Good Enough

Mia Blake - Reading Between the Lines

The thing you need to know about Mia is that she didn't start starving herself because she thought she was too fat. That came later on. Originally, she stopped eating because the thought of food made her sick. What she didn't realize, was that it was because unconsciously, when she saw her mother and her little sister eat so much, she had told herself that she didn't want to be like that. She told herself that food was disgusting. She had told herself this until it became something true. So true that the mere thought or mention of food would disgust her. It was revolting to her.

Why eat something if you were only to throw it up later?

But after a while, she realized that some of her clothes fit in unflattering ways. They were too tight. They showed too much skin. They made her look short and chubby, instead of lean and thin. She thought she was starting to resemble her mother. And she hated it. She didn't want to be seen as fat, even though that is all she saw when she looked in the mirror.

Then Mia had another epiphany: the problem wasn't the clothes, but the person in them. Naturally, the clothes could not change they way they were, but she as a person could. And so she did. While before she wasn't eating as much, now she rarely ate anything. Maybe the occasional cracker. She drank a lot of water, and that filled her up. She chewed on peppermint flavored things because she read online that that prevented hunger. She put salt on ice nd sucked on it so that she didn't lose her salt levels. She exercised regularly because she had been reading an article titled "Get Skinny". She became infatuated with this idea of "skinny".

This goes on for the rest of the year. Not really getting any better, but not worse either. Her issues are becoming more noticeable, but she still thinks it's fine. When she feels herself getting tired more easily, she says it's because she's fatigued from her workout the night before. When she tells others she's not hungry, she says it's because she had a really big meal right before.

And they all believe the lies that she feeds them. She isn't doing this for attention. She's doing it for herself.

Why?

Because it's a good plan for life. The right thing to do so that she can be skinny. Mia realizes that for her, there's a fine line between "okay" and "not okay".

But she's fine. She knows she's okay, and that's all that matters.