Thin.

I once had a friend that showed me this picture and told me that he loved it. I don’t remember why, but I do rememeber the feeling that washed over me as he told me his reason. It was kind of a tightness in my stomach; the kind that you feel right before you do something that you know is just going to end badly.

This post has nothing to do with him but it was brought up because of the movie that we finished watching today in Abnormal Psychology about eating disorders. When I looked up “anorexia” this was one of the first pictures that turned up, so I figured that it was probably one of the… friendlier pictures that I could use in my post. Otherwise it just would have been an image of some sickeningly thin girl that makes you cringe. Unless you’re immune to that sort of sight.

I almost feel like I shouldn’t be making this post because of what I’m about to say, but I figure that if I can’t be honest in my own blog then I really can’t ever be honest, right? To start off, I’m going to say that I don’t think that eating disorders don’t exist. Even if they are disorders that result from excess and privilege, they still exist. Sure, it’s a completely westernized branch of disorders that really can only occur in our culture (you’re never going to see an anorexic in a country where you’re lucky if you get only one meal a day) but whatever. It’s there, people have to deal with it every day. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Here’s the thing… we were watching this HBO documentary about four women who were at this all-women facility in like… Arizona or something that treated eating disorders. One of the women was really just a girl; I think that she was only sixteen or something. She told a story about how she and her mother would do the chew and spit game and some other things. Near the end of the film this girl has to leave because her insurance won’t pay for her to continue treatment at the facility, and in a group-like therapy session they call “community” this girl completely breaks down into hysterics. She’s crying about how all she wants is to be thin and how she was always the fat girl and she’s completely distraught that she has to leave because she knows that the moment she gets it she’s going to start starving herself again.

When you see this girl completely broken, vulnerable and weak the first thing that you would think you feel is compassion. You imagine that you feel sorry for her because of the pain that her disorder is putting her through. And, you know, I’m sure that many of the people in my class did feel that way.

I didn’t. I felt… angry.

Watching her cry about how she wanted to be thin just pissed me the fuck off. I know, I KNOW this girl has something wrong with her brain and that she doesn’t see herself the way that she actually is. She doesn’t see how her clothes hang off of her tiny little body or that she’s not even over one hundred pounds. I know that her entire self image is completely messed up, but I just couldn’t keep myself from feeling completely angered by her. I should have felt bad, but instead I felt like she should have shut the fuck up and realized that every teenage girl feels the exact same way she does. Maybe not to the same extent, but the desires come from the same place.

I just wanted her to stop crying and to grow up.

Perhaps I should feel like a horrible person because of the compassion that I lacked for this girl, but the selfish part of me still can’t stand to see someone smaller than me complain about how fat they are, even if I know they have a mental disorder.

Hey, at least I don’t discriminate, right?

Come break me down (bury me, bury me).

If I could look like anyone in the world, I would choose to look like Jared Leto from his 30 Seconds to Mars fashion phase. I would have the straight black emo cut, most likely the thick guyliner. My skin would be pale and perfect and my eyes would (of course) stay the amazing blue that they currently are. I don’t know why I wish that I looked like Jared Leto of all people; he just seems like aesthetic perfection for me. I want to look like him more than I want to look like myself. Not that I’m a bad looking person, really. Many people say that I have a pretty face if nothing else. But, fuck, I wonder sometimes why the fates decided to work against me and provide me with this body, this face that looks nothing like it should.

I don’t need Jared Leto’s talent, I don’t need his life. I don’t need to be the lead singer in a band or have my name in a bunch of movies with costars like Brad Pitt and Winona Ryder. Hell, I don’t even need his body; I will accept being a little bit doughy if I could just have that face. But then, what kind of face would Jared Leto have, you ask? Eh, not my problem. It’s my face now.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if I could just walk up to Jared Leto and take his face off like a mask and just replace my own?

“I’m sorry, Mr Leto. This face is no longer yours. It now belongs to a silly little college student named Ty. Please and thank you.”

And it would take, like, a second. Maybe two. POP. Off comes his face POP off comes mine and CLICK now I look like Jared Leto. His hair would even be mine, I could take off the curly wig and slap on a nice emo-doo. I would be hot.

My eyes would shine out behind seven layers of dark guyliner and I would be able to look in the mirror and (hopefully) be satisfied with the man that stood in front of it.

Yours is the only song I want to hear.

I’m sick, so if this post makes little to no sense I apologize.

I’m not wearing my contacts, so the computer screen is just a mass of blurred color despite the fact that I’m probably only one foot or so away from it.

My head hurts, I feel lightheaded but my eyelids feel heavy. I don’t know why I’m here.

Dawson is out running, but I want him to come home. I can’t sleep well when he’s away.

I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. But I think that I’m getting closer to an actual decision.

I’m thinking about applying for another job that pays more than the one that I have now. I love the people at my current workplace, but I need more money. They just don’t pay enough for the amount of work that the associates are required to do.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m not moving fast enough in my life. Like, perhaps I’m not doing as much as I could be doing. Perhaps I’m not trying hard enough. I’ve always relied on what I already know to get me through. I’m hoping that I don’t collide with a road block soon and that, maybe, I can just continue down my path of mediocre accomplishment.

I need new glasses. I need to sleep. I need to make smart decisions when it comes to, oh, life.

I’m pondering, pondering, pondering, but I’m not worrying for once. That’s definitely a step forward.

I just keep living day to day, and it’s working. Half adulthood really isn’t all that bad.

D.I.D.

In my abnormal psychology class we talked about Dissociative Identity Disorder (formally known as Multiple Personality Disorder) and I couldn’t help but find myself immensely intrigued. Apparently there’s this huge divide in the psychological community about whether this disorder actually exists or whether people just kind of make up the identities for their own weird reasons. Maybe to avoid going to jail to kill someone, who knows.

The more I delve into the world of psychology the more I feel that it may be the proper major for me. I love anthropology, which was my original major, but what can you really do with a degree in anthropology? At least I can use psychology, hopefully to help people in a clinical setting. Maybe meet a few people with DID, right? Maybe.

I’m really tired. So excuse the fact that I sound way less than elegant. I’m intelligent, I swear.

I was amazed with DID, and I cannot help but find every disorder that we talk about in class absolutely fascinating. I love psychology (I’m just a social sciences kind of boy).

Did you know that people with DID have 13 unique personalities on average? Can you even imagine having so many different personalities and not even knowing that you do? Of course not.

Ugh. So tired. But so fascinated. When I’m more eloquent, I’ll expand upon my fascination with the “abnormal.”

Don’t represent my country. Ever. Kthnx.

So, I cannot see anything I’m writing due to the fact that I don’t have my contacts in and I’m blind as a… mole, I guess. Moles have bad eyesight, right? Yeah. Anyway, point is, can’t see, so if there are any mistakes in my post, pleace find it in your heart to forgive me.

My parents came back from their vacation about a week ago and they told me a story about something not so happy that they experienced while they were in Cambodia. While maybe not the most horrendous experience they’ve ever had during a vacation (in Costa Rica they got robbed, and on one of their cruises they got caught out in the middle of the ocean during a storm), it was probably one of the most embarrassing experiences (even more exbarrassing then when they both tripped on wet temple steps in  Japan). The story, I felt, was important enough to put in here because, well… I said so. Simple as that.

On the cruise that they were on it was about them and 15 billion people over the age of 65. My mother and father are only 42 and 43, respectively, so they were essentially the babies of the ship. While docked in Cambodia they went on a bus tour to see some of the sites and, you know, do vacationing things. On their bus was a number of old couples. (Quick digression, let it be known that my mother has a number of very large, very intricate , very visible tattoos. They’re beautiful beyond doubt, but old people can’t quite seem to cope with idea of a woman having tattoos, so the old biddies didn’t really like my mom all that much. We shall continue.) So they’re on the bus, and the first stop is this beach that is famous for having some of the softest sand in the world. The beach is like a resort area and caters to a lot of Australians. Keep in mind, the people on the Cambodian beach were about 95% Australian.

So they stop at the beach. The Cambodian tour guide has just finished giving some history about Cambodia; about how the United States fucked it up during the Vietnam War, how under the control of the Khmer Rouge children were taken away from their families by the age of five and required to work 12-15 hour days for the rest of their lives, and how people could be taken into the killing fields at any time and shot just because the boss didn’t like your work effort that day. So, you know, grisly history and all that. Heavy stuff.

They’re at the beach and the tour guide says that they have an hour and a half to walk around. One of the old women starts bitching, saying that she doesn’t want to have to wait around for ninety minutes (God forbid) before they move on to their next destination. My mother and father, being the very curious and adventurous people that they are, basically say, “What the fuck ever,” and get off of the bus to do some exploring around the beach.

One hour and fifteen minutes later my parents return to where the bus was parked and find out that their ride has already left. They wait around for the next tour bus to come along and find out that their bus left early because the old people on the bus didn’t want to spend a lot of time by the beach. As you can imagine, my parents were quite pissed off. The tour guide called a car for them and once the car came it took my parents to their next spot, a Cambodian market place.

When my parents return to their original bus my dad looks at the group of oldies, who are all looking out the window nonchalantly, and says, “Thanks for leaving us, guys.” Of course, no one replies.

So they tooled around the market place for however long and then go to their next destination, a small fishing village.

Now, think about this for a second. This is Cambodia. Angelina Jolie adopts babies from there, so you know this can’t be a very prosperous country. It has only be a democracy for about eleven years or so. It is very, very poor. Remember that.

They reach the fishing village, and one of the ladies on the bus looks out the window and says, “Oh my God! This is disgusting. There is no way that I’m going out there, everything is absolutely filthy.” So here’s this old American bitch telling this 30-something year old Cambodian tour guide that her country is disgusting. Her people are filthy. Everything is dirty. So dirty, in fact, that this woman cannot even stand to look at it.

Talk about cultural sensitivity.

After the tour, a group of old ladies go up to the Customer Service desk and complain about the tour, talking about how they should have been warned that everything was going to be so poor and unacceptable. If they had known then they never would have gone. Of course they wouldn’t've.

Later on, while my parents are eating dinner, a waiter on the ship asks a group of Dutch people in the next table how their tour was. They Dutch people said that while it was sad to see people living in a condition that they didn’t deserve, it was very interesting and hopeful to see that they were working towards increasing the wealth of their country by building resorts and using the country’s natural beauty to their advantage.

Sometimes, Americans make me sad.