How do you say good-bye to someone you've known for most of your cognative life? For the most important years to your development - how do you let go of someone that's become so deeply rooted in your bones?

The only answer I've come to conclude is that you can't.

I spent the past three hours with someone who knows me better than I even know myself. We didn't spend alot of the time talking - we went to go see Valkyrie. But something she said struck a chord - "Maybe it makes it worse, fixating on it."

I won't give you the context, because it isn't relevant. I can tell you, however, that you can probably take this and put it into any context you wish. However, I'm going to give you my context.

Despite the beliefs of many individuals - my teachers, my peers, sometimes my parents, and even a few friends - I am a completely insane person. Insane. Now, there's the myth that if you have the sanity enough to know you're insane, then you are, in fact, sane. Let me tell you that this is completely wrong.

I am insane because I know that I'm insane. How does at even make sense? I'm insane because I know I'm insane - the things I've done to indulge my insanity have hurt the people I love more than I can fathom. But yet, I have still continued to do them. The scars didn't stop when Zach cried, but they should have. The pounds didn't stop dropping when my family said I was getting sickly thin. But they should have. I didn't stop telling lies when they lost me the one boy I could have married - but they really, really should have.

But they've stopped now. And they've stopped for good. I can't really say what made me decide to heal. I could tell you it was that weekend back in November. The horrible wake-up call in that single room. I could tell you that it was losing the guy that caused that visit. But it wasn't. It wasn't the anger in my father's voice when he was diving me to the E.R. It wasn't my mother's tears when she ran her hand over the gauze. It wasn't the week and a half that I spent alone because my lies had caused the most important, non-related person to me to stop talking to me.

It was all of it. I'm not sure why the tears worked this time. Why the anger worked this time. Why the week spent in solitude worked this time. But it did.

So here it goes, for the last, final time.

My name is Erica Morgan. I'm seventeen years old, and I'm a cutter, a smoker, and a girl with an eating disorder. As I've said before, I will always be those things. There will always be an urge to cut when things get too stressful. To stop eating when the numbers on the scale inscrease by .03 pounds. To tell a lie when the truth hurts too much.

I started cutting when I was thirteen years old. Do i know why? Yes. Because of a boy. A stupid boy who wasn't worth my time and who ended up going gay anyway. I was in the eighth grade, and I told my best friend Karen about it. She started cutting too. she used it as a way to seek attention. I used it because I liked having a secret.
And on it went. For any reason I could think of. Sometimes for a lack of an actual reason, and just because I wanted to. I liked the blood. The sight of it. The smell of it. The taste of it. The feeling of it congealing on my skin.

I stopped eating around the same time. I was a big girl. 5'8", 180 pounds. Acne-covered face. Not a very sightly girl. So I started throwing my lunch away. I eventually just stopped taking one.
I started dating Zach my freshman year. Four months in, I told him that I was bulemic. I told him that I was a cutter. I told him that I would stop. The cutting I couldn't hide. The eating got harder to hide. he'd see my ribs. my hip-bones. But I wanted to be beautiful for him. how could I believe that I was beautiful to him when I was such a monster to myself? So it spiraled. And spiraled. One week during the summer, it got so bad that I lost ten pounds in five days, from not eating and then throwing up anyway.
Not pretty.

The lies. Oh dear, Lord, the lies. There's too many to list. Too many non-reasons. Too many fabrications, I have to wonderhow I could keep them straight while I was telling them.

But it's done now. It's too late to save my "marriage" to the boy who now calls me a problem child. If it hadn't been for a big lie, my best friend wouldn't have a reason to doubt me.

But I'm on the road to recovery. I have the girl that loves me unconditionally. She's trying her hardest, and I'm doing all i can not to give her a reason to doubt me anymore. All chapters of that life are closed. No more cutting. No more not eating. No more throwing up. No more Skye, no more sneaking. No more.

And it's all for the one person who I managed to save my relationship with. It's all for my family, who i can't see cry anymore. It's all for my future children, so I don't have to explain the scars on mommy's legs. Why there are words on mommy's skin. It's all for my brother and my sister, who both need a strong, stable example. It's all for my parents, who don't need to worry anymore than they have to. It's all for Zach, because even if he can't see it, he deserves to know that it wasn't his fault, what I was doing. It was mine.
It's all for Allie, whose pain I cannot stand to see everytime she looks at my scars. Whose doubt I cannot face when I tell her who's texting me. Whose love means more to me than anything else in the world right now.
But most of all, it's all for me, because I cannot stand the person that I've become.

So how do you let go of someone you've known most of your life? You don't, because it will always stay a part of you. But it doesn't have to be the dominant part. I've come to realize that. It's just another chapter in my very long autobiography. Except this time, once I'm done reading it, I won't look back. I won't edit it. I will leave it as it is, that rough, hardley constructed chapter of my life. I can't say good-bye, because it's formed me into the healing person I am. It will help me be a stronger person in the future.

But I don't have to fixate on it.

So this is the last blog I will write about my insanities. Because as of tonight, I'm letting them slip into the farthest, dustiest corners of my memories.

Tonight, I'm not saying good-bye to Erica Morgan, the seventeen-year-old cutting, smoking, lying anorexic.

Tonight, I'm saying hello. I'm saying hello to a new chapter in my life. One full of love, of trust, and honesty. Of a clean slate, of clear skin. Of healthy diets and regulated work-outs. To counseling. To friends To family. To support.

Tonight, I'm saying hello to Erica Morgan, the seventeen-year-old who will no longer fixate on being insane. I'm saying hello to Erica Morgan, the seventeen-year-old on her way to a healthy life.