 |
| Photo by me |
We are a generation of disordered eaters. Our relationships to food and our bodies are a sad state of affairs. It’s not our faults but it is our responsibility to rectify. It is our responsibility to treat ourselves better than we’ve been taught to; to demand more than yoga jeans and flat tummies. It is our job to know ourselves inside and out and to remedy what’s been done to us through celebrity culture, social media, and consumerism. Learning how to trust our bodies, how to sit with fear and uncomfortable feelings, and how to stop seeing what’s in the mirror as the enemy are the first steps to dismantling what has taken a lifetime of indoctrination to create.
When getting over an eating disorder, we have to learn to slow down.
I have had a disordered relationship with food since around the time I stopped breastfeeding (and even then, there were probably some mommy issues going on). I eat when I feel vulnerable or out of control. As a way to numb the concurrent feelings of paralysis and chaos that being in my body can feel like, I have been a binge eater for twenty years. I am afraid of feeling uncomfortable, so I eat to detach myself from being in my body. Some people eat, some people drink, some people shop. To undo this damage, I am now having to learn to trust that if I feel bad feelings, it is ok to just let myself sit and feel them. That no harm will come to me if I allow them to filter through my body.
I am 30 and for the first time in my adult life at a healthy weight. But from 18-28 I was anywhere from 30-40 pounds overweight. It was the selling of my car that triggered a significant weight loss for me once I started walking for transportation. As a result of changing my routines and exercising gently and regularly I lost weight in a healthy way, but I was genuinely surprised to discover that my issues with food and my body didn’t go away. For years I had thought my size was the problem; I thought that if I was smaller, what and how I ate would be irrelevant.
I was wrong.
Guilt and shame over how I ate still followed me around even though people kept telling me how good I looked. I continued to feel awkward and overwhelmed in groups of people, and eating grounded me. When I felt scared or anxious or uncertain, it felt like I was without a tether; like there was too much space inside of me and that I might float away--eating made those feelings disappear.
But then a few months ago I found myself busier than I had ever been, every single hour of my day was spoken for down to the thirty minute intervals. The times I could be still and come back to myself became non-existent. Some nights at the end of yet another exceptionally packed day, I would eat so much in such a short period of time that I had trouble standing up. I would fill myself so much so that it would become hard to breathe. These nights I found myself kneeling over the toilet in my new apartment just so I could relieve the discomfort in my body.
This went against everything I had expected success to look and feel like. I had everything I said I wanted: the body, the bank account, the man. What the hell was going on? I began to write down everything I was thinking and feeling when I wanted to lose myself in a food binge. Still, I thought food was the issue. But what I saw on the pages of my journal was that fear, anxiety and dissociation were what I was running from. It was illuminating and humbling to have revealed to me something I had kept hidden from myself for so long. Writing what I was feeling revealed how afraid I was and what it was I was afraid of: looking stupid, not having all the answers, not being enough. Writing it all down felt like I had a “grown up” validating and accepting my fears instead of the voice I’d had in my head for years telling me, “You’re stupid for being afraid.”
This voice is both the one I have been running from and the one that’s been dictating all of my decisions up until now, and it took slowing down to nearly a standstill before I was even able to become aware of it. Through some miracle I discovered yoga, and in yoga you are taught to start where you are. I am practicing being in the body I am in right now -- not the one I want and not the one I’m afraid I’ll get. At some point I began to see my body as both the battleground and the war being waged, and it’s taken me until now to be ready to confront that. Unfortunately, it means moving slowly and taking long pauses; and as someone who has based their entire worth on how fast and how far she can move, it’s proving incredibly difficult. The biggest challenge is finding the time to show up for myself. Believing myself worthy of taking the time to have good, hot meals, and staying present enough to consume them mindfully. Every single day I have to pay close attention to be sure I’m not overextending myself, and not falling into the trap of seeing myself and my body as opposing forces.
It is easy to resent how hard this is; how typical it is to be a ‘chick with an eating disorder.’ But I am, and that’s ok. I am the very same girl that I was when I learned to avoid my emotions. The very same girl I was when I learned to use food as a coping mechanism. And I am the very same girl I was when I learned to see my body as a betrayal. I am that girl in the body of this 30 year old woman. And it is now, as her, that I am finally learning to feed myself.
I am a 30 year old woman who is, slowly, learning to eat.
When getting over an eating disorder, we have to learn to slow down.
I have had a disordered relationship with food since around the time I stopped breastfeeding (and even then, there were probably some mommy issues going on). I eat when I feel vulnerable or out of control. As a way to numb the concurrent feelings of paralysis and chaos that being in my body can feel like, I have been a binge eater for twenty years. I am afraid of feeling uncomfortable, so I eat to detach myself from being in my body. Some people eat, some people drink, some people shop. To undo this damage, I am now having to learn to trust that if I feel bad feelings, it is ok to just let myself sit and feel them. That no harm will come to me if I allow them to filter through my body.
I am 30 and for the first time in my adult life at a healthy weight. But from 18-28 I was anywhere from 30-40 pounds overweight. It was the selling of my car that triggered a significant weight loss for me once I started walking for transportation. As a result of changing my routines and exercising gently and regularly I lost weight in a healthy way, but I was genuinely surprised to discover that my issues with food and my body didn’t go away. For years I had thought my size was the problem; I thought that if I was smaller, what and how I ate would be irrelevant.
I was wrong.
Guilt and shame over how I ate still followed me around even though people kept telling me how good I looked. I continued to feel awkward and overwhelmed in groups of people, and eating grounded me. When I felt scared or anxious or uncertain, it felt like I was without a tether; like there was too much space inside of me and that I might float away--eating made those feelings disappear.
But then a few months ago I found myself busier than I had ever been, every single hour of my day was spoken for down to the thirty minute intervals. The times I could be still and come back to myself became non-existent. Some nights at the end of yet another exceptionally packed day, I would eat so much in such a short period of time that I had trouble standing up. I would fill myself so much so that it would become hard to breathe. These nights I found myself kneeling over the toilet in my new apartment just so I could relieve the discomfort in my body.
This went against everything I had expected success to look and feel like. I had everything I said I wanted: the body, the bank account, the man. What the hell was going on? I began to write down everything I was thinking and feeling when I wanted to lose myself in a food binge. Still, I thought food was the issue. But what I saw on the pages of my journal was that fear, anxiety and dissociation were what I was running from. It was illuminating and humbling to have revealed to me something I had kept hidden from myself for so long. Writing what I was feeling revealed how afraid I was and what it was I was afraid of: looking stupid, not having all the answers, not being enough. Writing it all down felt like I had a “grown up” validating and accepting my fears instead of the voice I’d had in my head for years telling me, “You’re stupid for being afraid.”
This voice is both the one I have been running from and the one that’s been dictating all of my decisions up until now, and it took slowing down to nearly a standstill before I was even able to become aware of it. Through some miracle I discovered yoga, and in yoga you are taught to start where you are. I am practicing being in the body I am in right now -- not the one I want and not the one I’m afraid I’ll get. At some point I began to see my body as both the battleground and the war being waged, and it’s taken me until now to be ready to confront that. Unfortunately, it means moving slowly and taking long pauses; and as someone who has based their entire worth on how fast and how far she can move, it’s proving incredibly difficult. The biggest challenge is finding the time to show up for myself. Believing myself worthy of taking the time to have good, hot meals, and staying present enough to consume them mindfully. Every single day I have to pay close attention to be sure I’m not overextending myself, and not falling into the trap of seeing myself and my body as opposing forces.
It is easy to resent how hard this is; how typical it is to be a ‘chick with an eating disorder.’ But I am, and that’s ok. I am the very same girl that I was when I learned to avoid my emotions. The very same girl I was when I learned to use food as a coping mechanism. And I am the very same girl I was when I learned to see my body as a betrayal. I am that girl in the body of this 30 year old woman. And it is now, as her, that I am finally learning to feed myself.
I am a 30 year old woman who is, slowly, learning to eat.
Comments
Post a Comment