Meeting Edie

I'm a newlywed, married to a man who still gives me butterflies, who adores every bit of me, and who I know would do anything to make me happy. I have a job that many people envy, and most wouldn't consider work at all. I live in a house that is lovely that are home to two cats that I treat like children. I have a great family. My close friends are incredible. I have all this. . .but I'm still unhappy.

How is this possible? What is it that makes me unhappy? What is holding me back?

It's not a what, but a who. Her name is Edie. And I crave to be rid of her.

I want to find a way to stand up to her and learn to live a life free of her incessant, caustic remarks, but it's a daunting task in a society that judges everything a woman does - from her hair, to her skin, to her weight, to her choices. For example, the magazines that woman are suppose to be drawn to (because they talk about issues we, apparently, deem "important") bombard us with contradicting messages, so that even if we were trying to be really happy and healthy (as so many magazine claim to have just the secrets and tools on how to do this) they fill it with pages critiquing the weight of someone and the weight loss of someone else. Even magazines whose sole purpose is to show us how to treat our bodies better - like, Self, for instance - stuff their pages with diet pills and ads, giving us the option of either listening to their latest exercise regime, or finding the quick fix in a supplement pill.

I'm tired of it all, and most of all, I'm tired of the pressure I've placed on myself to meet those standards. I invited Edie into my life so I could get to that ideal - that perfect size so I could have the perfect life. She has been with me for 11 years, and instead she has given me misery.

I'm not sure when Edie and I first met. I remember my aunt, who I always noticed was incredibly self-critical of her own weight and looks, once looked at my nine-year old legs and declared dejectedly, "You have the family thighs, too." I knew she did not mean this as a compliment and began looking at my legs in a new way. I hadn't truly noticed the flaw in them before, but I always felt something was different about me - and not in a good way. And perhaps now I had an answer - it was my huge thighs!

Maybe it was then that Edie came into my life. She was almost transparent at first, I hardly acknowledged her, but my acquiesced with her judgments and resigned them as "help". She would tell me secrets on how to be more popular, for more people to like me, and let me in on the reasons why people did not like me: I was not pretty enough. And the only thing holding me back was my weight.

Edie continued to hover by my side through the rest of my life - popping in on nights of big occasions - like high school prom, for example - examining my stomach and showing me how to position my hands in pictures to cover the rounded area. She was there when bad things happened - like when I broke up with my first boyfriend. She knew the perfect way to get back at him was to show him he meant nothing, to look better than I ever did, and the only way to do that was to throw up any morsel I ate, so no fat would linger on my body.

She was there, constantly with her critiques, her thoughts, her non-stop chatter about my body and my weight and my looks - pushing me to be better, encouraging me to punish myself if I ate too much, and chastising me for thinking a boy thought I was cute. Impossible, she would whisper. You're too fat to be cute.

And then I met my husband, who Edie hates. I met him and he told me Edie was crazy - that I was, in fact, gorgeous, that I was smart and intelligent and funny, and that was all me - Edie didn't create that.

The more I listened to him, the more Edie screamed at me to listen to her. She fought with me bitterly to keep me all to herself, but she didn't win. I married that man, and learned to tune her out or at least quiet her dismay. I spent my whole wedding and honeymoon without her, and it was amazing.

But, it's as though now I'm back in the "real world", where true happiness can not last because I am not a size 2, I do not have a flat stomach, and my thighs are not sticks. Looking back at wedding pictures, her voice is still there, complimenting me on how I held my bouquet to disguise my stomach, and shaking her head disdainfully at the pictures of me eating cake.

Edie never really left, and Edie never will. I will live my whole life with an E.D., or eating disorder, and I've got to find a way to really learn to live without listening to her - without giving strength to her thoughts. I want to continue on my journey, to know that I am not alone with wanting to not only change myself, but change the world - especially for all the young girls that are about to find out from society that they just aren't good enough until they disappear.