Sometimes I want to write, sometimes I don’t. I used to keep a journal, but I stopped after I found out that my parents were reading it—I didn’t like knowing that all the sudden, all my most private thoughts and feelings weren’t mine anymore. If my mom and dad hadn’t found that journal, I probably wouldn’t be here now. But I know that this one’s going to get read.

I just feel so ugly. I don’t know why, there’s not one thing in particular that I can put my finger on. No, that’s a lie. I think I’m fat. I think I’m disgusting. I tried to control it, to stop eating, but people notice when a girl stops eating. I remember that the school nurse thought that I was anorexic, and would come to watch me eat school lunch.

I hadn’t been eating lunch before that, but then I didn’t really have a choice. And that was when I discovered my new trick.

Everything I eat, every little thing that they force into my body, I can get rid of. I can get it back out of me. Here they call it bulimia. So I am an ana-mia, I guess.