posted that; she was just trying to find an innovative way to motivate people. But really, this is no different than racism. It's stripping someone down to less than human because they don't look like us, or because we find them unattractive. It's deciding that someone is worth nothing unless they meet your arbitrary standards for beauty. It's putting yourself above an entire class of people. It's saying things that make people cry, that shatter self-esteems, that will haunt people for the rest of their lives.

Prejudice begins the instant we think that we are better than somebody else.

All Leading Up

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:22:32 GMT

“Another October has come. I am nineteen[...] Yet, I am in the same place I four years ago. [...] When will I let go? When will stop fighting to keep what is killing me? When?” -thellamatruth

Who doesn't identify with Alanna here? Years go by, and we look back with discouragement because so much time has passed and we seem to have so little to show for it. We're fighting the same old struggles, the ones that we thought would be long gone by now.

Last October, two days before Halloween, a dear friend of mine killed himself. I can't express how much regret and sadness I feel when I think about him, and about the things that happened almost exactly a year ago (but might as well have been just yesterday).
This entire month has been especially hard for me. I feel like the darkness of this time last year has swung around again and I'm in the exact same place. So much for time healing all wounds, right? How can I make it so far and feel like I haven't gone anywhere at all?

I struggle daily with my old demons--the temptation to skip a meal and worship the mirror. The temptation to search my entire house for a razor blade. The temptation to ignore God and try to do it on my own. The temptation to shut myself out, to give up, to take pills, to give in. I think that I'm over it for good and then it all comes back.

I know, though, that I am more than this. No matter how hard it may be to shake those demons, it just matters that I'm still fighting. God isn't ever going to give up on me or decide that I've returned to my vomit one too many times. It may seem like regression, but each time these battles hit, I'm getting a little bit stronger.

I have always pictured my life as a spiral staircase. I have to remember that even though I seem to be coming back to the same place over and over, it's all leading up. I may struggle with these things for the rest of my life, but that doesn't mean I've failed; it just means that my staircase is a beautiful spiral. I'm still climbing. I'm still going somewhere.

What is it that you can't seem to beat?
Could it be that, though you seem to be going in circles, it's all leading up?

Hypocrisy

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:37:17 GMT

You know what? Screw it. I'm tired of fighting this. I'm done with recovery. I appreciate everyone who has been so supportive of me all this time, but I'm done. I'm going to stop eating again; I'm going to begin a liquid fast for the next few days, or as much as I can get away with it. The toughest part will be making sure my family and my boyfriend don't catch on, but frankly, I don't care.

If you were bothered in some way by the completely fabricated paragraph above, you're not alone. (Don't freak out; I'm not giving up, I was just making a point.) I've found that we are much more comfortable inflicting pain on ourselves than we are seeing others in pain. That's why someone can starve herself and still feel a pang when she sees someone else doing it; that's why someone can have no desire to keep fighting, but still hate to see anyone else to quit.

A year or two ago, I had the following conversation with my counselor, Rachel:

Rachel: "Would it bother you if someone you loved began self-injuring?"
Me: "Well, yeah."
Rachel: "There's your problem."

It took me a minute to realize that she was saying that I didn't love myself, and that if I did, I would have a problem with my self-destructive habits.

Do you love yourself? How would you feel if the person you love most did to themselves what you do to yourself? Would you be okay with it?

Guest Post: Why Ugly Duckling Stories Are A Tool Of the Devil

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:53:48 GMT

My friend Neko wrote an essay that I thought y'all would enjoy, and she has graciously given me permission to duplicate it here. I hope you like it.

I take issue with ugly duckling stories - stories that start with an "unattractive" girl and change her, through a series of plot contrivances, into a beautiful girl who ends up with her dream guy. My problem boils down to the idea that a girl has to be conventionally beautiful to get the guy. A lot of people will protest here, pointing at the guy in the end decides that it's what's inside that counts, he loves her for herself, etc etc. Sometimes the guy has been in love with her all along, even when she was "ugly". Whether or not the characters say it, the usual excuse is that he loves her for who she is inside.

And that would be fine, except that no girl ever goes back to looking the way she did before. In The Princess Diaries, Mia gets all prettied up by her grandmother and continues to be pretty for the next movie and a half. Her hair never curls again, and suddenly all her clothes look nice forever. I didn't see the movie The House Bunny, but let's review the basic plot as shown in the previews: former Playboy bunny moves into nerd-filled sorority house to teach them how to be skanks and get guys. DOES NO ONE ELSE SEE A PROBLEM HERE. Sure, by the end of the movie we're getting the same token 'be yourself and people will like you' spiel, but there's no reason to believe that. The girls were being themselves at the beginning of the movie, and they were not getting dates. At the end of the movie, after makeovers and new wardrobes and DATING TIPS FROM A BUNNY ARGH MY HEAD IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE, they have dates. The message here is very clear: attractive (read: slutty) girls win in the end. You have to be attractive (continue reading: slutty) for guys to like you. If guys don't like you, you will be miserable and alone always. Mean Girls does the same thing - Cady has only two friends, both of whom are outcasts, until she starts dressing like the popular girls, generating drama like the popular girls, and being a complete bitch like the popular girls. The only characters in that movie who are 'true to themselves' are the mathletes and Janis and Damian (both of whom are accused of homosexuality by the popular girls). Even after Cady supposedly goes back to her 'true self', she continues to dress the same way.

There are so many, many issues in all of these movies (and in the general media) that it's hard to restrain myself to just one. I'm trying to do so because I feel like this doesn't get addressed often enough. These movies purport to be teaching girls that they have to be true to themselves to find happiness (which means true love with a boy, of course). However, what they teach is that girls have to look a certain way, have to be attractive (read: sexually desirable to boys) to be happy (read: to make a boy fall in love with them). It's ridiculous.

I could reword the message of all of these movies to this: being yourself is okay as long as you continue to outwardly conform to social standards of beauty. We don't care how you act or what you think as long as you're beautiful. Or even more simply: all that matters is how you look, because that is what determines your marriageability.

Do you like "ugly duckling" stories? If you could radically change your appearance like the girls in those movies, would you, and would your new appearance conform to social standards of beauty

What Would You Do?

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 02:54:28 GMT

"I wonder what it would be like not to have an eating disordered mind?
What would I do with my time??" - Xx_Ames_xX

I know what I would do.

I would drive fast down the highway in my ghetto car (the kind where you have to hit the gas gauge to make it display correctly), blasting music with the windows down. I wouldn't care when the wind messed up my hair.

I would spend time with my family. I'd play "The Zombie Game" and "Base to Base" with my little siblings and their friends, and I'd chase the dog around the house until my legs were jello and I'd worked up an appetite. Then I would eat an enormous slice of watermelon and drink a huge glass of lemonade. It would taste so good.

I would climb a water tower, jump out of a plane, swim naked in the lake and love the feeling of the sun on my skin, get some more piercings, write a book. I would make more mix CDs, visit Portland Maine, and talk to people who are where I once was. I wouldn't have time to obsess over food, because I would be so busy enjoying life.

I realize now that I'm closer to recovery than I thought. The part of me that wants to lose weight is still there, but it's slowly being drowned out by the part of me that just wants to live.
Recovery is not a treadmill. There is an end, even if you can't see it. It won't always be this hard, and you won't always have to fight this. Someday starvation's grip on you will loosen, and you'll wonder how it held you for so long. You will laugh in its face.

What will you do when you no longer have an eating disordered mind?

Tortilla Soup

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:34:03 GMT

My boyfriend was sick recently, and I decided (rather ambitiously) that I was going to make him some soup. This is significant because I don't cook, ever. As apprehensive as I was, it turned out wonderfully; it was all gone before I even had time to get seconds. (I wasn't planning to have any, but it smelled so good that I changed my mind.)

This is a pretty simple way to make your family or significant other happy, and there's nothing like the feeling of empowerment that comes from eating something healthy and delicious that you made yourself.

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped (or onion powder and garlic powder)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups beef broth
4 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup tomato juice or V8
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
tortilla chips
2 cups cooked chicken, shredded (about 2 large breasts)
1 cup Monterey Jack shredded cheese
2/3 cup rice
1 zucchini

optional:
1 large tomato, peeled and chopped
avocado

Directions:

1. Saute onion and garlic in oil.
2. Add beef broth, chicken broth, rice, tomato juice, cumin, chili powder, salt, and worchestershire sauce.
3. Heat to boiling.
4. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, 1 hr. Add zucchini after 1/2 hour.
5. Add chicken and tomato to soup. Cook 5 minutes.
6. Crumble tortilla chips into bowls before pouring the soup. Garnish with avocado and cheese.

It's Been Awhile

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:55:48 GMT

Sorry I haven't been around. I'm back, and I will be updating again; this is just a filler entry, though, because I need sleep.

What's gone on in your life while I've been gone?

I was so unique
Now I feel skin deep
I count on the make-up to cover it all
Crying myself to sleep
'cause I cannot keep their attention
I thought I could be strong
But it's killing me

Does someone hear my cry
I'm dying for new life

I want to be beautiful
Make you stand in awe
Look inside my heart,
and be amazed
I want to hear you say
Who I am is quite enough
Just want to be worthy of love
And beautiful

Sometimes I wish I was someone other than me
Fighting to make the mirror happy
Trying to find whatever is missing
Won't you help me back to glory

You make me beautiful
You make me stand in awe
You step inside my heart, and I am amazed
I love to hear you say
Who I am is quite enough
You make me worthy of love and beautiful

Beautiful - Bethany Dillon