Melissa A. Fabello

5. Nervous Breakdowns Are Probably Inevitable. No one likes falling apart. It’s embarrassing and messy and a sign that you’ve gone too far and need to reel yourself back in. And if you practice self-care both as prevention and intervention, you might be able to keep these crying fits at bay for a long time — but eventually, school stress catches up with you.

". . . guess what! Despite, again, what the media tells you, breasts come in a huge variety of shapes! Most natural breasts are affected by gravity and seem to sag a little bit, rather than perking up like they might in a bra. Most nipples fall downward (so, ya know, potential babies can reach them), rather than face forward."

What I’ve (amazingly) learned is that if I eat what I want, when I want, and as much of it as I want (what my stomach wants, not my eyes, which are two separate measurements), my digestion regulates itself again.

Dirty talk takes practice, but practice makes perfect. And watching your partner orgasm over video is almost as satisfying as it is in real life. I promise.

In my experience dating and sleeping with straight, cisgender dudes who worship hegemonic masculinity, I’ve noticed that there’s something really — umm — special about how they go about sexuality.

Street harassment. Eating disorders. Rape — three times, including one storyline that involved Zoe being sexually violated at a party by two star athletes who filmed the assault and distributed the video online. Intimate partner violence. Sexist school dress codes. Police brutality and racial profiling. Islamophobia. Sexting and child pornography.

Not everyone who has had an eating disorder also has an issue with perfectionism, but the two are often linked: A persistent feeling of never being “good enough” and needing to do something — anything — to feel under control is a warning sign that a person might be susceptible to an eating disorder.

Uh, in case you haven’t noticed, the body acceptance movement has a bit of a body rejection problem. Namely, anyone who isn’t a thin, white, able-bodied, straight, middle class, cisgender woman gets left out of the movement altogether — which, in my opinion, isn’t very accepting.

I wake up hungry, but I also wake up lighter, emptier. Something about it makes me feel purer. This is one feeling that’s positive in a sea of negative.