To kill PERFECTION.

TW: body dysmorphia, suicide

Many know of only Satan, or, the Devil. More educated people know of greed, lust and etcetera, however, do you know of the one called PERFECTION? Unlike the others, it kills the infected through the mind, altering their vision to suit what it wants them to see, changing their thoughts to be ever hungry- greedy. In fact, it's strategy is so Perfect, as it works with Envy, Greed and Pride, 3 of the vainest 7 deadly sins, some may even say it sits at the right hand of Satan himself. Once the infected is left to fester by themselves for long enough time, they start drowning in their own thoughts, water a much preferred alternative at that rate. I fear She suffers from it. Which is to say I do. Is it too late?

When I was young, all I remembered playing with were Barbies- the very definition of beauty. However, as days passed and I grew up, I grew sick of them. Being near them made me feel inferior, their snatched waist and perfect complexion something I could never achieve. HA! Little did I know that Barbies were the least of my worries.

Enter: High school. Barbies. Everywhere, of different shape, sizes and colour, all perfect, as if our bodies had too, follow a dress code.

I had never thought I was fat, in fact I had considered myself healthy sized, and whilst I wasn't strikingly pretty like most of the girls, I could call myself cute. But the standards here walked around on thin, toned legs, staring down at me through their luscious eyelashes, lips juicier than the berries I saw everyday on the way to school.

Then, the miracle of my lifetime, one lonely lunch day sat across me- Voluntarily! Packaged in a hot tight pink tank top, topped off by sunglasses I recognized all the girls were gushing over from Miu Miu, I recognized the doll in front of me as the most popular girl in school.

Thank god for Ellie. I never will know what she sees in me, but she took me under her wing, imagine that! The most popular girl in school reaching her arm out to me- Me! Make-up...Plastic wrap.. even my sitting posture. I will do her proud.

When will I be perfect? She sighs, tracing her body with an unsatisfied finger. She sees a beauty, just small enough to ignite her hopes, but not enough to satisfy her unquenching desire to be perfect. 

  All I see is a wrinkled up old woman, narrow minded and in her own world, wistfully grasping for the stars. 

  Nobody’s perfect, you’re killing yourself, Ella. NO! SHUT UP! For you speak as if you are the temptation of failure itself. Failure is when you let yourself fall, lower your expectations and stop trying. 

  I will never stop. 

  She continues her tracing, lingering resentfully on her lumpy belly and unsatisfactory waist. 

  My heart clenches in pain, as I see her trace her painfully protruding rib bones and sigh as her every breath brings her ribcage out past her surface. 

  Enough is enough. I’m serious. There’s a difference between healthy pressure and unhealthy obsession. You can let it guide your decisions in life, but not your life. 

  Soul. Body. Mind. 

  I can see her very being is polluted with the twisted desires, poisoning her inside out. She then stops to look at me, for the first time. 

  I wince at her now sallow face and cheekbones that are painfully obvious. She turns away in hurt, before continuing: You don’t understand. In order to live the life I want to live, have the body I want to have, I need to let it get to me. Take control. AH! She shrieks as my hands grab her neck. 

  I hadn't meant to do it. Originally, but as she repeated her mantra confidently, for the thousandth time, in her now even more shrunken and malnourished body, I could finally see It. The demon that possessed her to say such words, thinks such things. It had peeked out at me, with a twisted smile on its face before it escaped back into her head, prying its dark fingers into every crevice of her mind. 

  My only thought had been to catch it, get rid of it. 

  But now with my hands around her neck, I finally felt something crowd up in oxygenated bubbles in me. A surge of power, Power! That was the word, filled me.

  I had been forced to sit with her all these months, listening to her and watching her fold onto herself, pushed away by that bubble of ignorance that surrounded her. 

  Finally! I was in! And as I looked into her fearful brown eyes, hazel with small specks of impish green in them, the only thing that hasn’t changed about her, I knew what to do.

Beloved 16 year old Ella Woods died last Tuesday, midnight, found with her hands around her own neck. Police are suspecting suicide and her parents are devastated. 

  Ella Woods was a sweet and charming girl, quoted by many of her grieving friends, however, it had been noted that 5 months before her death, she had been pushing everyone away, and her friends noted a alarming change in weight, but when asked, she didn’t give any specific reply and they had left her alone. Her parents, thinking their daughter was just going through a phase, had also not pushed. What could have led to this sweet teenager on the brink of ripening to leave the world? Click on the link below to find out more, for now, I’m David Barker, and we’re coming back to the..music-..

  It’s dark. That’s the first thing I noticed. Oh, and the second thing I noticed was the overwhelming lightness of me, as I floated through this dark abyss. Gone were her stupidly suffocating thoughts, always dragging us down. This doll was done. Sent to the reset factory to be molded into a perfect version of a girl, something this model was unfortunate enough not to have been put in the right mold for.

  I had made the right decision.