Recovery

I return after my operation. Everything went well apparently. I must say that I am more than glad that after 2 days, I am starting to feel better. I'm lucky I didn't have a major procedure, and that I got the op done by keyhole surgery. I have felt like a bit of a pensioner over the last few days. I couldn't get up on my own, I couldn't lay flat without being uncomfortable and I couldn't even manage to drink without a straw. It's amazing how a couple of days can refresh your outlook on life and the things we take for granted.

(in terms of drinking without straws and getting up off my arse...)

I haven't really done much in the last few days, which has given me time to relax. However, during the time in which I was glued to the sofa, I watched a programme with a very high impact - "The Truth About Online Anorexia".

You are probably thinking - "of course it had high impact, there are tonnes of girls that view transparent bodies as the personification of beauty". Think again. The most shocking thing about what I saw (aside from the fact that I actually didn't mind Fearne Cotton for a change...) was that it wasn't very shocking at all. I found myself completely desensitized to all the pictures that I saw. In fact, only the pictures with literally nothing but bones seemed slightly alarming. And, what I found interesting was that while I didn't make so much of a squirm at the pictures I saw on the television, my mum was totally astonished. In itself, the difference in reaction between myself and my mum shows you what kind of society girls my age grow up in in the 21st century. Beauty is prioritised over health. Being attractive is brutally being on death's door. People suffering from eating disorders such as anorexia suffer purely for the cause of being thin, but in reality, they have a completely distorted view of what is actually thin. The process of becoming thin is one that never ends.

But, what can we do? There is in fact no solution. Until the view that we should be proud of ourselves and our individual qualities becomes internalised, there is nothing that society (which is external to us) can do to change the view that we must be thin to be beautiful. However, the situation is becoming worse. One of the most eye-opening scenes from the ITV "revelation" was set in a classroom with Fearne Cotton and 5 girls around the age of 10. One girl in particular expressed that she would feel happier if she were to lose weight and that she had dieted before. In actual fact, she tried to redeem herself by saying that she wouldn't want to lose as much as a stone, but she wanted to lose a significant amount of weight. I was amazed. A 10 year old having the idea in her head of losing a stone?! It is surreal.

As somebody who has been previously obsessed with personal appearance, especially being thin, I can relate to some of the things that these girls were saying. However, after a period of time, I came to realise that I was wanting to change for other people and not myself. But how could I want to do this if nobody was willing to change for me? Nobody was willing to become more attractive for my purpose. In fact, I didn't want anybody to become more attractive for me. I didn't need them to.

Being attractive is being who you are regardless of what of what "normal" people think and regardless of what the world thinks. No idea is ever approved by every single person in the world. No image will ever be portrayed as perfect. If perfection is unattainable, when will we learn that we cannot reach it? If we could accept that we will never see ourselves the way others do, the world would be as close to perfect as it could ever be.

LoveLoveLove x x x