Free Everything About Me Is Fake . . . And I'm Perfect by Janice Dickinson

wasn’t angry with me, but with herself. “You know what?” I
offered. “Why not try to find some balance in your life? I’ve led a life of
fucking-bingingpurging-working-out-until-you-drop. Believe me, I didn’t feel
the way you think I felt when I looked the way you want to look.”
                    “Like you ever feel bad about yourself,” her
friend muttered.
                    “Honey,” I responded, bringing it down one
level to a place where we could all relate—supermodel to model woman. “Look, I’ve
got my period right now. I’ve been so bloated for two days that I think I might
explode. I’m on the verge of hemorrhaging, but I still can’t miss one day of
yoga class. Because I’m just as obsessive as you are.” The women fell silent.
Now we were on a level playing field.
                    “And as for not liking myself? Let me just
say that when I’m up five pounds with water bloat and blood, I have so much
self-loathing going on that I want to throw myself in front of a Mack truck.
And the only thing that keeps me from going through with it is the idea that I’ll
miss, get clipped, and then be scarred for life. You know, one more thing to
worry about,” I said, fishing around my Prada bag for my coffee money. By this
point, the women were in hysterics.
                    “Clearly, you ladies better not argue with
me anymore because I’m hormonal, but my fucking yoga teacher just told me that
I need to learn how to embrace the hormones. Come to terms with them.”
                    “Fuck him,” said the first woman.
                    “Exactly,” her friend affirmed. “Screw him,
in the most Zen way.”
                    238
    J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N
                    How compulsive am I about having this
fantasy life I’ve created in my own mind?
                    Well, a few weeks ago my loving son Nathan
didn’t get me a Mother’s Day card or a present. Fuck that behavior! I was
really hurt because Nathan is growing into a young man now, and he’s old enough
to know better. Apparently his father didn’t even suggest that he buy his own
mother a lousy card. In my mind, he should have insisted: “Nathan, do something
nice for your mother.” Hell, I’m always telling him, “Give your sister a hug.”
Kids need direction.
                    So I stewed about that for weeks. For the
most part I kept it to myself, but I was mad.
                    And then I realized something: in my own
compulsiveness, I was trying to write a script for everyone in my life. I was
trying to get them all to step up and fit themselves into my little vision of a
perfect world. I push my kids just as hard as I push myself, and I tell myself
it’s because it’s the right thing to do—but sometimes I realize it’s because I’m
still working out issues of my own.
                    I’ve got to stop that. We all have to stop
that. And I’m trying. Really. Sabotage: We All Do It
                    Back in the late 1980s, on a Perry Ellis
shoot, I became fast friends with another model who had a serious coke habit.
                    “You need help,” I told her through my own
drug haze, perfectly aware that I was talking not just to her, but to myself.
Well, my friend—we’ll call her Susan, for purposes of not ratting her out—was
smart enough to get herself into rehab that December. At the time, rehab was
becoming quite the chic place to spend the Christmas holidays. If you were too
young, too fast, and too rich, the way to ring in the New Year didn’t involve
debauchery at some tropical island, or even running up a billion dollars up and
down Madison Avenue. For once it was by doing what was actually good for one’s
health and sanity. Who would have thought?
                    E V