The mirror who lied.

For as long as I can remember, I have found my escape through writing. Before I knew how to write myself, I dictated my first story to my parents. It was entitled "Rainbow and Her Sisters." I had never been more proud of an accomplishment; I wanted so badly to get it published. I must have been about three-years-old. When I was little, I continued to write. I wrote tons of sequels to "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and a big chapter book about bugs. I wrote a series of short stories about all of these girls who lived in different places in the world. I created a television channel and wrote short stories about all of the shows I had created. I kept all of these books in a briefcase - I had one for completed stories and one for stories I was working on. As I got older, I began to write chapter books, some of which were history oriented and some about girls my age. I wrote a book when I was in ninth and tenth grade entitled "Leah, Child." The summer between high school and college until the summer after freshman year, I wrote a book entitled "It Happens." (I have that posted on another blog, http://ithappens14.xanga.com.) This book was about a girl suffering from an eating disorder who faced problems with her relationships with her friends, her relationships with her siblings, her parents' relationship, the loss of her grandmother, a secret of her brother's girlfriend, and a new boyfriend and the prospect of having sex. The book needs a lot of work, but I have never been more proud of something.

This past summer, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to write an autobiography of sorts. "It Happens" contains many aspects of problems that I had faced growing up while incorporating fictional details that I often dreamed of having in my own real life. However, an autobiography would capture details about my life in a completely accurate way.

It's a scary prospect to write a book like this, especially when I'm only twenty-two years old and still in recovery as opposed to being fully recovered. However, it's unbelievable how much has happened to me already at such a young age. There are some parts of my past that I keep a deep locked secret that only my therapist and my closest friends are aware of. I don't necessarily want the whole world to know these secrets, but they are so essential to why I struggled and what I think about every single day.

The most difficult part of writing a book is coming up with a decent style. Today I have finally come up with one. The Mirror Who Lied. I couldn't think of anything more accurate to use. It is true that I suffer from OCD, anxiety, and bipolar II on top of EDNOS, but I feel like these would have all been handled differently if when I was eight-years-old, I didn't start trying to lose weight because I was so humiliated by my baby fat.

The mirror lied to me, and it still does every single day. It's such a horrific thought to not know what I actually look. There are times I just want to collapse and scream and break down. My perceptions are so altered. I wonder what it would be like to have a mirror as a friend, and often think that I would give anything to have a mirror invented that combats BDD. That would the most beautiful thing. Unfortunately, that will never happen. All I can do is use therapy, journaling, drugs, and positive thoughts to try to bring to light what is reality and what my mind has created.

I feel as though telling this story from the perspective of someone in the middle of having an active eating disorder and being recovered would be such a fascinating perspective. I just think it's necessary for people to know how horrible this struggle is. This is not a disorder I should be so ashamed of having. There is such a negative stigma around mental illnesses, and I am often embarrassed to admit that I am sick. But why? I can't help it, so shouldn't I spread awareness?