Hunger Hurts

Hunger isn't just about food. It's not physically being hungry, feeling the hunger pangs or the growling of a stomach. It's metaphorical. Hunger is a metaphor for so many things in which we try to repress or ignore. It takes the place of the love or affection we lack, the failed test, the need to please someone. Hunger has taken on a whole new meaning. Ironically it's been going on for years and quite coincidentally we tend to ignore it.The perfect girl syndrom has been going on since girls were told by their mothers and peers that they need to be perfect and thin and ignore any voice inside their heads that suggested otherwise. It's the drive for perfectionism that fuels this hunger. It's why eating disorders develop. Why so many perfect girls fall into the trap.

I've spent a lot time thinking over the isssue and I've come to the conclusion that I'm one of the perfect, starving girls. I'm not perfect in the litteral sense; I have my flaws as does everyone else. But my drive to do the best is emense and I crave things. I want love, I want affection, I want to do well in life, I want to save the world. But I repress feelings that I deem selfish for the sake of others. Those thoughts and needs come flooding back in the form of hunger. My perfectionism and selflessnes is no match for the desires brewing deep inside. It's thoughts like that that make me feel sick. And I guess that's why I've had my bout of bulimia. Because I feel sick for wanting things for me, for feeling hunger. So instead of fueling them I silence them. It's much easier to eat something to mask the feelings of hunger and then purge them out than it is to actually face those thoughts. I want love. I want to take a break. I'm too stressed-- it turns into-- I'll have some carrots, and fruit, and crackers. And then I'll purge them away. But you see, it's not that simple. Because after giving into my hunger and eating comes the What is my problem? I have homework to do, people to tend to. I don't need to eat. I'm not perfect if I'm eating like this. And so I wait for the moment where I can purge. The actual process itself is quite repulsing. I hate actually looking down at the toilet and shoving my fingers down my throat. I hate gagging and cutting my throat with my nails. I hate heaving up nothing or even just water. It's the feeling of food-- the hunger, the selfishness that I repressed-- that leaves my body that I like. It's the litteral and metaphorical feelings of the burden leaving my body. The high feeling. The feeling of going back to being perfect.

And I keep wanting more. The more I repress, the more I purge, the more I feel hunger. It's the never ending battle between trying to balance the perfect girl and the starving girl.

I feel like I shouldn't have feelings of hunger for things like power and affection when the world around me looks down upon it. I can be a strong, intelligent girl, but I'm not allowed to speak my voice, climb the executive ladder, or determine whether my body and appareance are up to par. I can be book smart all I want, but it's not for me, it must be for others. For the good of the world. I can't get the same oppertunities for a job as man unless I'm a size 2 with enough cleavage for two. That's just how it is. People want to see starving girls, girls with size 00 bodies and jutting bones. They want frail and subserviant girlsNot strong ones with curves. (That'd be too intimidating) WHich is why I'm not allowed to love my body. Why I'm supposed to scrutinize every inch of myself. Why my thighs are never going to have enough gap between them, my hipbones are never going to be razor sharp, and my cheeks bones never defined enough. It's why plastic surgery is as common as apple pie. I'm supposed to hate my body, want to fix it, and then spend thousands of dollars to do so and never be satisfied. I'll still be hungry. Girls are supposed to hide their bodies with mounds of clothes or show off their body with little clothes. Either way, it's never good enough. I haven't met a girl yet that didn't see anything wrong with her body. My mother has body issues, my friends, my cousins, my aunts. Even the little ones are worried about getting fat. And people wonder why girls starve themselves. It's what we're told too without actually knowing it. And no one ever takes into consideration our hunger.