At least i'm trying- Taylor Swift story

02

09.16.2023
Saturday

Alexa's Pov

I woke up to my alarm ringing and my parents talking loudly. I quickly got out of bed, as my brother was awake on the bed across the pretty small room watching something on his laptop and i didn't want to disturb him.

"Hey" i said as i came into the kitchen, which was the room next door to mine and saw my parents unpacking some groceries.

"Hey, we just came back from the store, so we've got actual food now" my mother said.

"Me, your mom and brother are going to sort out some paperwork, we'll be back in 2 hours and then we're all going to my cousins house to meet up with him and his family for dinner" My father announced.

"Who are they though, you barely told me anything about him and now we're having dinner together, i'd like to know who exactly we'll be spending most of our day with" i countered, because the only thing i know about my uncle is that his name is Scott and that he has two adult kids.

"You'll get to know them while we're there, and now that we live in the same city, we'll be seeing each other more" he responded.

"Sure." i said pretty unhappily, partly because i want to know more about the American part of our family, and partly because we're meeting them for dinner which means i'll have to eat.

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After they went out i decided that there's no way i'm eating anything now, because i'll have to eat at dinner and that'll be more than enough calories for today, so i played my favorite spotify playlist that is basically just folklore: the long pond studio sessions, evermore and midnights playlists put together and decided to get ready, so i don't look like the depressed teenager that i am.
I can't wear makeup because i have a skin condition that freaks out when i do, so i just took a shower instead. After my shower i put on some lotion and put on my clothes, which ended up being black high waisted mom jeans and a dark green, slightly cropped long sleeve shirt. I really need to go shopping, because this is my only pair of jeans that i can actually wear without a belt.

After i got dressed, i went to the kitchen and put some bread crumbs on a plate, so it looks like i ate and texted with my best friend- Tina who is back in Poland and told her about how everything went yesterday, while singing along to my playlist.

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After they came back, they got changed to better looking clothes and we set out to my uncle's house. Now i may be depressed but i also am both socially anxious and anxious in general. Add that to not eating anything today and only eating half of small fries yesterday and you get a very anxious me. Tina knows about my anxiety, but no one besides one person online knows that i'm in a battle against my brain when it comes to eating.

I know that logically i'm not consuming enough calories for a person my age and height, but the disorder part of my brain keeps telling me that i'm too fat and that i eat too much. I'm pretty body-positive and as long as the person is happy and healthy, i think of everyone as beautiful. I just can't seem to be able to apply the same mindset to my body.

Sometimes i don't eat anything besides maybe some sunflower seeds that i eat to give my mouth something to do for over two days, then i either force myself to eat something small or have a full blown binge.

But it's not like i'm losing huge amounts of weight, so it's fine.

I either eat too much, or not at all. Nothing in between.

But then again it's not like that's a new thing. I've been educating myself and doing research about mental health and illnesses since i can remember. I researching it when i was probably around 12 or 13, because i couldn't even picture myself making it to the next day.
My mother was physically there, but as soon as she came back from work, she ate dinner and sat in front of the TV. After she was done eating, she just sat on the couch, which doubled as her bed and always fell asleep during whatever she was watching, even if i was talking to her. I don't remember much from my childhood, but i remember that clearly.

I never pictured myself living past 16. I never had any real friends. I had a few fake ones. People kept either leaving me, hurting me or both, so i stopped letting them in. i once finally built up the courage to finally end it, and i tried to jump under a car after school, but once i was two steps onto the road, one of my "friends"- Agatha grabbed my backpack and pulled me back onto the pavement. She kinda talked me out of doing anything else on the way home.

After a while i felt hopeless again so i gathered some pills. i locked myself in the bathroom and just as i was going to get them out of the bottle, i got a notification from youtube saying that one of the channels that translates song lyrics into my 1st language (polish) uploaded a video. i didn't know english that well back then- i had okay grades and was able to speak some sentences but not even near fluent. the video that the channel uploaded was the translation of the song Who Says by Selena Gomez. I listened to it on loop and it gave me enough hope to not take the pills.

Talk about timing, right ?

Selena Gomez saved me. i kept listening to her music, then i started listening to some other songs and artists, as i found my refuge in music.

Around a year later the pandemic happened. To be honest i kinda enjoyed, as i have social anxiety, depression and OCD. I didn't have to face hundreds of people everyday, everyone was in masks and constantly reminded to disinfect their hands, and i only had to drag myself to a table to join the lesson.

The only problem was that i developed body image issues during that time. I would put most of any food given to me in a plastic bag, and if i felt like i ate too much, i would make myself puke. i don't even know, where i learned how to do that but i knew that it was bad for me.

So 14 year old me managed to pull myself out of an eating disorder. I managed to force myself to eat normally. I was eating all my meals, even snacks and fast food without any issues. I wasn't counting calories or exercising that much.

But a few months ago, it all went to shit. I don't know what it was exactly, but something sent me down a spiral.

I slowly started to lose my confidence and I became really conscious about my weight and appearance again. Every time I looked in the mirror or ate something I started to feel like an outsider, like my body was so different from the rest. Being in a classroom and even watching videos and movies turned into comparing my body to other people's bodies. Not just the stomach, but checking to make sure that my arms aren't too big.
Almost three years of being recovered and eating normally, without worrying, counting calories or puking went down the drain just like that.

I just stopped eating and then I'd binge and purge when I got hungry enough to finally eat.

I try to force myself to eat something everyday.
My usual go- to is a cut up pear with honey, and a sometimes add 2 or 4 crackers. In Poland, my grandma would make us dinner, so i sometimes had to eat whatever she ate too.
The binges got worse, and i almost got caught purging twice, so i try my best to binge on low-caloric healthy foods, so i can tolerate keeping them down.

So back to the point, i'm the opposite of exited for dinner.