The Other Side

What happens when you realize that there is another side to the coin.

When you live for yourself, there aren’t many worries, except those that concern you. When you live fast, and completely expect to die young, you see the people around you as fixtures. The only way they change is through their appearance. You can’t comprehend that you affect them, or that maybe they think about you. Forever, you will be the self-led troubadour, and everyone else are only rocks.

Such was the life we were living. You only get one life, you know, so we wanted to make the most of it. Not waste a second, live it to the fullest, and ignore the nay-sayers. They’re pathetic, you know? So simple. We’d gotten it in our heads that we had to be perfect. As artists are always concerned with beauty, so were we. With her paints and with my pencils, we’d settle for nothing less than perfect. A flaw would cause us to shove our hands down our throats and pray.

The days were spent testing the human body. School teachers had said that a human body couldn’t go longer than 3 days without food. Well, we proved that to be a lie. Oh, and the pride I felt when I proved them wrong. 3 weeks I went without food. Triumph like that is a strong drug.

We’d never stop moving. Walking for hours, swinging for half the day, dancing, taking diet pills, getting rid of what we’d eaten. Basically we were telling our bodies that they didn’t run us. We ran them. And our bodies would only take so much before they began to retaliate.

She had a heart attack.

We had to drag her body out of the factory where we worked. I’d lean back in the car and hold my compact mirror to her face. I had to make sure she was breathing. We took shifts watching her that night. On a pallet in the living room with bottles of Powerade Zero and water, we had to make sure she was alive. And for the first time in my life, I worried about something other than my weight. I saw the lifestyle of ours from the other side. It was only then that I really knew it was a disease.

I knew the worry of my mother, her little baby killing herself. I knew the sadness of my father, feeling like he’d failed his daughter. I understood the anger of my friends. See, we weren’t just starving and we weren’t just puking. We were suffering under the weight of the world’s expectations. Thinking that we thought for ourselves was a mistake. We thought what they wanted us to. Because of that, we’d die far sooner than we were meant to. Some of this damage, we can’t undo.

To this day I hurt for her. I am a hypocrite, in a way. I pray that she’ll want to get better. I’d kill myself if she died from this. I still have this addiction though. And I think knowing the other side of things makes it even more painful. When you realize you’re hurting everyone around you, but you still can’t stop your mind and your actions… what can you do?

Nothing, short of staying on the other side.

Author's Note

Wrote this for the 500 words group. It's a little over 500, but I couldn't make it any shorter. x_x
True story.

Reviews

[Dane Osborne]

Again very impressive. To me it seems to be about laughing in the face of fate only to come to the realization that fate owns you and thats when fate laughs at you. As far as constructive criticism goes i have nothing to say which means that this is a good piece. Bravo hon' bravo!

[Sarah Barnett]

Wonderfully written, I can't begin to comprehend the emotion in the story. It makes my life seem so normal in comparison. I liked reading it because I am a psychology major, and I loved the perspective that this was in, two sided and not just one sided. Beautiful.

[Constance-Outspoken]

Sometimes I wonder if most of American society doesn't have one form of eating disorder or another. We take such unhealthy attitudes towards nutrition, most of us. How many people do you know whose entire day is planned around their meals, every day? I know too many to count who live this way, and have also known some anorexics and bulemics.
This was a telling, well woven look into eating disorders, addictions in general, and the ways we hurt those around us with actions that don't directly touch their personages. I thoroughly appreciate the look within your mind, and as Bette says, your voice is admirable and carried me along as though I were a friend and knew you intimately.
Wonderful work.

[Bette]

this is ... truth. beautiful written truth.. you did a wonderful job exposing our dark secrets. well done. i loved you voice in this. thank you.

[R. L. Aversa]

Eating disorders are difficult. I was never anorexic, but I have a problem with compulsive eating. I binge and then starve myself out of guilt.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Sad story. You should care that you hurt those who love you because they love you unconditionally. Fat or thin, happy or sad; they go right on loving you. And that kind of love is the ONLY kind worth having! As for letting other people judge how you should look or what you should wear or how you cut your hair...I say piss on them. I'm not about to surrender my freedom to some fashionista dimwit opinion like that of Paris Hilton or some other idiot. I've always been skinny but if I was fat I think I'd excercise and try to manage my weight by being healthy. Healthy is the new sexy, didn't you know? lol Good write that addresses a serious social ill, well done.