The mirror lies.

There have been times in my life where I've had to cover every mirror in the house with paper, only exposing my face.

Having an eating disorder can really fuck you up, as it did yesterday.

The nightmare of buying new clothes was upon me.

Because of the sewage flood, I've lived 3 and half months with one pair of jeans, a couple of t-shirts and hoodies/sweaters, ... 

(sometimes, the colour schemes are just NASTY!)

... one jean jacket, some running shoes, and one pair of lovely 'Sidekick' Dayton Boots that I usually only wear with my girly jeans.

Of course my girly jeans are NOT the jeans I've been forced to wear day in and out.  All I have right now are my tomboy jeans.

Well, we had to go out last night and we were going somewhere where there is a no jeans and sneakers dress code.

I had to go shopping.

I brought a few items into the change room that would go with my boots, and when I proceeded to disrobe, the green, macabre monster of an eating disorder struck me in a vicious attack of my appreciation of myself.

You see, because of the flood, I haven't had a full length mirror to tell myself just how awful I look.

Oh, there was a full length looking glass in this room.  The whole fucking wall was a parody of hate.

If you don't have an eating disorder, you can't possibly understand.  When we look in that iniquitous imager, it's like someone has put a carnival 'fun house mirror' in our view.

I see great gobs of fat, swelling with arrogance, on my upper arms, waist, stomach, thighs and most definitely my ass and hips.

I see cellulite distending every square inch of those legs and arms.  I see hips that should really belong to someone else.

I can rationalize and tell myself that a size 7 is not as big as what I see in the mirror.  Everyone else seems to think I'm thin.

The mirror is my enemy.  I see nothing short of someone who's at least 100 lbs heavier than the size of clothing I wear.

I bought the items, intending on just covering them up with a sweater to hide the horrid figure I'd witnessed, that is in my mind, reality.

To get to the car was my only mission.  This is my place where it's ok if the world sees me cry, my private place.  I can cry here as much as I want, because I'm in my bubble of glass and steel.

And cry I did.

My mind launched into reasons why I couldn't go out for the evening.  I told myself how much I hated 'me'.  I went to the pit of doom, and took a look at the furniture.

cozy La-Z-Boy ... i could just melt into the seat where nobody will be able to tell the difference between my gobs of fat and the rolls of the leather

My love gave me a clonazepam, because I was obviously in a state of caving in.

By the time we got home, that little pill calmed me down enough to get dressed, make up on ...

(papi wouldn't allow me to wear the sweater b/c it made me look frumpy ... convinced me that my eating disorder was lying to me, and I wore my little jean jacket, exposing my torso)

... and off we went.

The mirror lies.

It just may be time to hide to hide from my reflection again.

The rest of the night was another story all together ...