RELENTLESS BEAUTY

Beauty encompasses me, swirling me up into its tornado, leaving me with nothing but the empty shell of what was once beautiful and is now no more. My infatuation with beauty has ruined me, and it continues to do so to this day. I want so badly to be beautiful that I do the most ugly things to feel it. This type of beauty is not simple or pure, but relentless because it is the type that you'll do anything for. It takes a sinister control or focus that only a few will take the leap for, and Dolls, sadly, I am one of them.

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HOW IT STARTED

My first memory of the relenting beauty I face was as a child in a musical. All of the older girls were marvelling at me and another naturally thin girl, pointing out how many ribs they could see when we sucked our stomachs in. I felt like I had to beat her. I felt a sense of pride that these girls noticed how thin I could be when I protrayed my body in this certain light.

I still remember that feeling; one that is sickeningly good and devstatingly lonely.

In the age of social media, I would be absolutely lying if I said I wasn't influenced by Pinterest and YouTube telling me all of the ways (which I will not name) I could achieve the figures of these thin women online. I was captivated by them. Time to time, I still ask, 'Why me?' when so many other young girls and boys had access to the same information and were not consumed by it. I understand this method is unhelpful and self-oriented in a world where there are so many other important things to wonder. I suppose what it boils down to is a sense of envy that I couldn't turn a blind eye to it in the way that others were able to.

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THE THINGS I DO

The things I do? Well, they're immensely dangerous, sinister, and selfish. I mould every day for a number the next morning, a number that feels desperately important, one that if I am not comfortable with will leave me feeling as though the world is falling apart, and I do it despite knowing that it breaks my loved ones' hearts. That is anorexia, an illness so controlling that you'll believe its lies as true over the words of sensible, experienced, and trustworthy people and professionals. Relentlessly, I restrict, I count, and I measure. Relentlessly, I glorify others' bodies and compare them to my own. Relentlessly, I sacrifice my natural instinct to create a meaningless life. Relentlessly, I force myself to hate myself so that I don't believe I'm worthy enough of recovery.

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WHY I WANT IT TO STOP

Chasing the relentlessness of beauty is my most unhealthy coping mechanism, one that I risk my life for. The notion of beauty torments me like a wicked game, one that I win for a moment after weeks and months of sacrifice, only to find that in order to win it again, I need to undergo the blood, sweat, and tears all over. The goal post is ever-changing, and the heartbreak is constant; an eternal season of misery, one that can only break its eternity with recovery. The beauty I chase is one that the world finds scary, and that fear is something my parents feel the most out of anyone. I want to stop breaking their hearts every time they're forced to watch me slowly die before their hopeful eyes, the eyes that still, after all of these years, believe in me more than anybody else. I love them so much that even in the moments I’m deepest in my eating disorder, I still have a small ounce of strength that can come out of the season to be there for them.

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I suppose it doesn’t really matter how relentless beauty begins, or ends, Dolls, the main thing is that it exists and needs to be recognised by society so that people can understand the true weight of flippant comments and remarks. Relentless beauty, I believe, is just a penny ready to be turned over by the wrong person.

Kisses,

COS x