A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words

Well the words these pictures say aren’t always true.

You wouldn’t look at these pictures and think this is a girl who is starving herself. This is a girl who is running at 2am and throwing up in the bushes so her roommates don’t know. This is a girl who swallows half a bottle of pills just so she can get a few hours of sleep, but doesn’t care if she stops breathing in the process. You wouldn’t say any of those things, but it’s what is true.

I’ve had quite a few people privately send me a facebook message saying they know we don’t really talk but they also struggle with similar things and my struggle has helped them know they aren’t alone. It made me think about the image I put out to the world, particularly on facebook. I try so hard to make the world think everything is great, that I am happy and living an amazing life, that I no longer struggle with the demons of my past. I tell myself maybe if this is what I put out to the world it will eventually come true.

Well I can tell you the case is quite the opposite. The more you see me smile in public the more I am purging in the bushes in the middle of the night.

I am sharing this with all of you not to have you feel sorry for me or give me some words of advice, believe me I’ve heard them all. But to remind you that what you see isn’t what you always get. That maybe we can all start to tear down our perfectly painted walls and let people see that we’re not perfect. We’re all just trying to get by.

I am currently 11 days behavior free and I can’t tell you right now if I’m going to make it to day 12 or day 112. But I’m waking up each day and putting one foot in front of the other. Because that is all any of us can really do.

Let’s all stop painting a picture for the rest of the world and start to say what’s really going on. An old friend told me once that just because life is messy, doesn’t mean it can’t be pretty awesome.