ON VACATION...

I am leaving tomorrow morning for New Orleans and the Mayan Riviera.

For those who have sent me stories that I have not yet posted, I will do so after my return on February 25th.

Please hold off emailing me and submitting your stories until I return on the 25th. Many thanks!

~ Medusa

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DALAL'S STORY: "HERE I AM - A BLACK GIRL WHO CREATED A LIFE TO HIDE THE FACT THAT SHE HATES HER BODY."

 "Dear Medusa,

Hey I love your website. I'm sure you have a bunch of people emailing you but my story is the same and it's different. I live in a country where people love their bodies a lot, except for me. Eating disorders in my country are a "white-girl-on-lifetime-movies" kinda problem. As a result, I have never sought help. My dentist thinks I eat too much candy. I have hardly any teeth. I'm thirty and have been bulimic since I was ten.

I am a bodybuilder, fitness athlete... I became that because it is a legitimate excuse to get my body down to 8% body fat and lower. I hate myself so much sometimes. I have attempted suicide lots but haven't quite figured it out (LOL). Maybe someone out there feels like I do. Feels ugly and stupid and stuck and no one to relate to because eating disorders aren't talked about in their country. Maybe they feel crazy like I do. I don't know.

Here's my story. And my pictures. I don't mind my face going up. Just not my name.

'Dalal the black bodybuilder.

I made a career around food...went to school, studied and built a hobby around an obsession. As I type I am chewing slowly on ten slices of bread and butter, knowing that before I finish typing I will force everything up with the back end of a toothbrush. I was going to binge on peanut brittle, but with only one tooth on the upper right side of my mouth, chewing nutty hard things has become something of a problem.

My name is Dalal. Of course not, but I like how the name sounds… beautiful, foreign and exotic. I have worked hard to become all of those things, except deep inside I am really just a nappy haired black girl with bad skin and crooked teeth.

On the outside I am everything healthy - nutritionist, fitness competitor, super trainer, super athlete, super super super. Long haired, clear skinned, false and capped teeth gleaming as I tell people what they should eat and how they should train. I smile and tell them not to drink, not to smoke, not to do drugs when some nights I smoke an entire joint just to be able to stand myself. Oh yeah...and there is this thing about a binge-purge habit I have had since I was ten. 

All irrelevant. In four months' time I will be on stage, competing at 8% body fat displaying deeply tanned muscles for the world to ogle at...a seemingly emphatic picture of health and feminine strength; none of which exist inside of me.

I am trying to type how I feel but it’s hard. The words are easy to say...I have bulimia. It’s out of control. I suffer from depression. Yet all these words are devoid of everything but the trembling vocal chords in which to speak them. They don’t really paint a picture of how gorged you feel as you waddle to the toilet bowl to cleanse yourself of sins (father forgive me, it has been two hours since my last confession). They don’t really speak of how you eat something safe and healthy, then swallow a whole cake on top of it (Stupid stupid stupid) and then have to throw everything up and start from scratch…. How much money is spent on foods that you just throw up and dentists that think you just eat too much candy and well, just privacy to confess to the porcelain bowl-gods in peace. 

Oh yeah, and that black girls don’t make themselves throw up. Only white girls do. Well. Here I am - a black girl who created a life to hide the fact that she hates her body - a black girl who can hide behind the fact that black girls don’t do that stuff and who doesn’t know where to go for help other than some random website that made her cry as she read the stories and said to herself...that’s me. That’s me."

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