Body Image My Struggle with Anorexia

"Every woman knows that, regardless of all her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful." 
Germaine Greer

(me at one of the peaks of my anorexia)

Recently I have been hearing a lot of my girlfriends calling themselves fat.  This breaks my heart but it also made me face some real demons this week and I have decided to just be frank.  In my mid twenties I struggled severely with anorexia.  I would love to say I have won this battle but as anyone who has ever faced their demons knows they always linger in the shadows, and in your darkest hour taunt you.  But, falling in love with my body has been a struggle that I have almost accomplished.  I acknowledge that a few extra pounds is just the way I am made, and understanding that can be beautiful is some thing we should all feel.  I would like to share three facts about my battle with anorexia in the hopes that it encourages other women to realize that we are all beautiful and we all deserve to love ourselves and be HEALTHY!

"From the newsstands a dozen models smiled up at her from a dozen magazine covers, smiled in thin-faced, high-cheekboned agreement to Kessa’s new discovery. They knew the secret too. They knew thin was good, thin was strong; thin was safe." 
Steven Levenkron

(me when during a time I thought I was most over weight) 

1) Harsh words.  I grew up my whole life hearing that I had a nice body.  I was thin and I was never told anything different until I was in a relationship with Mr. AA.  For the first time in my life I was called fat, and beyond being called this by someone who supposedly loved me, the specific areas where I had gained weight were pointed out to me over and over again.  I was ridiculed for eating and so I internalized this feedback into anorexia.  I not only began to loathe food but I hated my former fat self.  I looked at old pictures of myself and was disgusted at what I saw.  I saw all my rolls of fat, an enormous round face and thought I was blob.  When I asked friends and my one long term ex (who is a kind hearted soul) they all looked at me like I was crazy and told me I was always beautiful.  When my parents would tell me I was looking healthy I would hear "You are getting fat." I was so obsessed with looking thin, when I was my most underweight Mr. AA would praise how good I looked and enforce upon me that I should stay thin to be desired.   This mentality faded when I met Mr. X however it was not long until he pointed out I had gained weight too and my battle with food began again.   To be hones this battle remains, it is hard to see an extra pound and not deny myself daily food intake, however, I must tell myself that everyday that being healthy is beautiful.  What is terrible is that I am not alone in this development.  Almost all women I know shared with me that their eating disorders were also spawned from people they love telling them they were fat. Which brings me to my second point.

"[Eating disorders] are a wonderful tool for helping you reject others before they can reject you. Example: You’re at a party. The popular girls are there. You know you can never be as cool as they are, but when one of the pops a potato chip into her mouth or chooses real Coke over Diet, for that moment you are better."
Stacy Pershall

(my favorite model - she is considered plus size)

2) Everyone has had an eating disorder.  Every single woman I confided in about my struggle to see myself as beautiful and not stave myself thin told me they to had eating disorders.  Every. Single. One. From my girlfriends who are a size two to my girlfriends who are a size sixteen.  It did not matter their body shape they all said they have felt ugly and fat.  They said that they too have starved themselves and in some cases purged.  This breaks my heart.  I felt very alone in my battle with anorexia.  I felt like all my friends had great bodies not because they were doing what I was doing but because they had great jeans or worked out. I felt like I could never tell anyone because they would think I was crazy for doing what I was doing.  It turns out we are all crazy.  I feel a lot of relief that I was not alone in my battle with food but I feel more sadness that so many women I know felt the same.  They hated themselves enough to starve themselves, I know because that is what I did.  I hated myself for eating.  I would have severe eating regret for days, I would internalize my hatred for myself and for food and on days when I had eaten nothing praise myself for accomplishing a great task.  I was not alone in doing this.  I do not know why so many women starve themselves to look thin, but I do know that too many of us do and we need to stop.   In fact one of my girlfriends has several male friends who starve themselves too, we must all try to be healthy and get away from abusing our bodies. Next time you look at someone you think is thin and you manifest the thought that you are fat, remember that woman is thinking the same thing about someone else, we all have to stop seeing ourselves as fat.

"Who wants to recover? It took me years to get that tiny. I wasn’t sick; I was strong."
 Laurie Halse Anderson

(Here she is again a plus size model)

3) Control.  At times when I was losing the battle to my eating disorder my life was at it's most out of control moments.  These were moments when I was in a terrible abusive relationship, or moving due to family illness, or stuck in a job that made me unhappy.  Moments where I felt I had no control over my life or what was happening to me I starved myself the worst.  At least I felt I could control that.  This may sound really crazy to those of you who have never had this sensation, but it is a feeling of control when you can control your body all day not to eat.  When everything else is complete chaos there is a sweet relief to having accomplished this.  Thankfully this past year running has replaced this need to accomplish something that I control when everything else goes side ways.  Also, self improvement classes have taught me to let go of aspects in life and go with the flow, and this has helped me a lot.  Focusing this kind of energy on starving yourself is not an accomplishment, it is a disorder that you can only see clearly when you are focused on
being healthy.

Up to 24 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder) in the U.S.
• Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
 91% of women surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting. 22% dieted “often” or “always.”
• 86% report onset of eating disorder by age 20; 43% report onset between ages of 16 and 20.
• Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents.
• 95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25.
• 25% of college-aged women engage in bingeing and purging as a weight-management technique.
• The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate associated with all causes of death for females 15-24 years old.

(Now I am healthy, I eat and I run.  I don't beat myself up for eating but everyday is a struggle to know that healthy weight is beautiful) .

I hope that in my sharing my struggle and the three realities I have discovered that you will realize you are not alone.  Body image can be a terribly detrimental factor in healthy living.  I did not get into mass media here because that would make this post far too long but we need to embrace being healthy.  Running has really helped bring me out of the darkness.  Good friends and women sharing their own struggles has made me realize that women of all sizes feel the way I do.  I am not alone.  We are all beautiful.  Thank you for reading.