blondie073's Journal

71 DAYS! Where does it go? That's a long time... for me at least. How many months is that? 2 1/2? I'm not sure. I'm almost done my goal, too! This is good. This is really good. I'm actually quite proud of myself.

In other news, I started my three week trial counselling today, and it went really well. They had a team behind a mirror that was watching my entire session, and then we got to go behind the mirror and hear what they had to say. I felt odd, being talked about. What touched me the most though, was that the therapist thanked me for teaching her how her son feels. He's only six and he's being bullied, and because of me, she knows how to talk to him about it and to help him through it. She also thanked me for broadening her view of the world and that there's still hope to help. The team said I was very aware and very intelligent, and they were in awe that I started reading and writing at age 2 and I knew about world issues when I was 8. I really surprised myself, too, by opening up and getting good feedback. I am really happy that I'm not as pathetic as I thought. The counsellor also said: "Tiana, you talk about not having self-confidence anymore, so you must have had it in the beginning. Honestly, I couldn't tell that you don't have self-confidence. You seem very confident and if you hadn't have told me I wouldn't have noticed." I was really happy with that comment. Maybe people don't see how vulnerable I am, after all.

I also went to the girls' group today. I was alone in the waiting room on one side and three scary looking girls sat at the other side. They invited me to sit with them and then they started asking about me and making me comfortable. When I got in the room, they noticed I sat by myself and that I didn't know anyone, so immediately two girls crowded around me to make me feel comfortable again. I didn't speak much, but when I did I said my opinion and nobody laughed. We were talking about true beauty and how body image can affect girls, and they asked if it was a bad thing. I said yes, it is a bad thing, because I've had friends who have died from eating disorders while trying to look like the girls on TV. I also said: "All these girls have died because they were trying to fit in, and we're still promoting a bad image. Why haven't we stopped yet?" which led the group into discussing eating disorders, so I told them that if you walk into the washroom at my school you'll hear a girl vomiting or see one hating herself in the mirror. They were all amazed, and realized that it really does affect people negatively.

That's what I wrote about in my book, too. I hope they read it when it gets published.