Always, Jessie (Completed)

March 24- April 1, 2000

March 24, 2000

Diary,

My hip bones are starting to jut out again, and I can even feel my ribs. If I get to my ultimate goal weight, I could totally wear a bikini and have my ribs all showing like my favorite model does. That will be the most glorious day of my life. I scheduled out my weight loss between now and July 1st. That's barely a week after school lets out. So, if I keep doing everything right, I might be able to get there by this summer. I'm so excited.

Later,

Jessie

March 25, 2000

Dear Diary,

I feel so dark and alone. My parents just don't understand. My sisters are too little; they're not old enough to confide in, and they're twins, so they already have each other. I have no friends and no life. All I want is a boyfriend. If I had a boyfriend, maybe my life wouldn't suck so badly.

Or, if I was thinner, I could be popular and people would actually like me.

But no one likes me. Everyone hates me. Even God is punishing me by keeping me fat and ugly. I'm worthless and that's why I'm alone.

I ate horribly today. I got rid of everything before it could make me fat, but now my head hurts and my throat hurts and I just want to curl up and die.

I need to escape. I don't mean by killing myself or anything. In middle school, my friend Olivia's father committed suicide and it ruined her family. Olivia cried about it every night for two years. She went from being on the honor roll to failing out of the eighth grade. Eventually her mom moved so that they could try to start over. I might get depressed sometimes, but I could never hurt myself or anyone else in that way.

It's just that I feel under pressure all the time. If I didn't have to worry about my family, about school, about my future... maybe I could just be free. I barely eat anyway. If I took my money and ran away to somewhere warm, I could probably be OK.

I don't know. I don't know what to do anymore.

~Jessie

April, 2000

April 1, 2000

Dear Diary,

Today is April Fool's Day, and I wish that I could wake up tomorrow and say that everything that happened today was just one big joke. But unfortunately, that's not true. I don't know what to do. I feel so lost.

I've been going on the eight mile path that I wrote about before. Today, I decided to run a full marathon. I've also been cutting back on calories so that I can reach my summer goals. I cut my calorie allotment in half, and have been doing that perfectly for the past few days, making sure to cut out a lot of the fat and most of the carbs as well.

My time was pretty good and I was running at a steady pace, but during the third and final loop of the trail, I collapsed... well, it's not that big of a deal. The word collapsed makes it sound so dramatic.

I should have said, I got a little dehydrated and then got dizzy and passed out. The real problem was that I passed out about five yards before the exit of the trail. With all the trees and bushes along the path, no one saw me for nearly an hour. When another runner finally found me, he called an ambulance before trying to wake me up. Once I came to, I tried to leave before the ambulance came, but I was too weak to argue (again—probably just thirsty).