Amanda

“I had suffered, and I had made the suffering into something I could consider good. I made it so that suffering was a kind of work.”
― Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation

“When I go back home I am angrier than ever. I am all at once submerged in every body I ever was, all the failed attempts at being a certain kind of person. My old scales are there, my old photographs, the skin across my face taut with hunger, my eyes bright and wild with it, very beautiful, nobody could deny.”
― Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation

“When I come home now, still, I am self-conscious and defensive before her. I hate that she can see what weight I have gained. I hate to listen to what she is or isn't eating any more, what she is doing at the gym. I hate that hearing those things feels like a dare to me, or an invitation to raise the stakes. I hate that I have never found an appropriate response that all I can do is defensively eat nothing, in a rage, or eat everything, showing her that I am past that, I have transcended her petty concerns, I am mind, not body, I am better than her.”
― Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation

“There is no truce to be made with my body; if I make one, I know it will only be negated by a new enemy in time. What is the point?”
― Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation