Okay...so generally I choose not to talk or write much about weight/body size, because I feel like that plays into the idea that eating disorders are about weight, which they aren't. I naively assumed that most people with eating disorders who have had them awhile understood this - that, while the obsession still reigns in many of us, people understood that at their core, this is not what eating disorders are about. I thought people, at least people with eating disorders, understood that you can be very ill at any size - emaciated, "average", obese. I was wrong, and this topic has been staring me in the face repeatedly this past week...and for some time, I guess, but I generally choose to look the other way, knowing that that isn't something I want to spend my time and energy focusing on. But today several things culminated and forced me to consider this topic again, more closely.
So I'll start with some basic facts:
1. Not all people with eating disorders are underweight - people with eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes, and all of them are suffering.
2. Not all people suffering from ANOREXIA are underweight.
3. You don't have to be underweight to be extremely medically compromised.
4. Some people with eating disorders who are underweight see themselves as "fat", and others know that they are physically unwell as a result of being underweight. Those pictures you see with an emaciated girl staring into the mirror to an overweight reflection are not always accurate.
5. Some people with eating disorders, though it's rarer, are entirely unconcerned with their weight. Which does help to show that eating disorders are not solely about body weight, shape and size.
Okay. So I want to share some of my day with you all.
I have been sort of mentoring a woman who I was in treatment with through Facebook messaging - putting a good deal of energy into trying to help her see sense, trying to help her understand that she is "sick enough" to seek treatment, reiterating that weight is unimportant but that she does not see herself clearly and that weight restoration is necessary in order to be functioning appropriately cognitively, listening to what's going on in her life...commiserating with her misery and gently suggesting that there is hope. I've been very open about my personal experiences in answering her many questions, and I don't regret any of it - I want to make clear, if she is reading this, that I am not angry for what I am about to share - but that it did open my eyes.
One of the recent questions she asked me was how long I was in treatment for, and specifically how long I spent in PHP (the 12 hour a day program I was in, in Denver). I responded that I had spent five months in PHP, and she asked: "Why were you there for 5 months? I know that you weren't very underweight." I am not angry - it was an innocent question, clouded by the things our society teaches us. I'll admit, though, that this threw me off guard. It's been a long time since anyone questioned how sick I was, and I'm past trying to prove it...there's nothing to prove. That said, I have been everywhere from severely underweight to overweight in my disorder, and while being underweight came with its own health consequences, so did having an eating disorder at higher weights. I have suffered deeply both mentally and physically at all ends of the spectrum, as have many. People die at normal weights from eating disorders frequently. It is a costly common misconception that people are worse off when they are underweight. I don't want to undermine the seriousness of being underweight, but you can be very sick at any weight. You deserve help - at any weight. You are not better for having been thinner in your eating disorder, and you don't have anything to prove. If you are attempting to prove your illness by losing weight, you are a hamster running on a wheel - you are just making things worse for yourself in the long run.
Shortly after stating that it was crossing a line to comment on my weight to this woman, I received another message, from a young woman I feel privileged to have spent time with in treatment and who I consider a friend. I'm very fond of her, and have been very worried. Since our time together, she has been back in treatment - and she happened to land in a center with one of my closest friends, who mentioned that they were there together and how sad she felt for this young woman. I was happy to hear from her, and I concernedly asked how she was. She responded that her depression had improved, but that she still had motivation to recover - and when I asked her why she felt she still wanted to cling to her illness, she responded: "I'm so fat". I asked her if she knew that she was distorted, and she said no. I believe her, though some may question how in the world she is unable to see what is so obvious - this beautiful young woman has been unable to eat, and so the hospital she was in was tube feeding her.
There are factors apart from society's idiocy that have contributed to her predicament, I'm certain, but we do have to acknowledge its role. If being thin weren't considered somehow "better", perhaps this illness would have taken a different form. I have no doubt that it would have risen to the surface somehow, but our culture and its ridiculous ideals play a role. And it is horrifying. We all know that society has unrealistic expectations for men and women and our bodies, but I don't think many of us understand the depth of the problem. It's disgusting, and it's devastating.
People often say that in eating disorder recovery issues with body image are the first to come and the last to go. I am early in my own process of recovery, and struggle with a number of things still - emotional eating, overuse of artificial sweetener, the inability not to look at the labels on foods when buying them, choosing the lower calorie food a lot of the time when another looks more appealing - and countless other things, namely my body image. Since gaining to a weight that is above my body's natural set point, I have lived in shame of my body - wearing only sweatpants and shirts five sizes too large for me, wearing sweatshirts even when it was boiling hot outside, being hyperaware of my body and what it looks and feels like at any given moment...since graduating from my treatment program in Denver, I have been making an attempt to wear shirts, at least, that fit me more appropriately. On occasion I'll wear a dress with leggings. Around the house, I'll wear my pajama shorts and a tank top - but I would never, never consider leaving the house wearing anything that didn't cover me. It has been an enormous success simply to leave the house in a shirt without a sweater or sweatshirt to cover my arms when it is hot.
Today, after these two incidences, I was preparing to leave the house to walk to the grocery store. It is very hot outside, and as I considered the clothes I was about to put back on - heavy sweatpants and a baggy shirt - I stalled. I thought, "I am not meant to leave behind a legacy of body shame and hatred". I walked to the grocery store in the one pair of shorts I own and a tank top, with a sense of pride in my ability today to do something I couldn't have done even yesterday. To hell with societal ideals, to hell even with my own brain's bullying - and it felt good, to walk in the sun with my skin exposed. I felt the wind on my arms and legs and face and hands, I listened to my music, and I kept thinking that my legacy will not be one of body shame. I am so, so much more than that. I am a person: a flawed, loving, neurotic, intelligent high school dropout who loves to read and write and help others...I am artistic and intuitive, I am determined and brave. Who are you outside of your body? What does it mean to have a "good" body? If everyone in this world were so focused on their bodies that they didn't pursue their passions, what kind of a world would we live in?
What do you want to leave behind, when you leave this earth? I invite you to consider this.
/end rant.
