Daria's Testimony Part III.

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The few pounds I lost over the vacations weren't enough to satisfy me, and then it only got worse. In some sick, twisted way, I loved my new world I had entered - I felt proud of it, I thought I was somehow better and stronger, and I silently began to feel contempt for my old friends because they didn't have the same "self-control" and "willpower". I myself became just such a toxic individual who preyed on the failures of others, and fed my ego with the sights of overeating (in my mind at the time) the people around me. I was driven through life only by a vision of some unspecified perfection I wanted to possess, and it was a thought that truly controlled every aspect of my life. I gradually lost my friends, finding fault only with their behavior, and I didn't feel bad about it - I figured it would be even easier without them, because "I don't have time for nonsense.

You would think that because of this exuberant ego I was at least deceptively happy with myself, but I never achieved that. At times I would elevate myself above others, always feeling inside that things could still be better. I found myself in a vicious cycle of obsession, self-hatred, and endless remorse whenever one small thing went against my plan. I kept a desperate eye on every little detail. Everything I set out to do had to be perfect, really just to spice things up even more. This was an illusion reserved only for school, because at home my true nature came out. I could make a fuss about anything, even though it was usually about food. I lied, I shouted, I blackmailed, and I felt no remorse about it. Just satisfaction. In a way, it was as if the spirit of Jezebel was speaking through me.

Throughout this madness, my every action was directed by a merciless "little voice" in my head, directing and controlling my entire life more effectively than the worst human dictator. It seemed that it was this new part of me that had the best plan for me and I didn't have to do anything anymore," because after all, I couldn't handle it anyway, like I always did. I still remember quite clearly that many of these thoughts were not even coming from me, from my full awareness that even when I wanted to stop, I simply could not overcome these intrusive urges. Sometimes I tried to fight them, but I had little success. A wave of fear, uncertainty, and the conviction that if I sought help, I would be exposed to failure, a failed year, unnecessary shame, unqualified psychologists, and after a while I would return to it all anyway - with even more self-loathing. So most of the time I just gave in to whatever was driving me.

By the way, I have also noticed that people suffering from anorexia often even "portray" their illness as some sort of demon, entity, or even a specific woman -  bossy, cruel, demanding when necessary and contemptuous. The kind of person who, for every small failure, lambasts and humiliates, while in their subconscious or even in their dreams, boasts of an impeccable, enviable appearance and figure, which they tirelessly strive to achieve. Outside observers view this phenomenon very negatively, with pity, regarding it as "romanticizing" a dangerous, fatal disease in which there is nothing beautiful; giving it an extra interesting, mysterious or even shocking dimension that unnecessarily attracts curious, confused people with their own problems. To some extent, that may be the case. I don't deny that some young girls are drawn to such sick weight loss because it seems "fashionable" to them, but there are no less serious internal reasons behind such behavior. However, after what I have gone through, I have strong doubts whether every single one of these cases can be described in such a way, reducing it only to a mental illness. Do such obsessions, thoughts, and imaginings have no demonic background?

Leaving aside the issue of illness, I caught up in no time that school year. At a very fast pace I started to learn, supposedly the best in school. The learning itself did not give me any pleasure this time, but its results did, although this race also became more of a form of sick mania. I don't even know how I managed to do all this while eating very little. The less I ate, the more energy I had... and that was probably the most deceptive aspect of the whole situation I was stuck in. I myself was under the delusion that if I started eating normally, I would start a series of failures in every area of my life and lose the "self-control" I needed. It eluded me that it was in this one failure that I was continuing...

I became a person who was either admired or hated. Some were impressed by my tenacity, clear purpose in life, self-denial and ambition, while others saw the malice, aloofness, contempt, selfishness and devastation coming to the surface.

I don't want to go into detail about the practices I went to in order to eat as little as possible. But all this was driving my mother, who was always trying to protect me, to the verge of a nervous breakdown. So I didn't care...

LIGHTS

Over the vacations separating my senior year of middle school and my freshman year of high school, I managed to gain weight, but in practice I was simply forced to do so by school. The pounds I made up did nothing to fix what was on my mind. When things calmed down and I felt "safe" again (or rather, with impunity) the bomb once again began its countdown. For part of the first year at the new school everything seemed fine, I even had the feeling that I would remain fully happy and satisfied with my life... I got into the art high school of my dreams, my talent was recognized, I was considered one of the most artistically talented people in the school. If I thought the constant compliments would help me, I was sorely mistaken. My brain went back into "if you fail now, you'll regret it" mode and gave me hell number two.

Even at seemingly the best of times, something in my heart wouldn't allow me to feel lasting joy. Whenever I started thinking, "things are going so well in my life, I'm definitely not going to stop being happy now!", I immediately realized that I still wasn't and wouldn't be, I couldn't, something was blocking me.

How did it turn out? The first year was so hard, overloaded with material in a dozen general education subjects plus at least five arts subjects, that with my desire to be impeccable at everything, obsessing over every single grade, I brought myself to an even worse state than I was in middle school. It was only then that I reached my lowest weight, although even I didn't think such a thing would ever happen. I was no longer in control of anything, thinking I had everything under control. On the outside, I was perfect and received admiration for my hard work, creativity, "drive and energy," but everyone could see what I looked like.

It was not without another intervention from that school as well. I continued to get out of every trouble with the strenuous help of my mother. I really don't know how she did it. But I know how difficult it must have been for her - on the one hand she wanted to protect me from being accused, to protect me from being hospitalized, because she knew that I would hate her for it (and by the way, doctors' incompetence or bad attitude to patients can often make the situation even worse). On the other hand, I ruthlessly took advantage of it, lied, pretended to improve many times, and continued heading for doom, and she had to watch...

At the end of that first year, I was offered the opportunity to exhibit my work after the vacations, and in an effort to create as much as I could in my free time, I set aside two whole months to do so. Apart from my extreme malnutrition, I also found a time-saving idea which further crippled me - a small amount of sleep. Gradually I got less and less sleep, from six hours to four, and sometimes two. After all, there was so much to do, so much to plan, sometimes just after nights... What I used to love, now gave me only temporary pleasure, while most of it became an unhealthy compulsion, an exhausting duty and another obsession.

The anorexia faded into the background as I was simply forced to eat a lot more through extreme fatigue. It's no consolation, to be honest - I replaced one addiction with another: sleep restriction and consuming a really unhealthy amount of strong coffee, which left me shaking all over. The conviction in my head that I am above this idiotic non-eating, that it won't give me anything and that it is only a source of problems - was only conditioned by the fact that I didn't want to waste my time even on my mania for not gaining weight; and I completely devoted myself to 'making an artistic career'.

This new habit pulled at me throughout the next school year and the following summer vacation. I still had various social media and blog writing on my mind, or even something as "mundane" as studying. And of course I didn't want to spend a day on it because then... I could paint more. Somehow, with all that, my average stayed stable, which I'm not proud of in the slightest - rather, I'm embarrassed about how much I've been ruining my health for the sake of a stupid number, stuffing myself with caffeine and sometimes not sleeping at night anymore...

As you can tell, back then I was a person consumed with the illusion of "productivity", the "all or nothing" type. I was either 100% committed to what I cared about, or... I don't know. For a very long time, somewhere on the fringes of consciousness, I imagined every potential failure as a terrifying, bottomless black abyss. As illogical as it sounds, I behaved and my brain functioned as if death was going to await me in one wasted hour, as if the world was going to end suddenly, as if my life was going to become completely worthless.... Again, my perfectionism came into play, but in a slightly different area of life.

Somewhere inside me I was consumed by endless stress with a seemingly impossible to locate cause, depression and a bitter feeling that I was constantly working for something but didn't know what... and thus didn't know if I could ever achieve it at all.

The value of life diminished in my eyes almost to zero. Suicidal thoughts, which to a greater or lesser degree had accompanied me for several previous years, hit me with a zany force. I threatened myself that if I didn't succeed at the next thing or the next thing or the next thing in the queue (because I kept setting myself various successive goals like checkpoints), then one day I'll just commit suicide... In fact, there is no doubt in my mind that I was looking for any excuse for my growing dislike of life.

Everything I did and fought for on a daily basis seemed to me, in the most illogical sense of that statement, to be a fight for survival or death.

At the same time I was on the verge of mental and physical endurance, I could burst out crying for no reason (or the really meaningless ones) and get into absolute hysterics. My memory deteriorated and I couldn't make decisions calmly. I couldn't function normally anymore, but I also couldn't stop... I didn't know what "stop" meant anymore and I absolutely didn't dare to think that I was allowed to. Most of the time I felt like I was in a trance, like I was disconnected from myself. In addition, thoughts that I had never even considered, visions and scenarios that certainly did not come from myself, because they also had no logical cause or source, began to appear in my head.

Somewhere in the meantime I continued to dabble in all sorts of theories and occultism, but this time they had a very negative effect on me. I stopped doing this "for the sake of understanding", but rather out of fascination - I became particularly interested in the subject of selling one's soul. I found a lot of documentation, recordings, excerpts from books and accounts related to this phenomenon and after some time I had no doubts about its authenticity.

I don't know exactly at what time, because I have a lot of tears in my memory from that period, but for the first time I heard a certain song whose whole lyrics were based on this very topic. Something about it attracted me very much, almost hypnotized me, for a very long time I listened to it almost only on replay and I couldn't get enough, which hasn't happened with any other song yet. I have no doubt whose power was working on me at that time and quite effectively dragged me deeper and deeper into the swamp, and I still feel uncomfortable just thinking about it. All in all, my taste in music from that period gives me the creeps today.

Yes, I started thinking about this solution. Or rather, the thought began to cross my mind. I don't even know if I could now come up with a reason why I suddenly thought it was a good idea. Maybe it's a little bit like before with drugs. You know it's largely a taboo subject, you know it's the worst thing you can turn to for experiences and emotions, you know the bitter consequences, but basically... You don't really care about yourself and your life anymore, so despite the "side effects" you are willing to accept with the kiss of your hand temporary pleasure or greater success in life. At that time, I was losing more and more hope for any alternatives and was already at the complete bottom.

Similar thoughts did not leave me for quite some time. And frankly speaking, I didn't have a full awareness that it was something so bad and dangerous, or a flash of reason that would tell me to stop. I knew about the consequences, but... I wasn't aware of their seriousness, or maybe rather I didn't think I deserved anything better yet.

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