Do You Know What It's Like to Feel Ugly All the Time?

14/3/04

I want to be beautiful. I want to be able to look in the mirror and think, 'Alexa, you look pretty today.' I want to be able to walk down the street with my head held high in confidence and to smile without worrying about if my stomach is showing through the shirt I'm wearing. I want to be able to fit inside the same clothes as my best friend who is about five sizes smaller than me. I want to be able to get the guy of my dreams, Shawn Harris. He would never look at me now because he's into girls like Miranda, who's like a size two. I'm like a gigantic whale next to her with my size 10 clothes!
I know they talk about anorexia and bulimia and about how it's really bad for you and you never realise you have it, but that won't happen to me. I won't let it get that far. I'll just cut back on the fatty food and exercise more.
I WILL be beautiful.

14/4/04
Okay, so Operation BEAUTIFUL is in action. I've stopped eating sugars, fatty meats, chicken, yoghurt, ice cream, butter, margarine, biscuits, noodles, cakes, cereals (except for Weet-Bix and muesli. I don't like the taste of either cereal but thats what you get when you become or work on becoming beautiful) basically anything unnecessary.
I've stopped eating lunch at school and I eat as little of my dinner as I can. I've also joined the triathlon club. I thought it would be a good way to lose weight seeing as you're swimming, running AND cycling. I've already noticed a difference in me. I'm more energetic than I was.
Oh! Did I mention that I dropped a kilo? I was so excited when I found out! I wanted to scream it to the whole world! 'Alexa Drops A Kilo! Her Plan To Become Beautiful Is Working!' Do you think that's a catchy headline?
I WILL be beautiful.

14/5/04
I've dropped five kilos in two months! That's really not all that much when you think about it, and that saddens me. I've been so faithful to my diet...maybe it's time to change it. My stomach still bulges out, really unattractively, of my clothes.
Okay, so I'm going to cut out meat, bread, those muesli bars, that muesli cereal, pretty much anything except fruits and vegetables. And I will only drink water.
I WILL be beautiful.

14/6/04
I'm such a screw up! I'm nothing but an utter failure! I'm fat! I'm ugly! I'm disgusting! I hate myself...I wish I could carve the fat off me and make myself beautiful.
You see, I was just chilling out (and I had dropped six kilos this month) when I got hungrier than normal. I'm not really sure what happened, one minute I was walking into the kitchen to grab an apple when I saw the open packet of donuts. Suddenly I became like a wild animal. I stormed through the kitchen eating anything I could fit into my mouth. Donuts, biscuits, ice cream, chips, cake all got crammed into my mouth and forced down my throat.
I filled myself so much that my stomach hurt and I honestly believed I was going to burst open at any moment, but I still kept eating.
When I realised what I'd done and how much I would gain from that splurge, I burst into tears and ran to the toilet. And I did it. I forced my fingers down my throat and purged myself of everything in my stomach. I purged until there was nothing left to purge.
However, I still felt dirty and horrible and I worried that maybe I hadn't gotten it all so I started training extra hard. Instead of four days of training, I now do six days.
I WILL be beautiful.

14/7/04
I wasn't really dropping that much weight, only an extra four or five kilos so I completely cut out all food food except lettuce and apples. The lettuce because it's a leaf and the basis for salads, so that was something I could order in a restaurant. The apples because they're energising.
My parents are trying to get me to eat more. They want me to be fat and ugly. They've never understood me, ever and now they're trying to stop me from accomplishing my dream. They want me to be fat and ugly like them! They want to keep me from being beautiful, but I won't let them affect me. Nothing can stop me from accomplishing this goal.
On the up side, people are saying that I've lost a heap of weight. I haven't really lost much weight, only about fourteen or fifteen kilos(33-35.2 pounds), but it's nice to hear all the same. I didn't even know that they even looked at me, much less notice the weight loss.
I WILL be beautiful.

14/8/04
I hate my parents! I hate my so-called friends! I hate my school! I hate them all! My friends told the school, who told my parents, that I wasn't eating. So now my parents watch me like a hawk at breakfast and dinner. They force me to eat all that disgusting fatty food before they let me go. It's so horrible! I can feel the fat packing on my bones, clogging up my arteries and poisoning me. And just the smell of the food is enough to make me want to go throw up! Which is exactly what I do straight after dinner.
I HATE THEM! All I want is to be beautiful! I want to be good enough! I want happiness! Why can't they understand that?! Or even try to understand instead of poisoning and polluting me with the fat, oil and sugar they're shoving down my throat!
Ever since I started this diet five months ago I've lost about twenty kilos(44 pounds). Another ten to twenty and then I'll be good. I'll stop dieting and I'll be perfect and beautiful. There's a school dance just for us Year Ten's coming up soon and I'm secretly hoping that Shawn will take me to it.
I WILL be beautiful

14/9/04
The dance was horrible! I had bought this dress for it that I thought I looked pretty in and went up to Shawn and I confessed to liking him. I also told him that I was trying to make myself beautiful for him and told him how much weight I had lost for him and he freaked out! He told me that he didn't like me, probably never would and that I had problems.
I left in tears.
I felt...fat, no obese...No, I felt fatter than the fattest person in the world and I was completely and utterly disgusted with myself and my body. I had failed in achieving my goal and I was not beautiful. I'd never felt worse about myself.
The first thing I did when I got home was purged. I purged over the toilet, over my dress, purging everything I could. I purged until I practically coughed up my stomach. I'll show them. I'll show them all.
I WILL be beautiful!

I sighed as I closed the diary. I didn't need to read on to remember the next series of events.
I stopped eating completely and if I did I purged viciously straight after. I trained every day, in every spare moment, for my triathlon club and I became stick thin. My period stopped, I became severely depressed, I always got cold and I was tired all the time.
Finally, my body had enough and I passed out in the middle of the running division of my first triathlon competition. I was immediately rushed off to a hospital and I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. I was shipped off to an institution for eating disorders and I was released two years later.

I was-am finally okay. I have no concerns about my weight, I have the confidence I'd so eagerly looked for (in the wrong ways) when I was fifteen. I have a good job and I'm in uni with wonderful new friends. I also have a great boyfriend called Tyler, and he tells me everyday that round is a perfectly acceptable shape and that I am the most beautiful person he's ever seen. It no longer bothers me that I am size 16 and I'm rounder than most girls I know. I have everything I need right now.
I AM beautiful.