Skinny rant

In the light of one of Tamara's recent post on skinny bitches and my response to a not so recent comment on my appearance as in "You look great. You look skinny now..."

I thought I had learned to stay immune to weight related comments. Although there haven’t been many of those comments lately, in the past my mood and well being were often determined by these very comments. Those who have known me for a while, were able to observe quite a few noticeable weight fluctuations over the course of the last ten years – first a gradual, then drastic decrease then similarly gradual, unavoidable and necessary increase as I finally and fully committed myself to recovery from eating disorder. Both the weight gain and subsequent other odd bodily changes that accompanied my recovery were a great source of frustration. However, I would often, out of instinct of self preservation and self assurance rebuff all negative comments about this noticeable weight gain with “Good, now I look human size.” And yet, it turns out that I’m not totally immune to body related comments, since this particular one, thrown at me weeks ago got me more than a little baffled to say the least. One of my acquaintances who hadn’t seen me for over a year, said, upon seeing me again in the beginning of June, with the casual “You look great” “So do you. You look different.” “Different how?” “Different like you’ve lost a lot of weight. You look skinny now…” The only thing I was able to come up in response was “So I was fat before?” – a comment that I had to force myself to suppress. But as it turns out, this little comment has been circling in my mind for quite a while now, perhaps longer than it should have, and here’s my attempt to write something coherent on an otherwise complicated and tangled mess that weight related issues once used to be.

In the past I would have gotten an immense satisfaction with such comment. I have to admit that for a fraction of a moment I still felt that satisfaction that in the past would get me going for days, substituting food, rest and everything else. Good, I’m skinny now, which means I’m accepted, pretty, desired, my reduced weight and shrunken size adding to my “worthiness.” Then a more uncomfortable feeling from the past crept in – “so I was fat before?” and the subsequent dismay at my “then” self, the fat one, to turn into a full blown loathing and malice towards her. Then, a newly acquired, out of the newly found instinct of self preservation I had to stop myself from going any further down the line of hatred and dismay and I had an urge to simply hug and hold the “then” self, protect her from this negativity, tell her that “it’s ok… you were no less important then, no less worthy then than you are now…” Looking at it with these new, loving eyes I was able to see that I was happy then, regardless of the slightly excess weight. For the first time in years my life was not controlled by weight related moods and insecurities. I was slowly starting to recover. I was getting better, stronger. I was happy. In the past the destructive “You were fat before” would deny and obliterate this feeling of happiness altogether, because I was fat – thus not worthy to be so obliviously happy. Now all I wanted to do was to shield that feeling of happiness, just like I would shield that past self from all the malice and negativity that could possibly come not only from the outside world, but from within as well…

The truth is, a year ago I wasn’t fat. Not medically speaking that is. In fact, I do not think that I was ever fat, in medical terms, again. Even at my heaviest, and that is when I got an eating disorder, I was still within a healthy BMI – closer to its highest rank at times, but there was nothing wrong with me, nothing alarming, not even remotely to be classified as obese, and certainly nothing requiring such drastic intervention as starving or throwing up all over myself. And yet, just like through the eyes of my insecurities I never thought I was good enough, through the skewed vision of eating disordered mind I was never skinny enough… Or pretty enough. Or worthy enough. Had I had the knowledge, understanding, acceptance and maturity of the present, I would have looked at my far from stick skinny body at the age of sixteen as a normal, natural state of affairs, necessary for further growth and development, instead of spending close to a decade hand in hand with an eating disorder that could have potentially ended up killing me. And even then, even at my skinniest and most desired double zero size, I was miserable, unhappy, insecure, depressed, sick not only mentally but physically as well.

I am not exactly sure when exactly and how I decided that I wanted to recover. Perhaps it was due to a series of very sad and unfortunate events that I was able to see how fucked up my entire life was, how distorted and inadequate my perceptions were, and how, if I continued the way I did, I would eventually extinguish myself and die. I suddenly realized that I no longer wanted or needed an eating disorder and a chaotic life. All I wanted was to be normal, and just like I said in one of my previous posts, by normal I first and foremost wanted to me a normally functioning human being. One that does not see food as a source of comfort, or fear or loathing or a way to release frustration and pain and anger, but only as basic, most primitive means to survival. Normal in a way that food is perceived not as pleasure or a means to soothe pain, but as essential nutrients that the body relies on to have its organs work and its processes carried out. Normal in terms of not having to pass out sporadically every now and then because of low blood sugar and slow heart rate. Normal in terms of perceiving hunger signals as the body’s way of saying that it’s time to refuel instead of panicking and freaking out. I remember reading a phrase somewhere (and i forgot where, thus the lack of proper credit to the source, for which I apologize) that expressed its author’s desire to get back to the time when she did not know what a calorie was, and I realized that that was what I wanted as well.

Early recovery was hard. It was tricky, challenging, physically painful, mentally demanding. Partly because I was unaware how great of a challenge I was facing. Partly because I did not know what to expect. Partly because despite the abundance of ED literature and resources both online and in print, I couldn’t find anything that would tell me what recovery felt like… and that is physically. Part of the challenge was the fact that early on during recovery one inevitably starts gaining weight. In many cases, especially with those affected by anorexia, this weight gain is vital for apparent reasons. In my case, since even at my frailest, I never fell below the lows of healthy BMI, this weight gain was perhaps one of the main sources of dismay, anguish and pain. For those affected by eating disorders, even an ounce of gained weight is an event that equals the end of the world. It certainly makes recovery more difficult. Resisting this weight gain gets one stuck in a vicious loop – you start eating normally, end up gaining weight, freak out, try to get rid of it by resorting to the only way you know how to control your weight and end up being back in square one. Reading some of the blogs by those who are trying to recover, this weight gain issue seems to be a common woe. The only advice that I can give to them, as someone who has actually recovered is this: STOP THINKING ABOUT. THE WEIGHT GAIN. Ignore it if you can. I know it is much harder to do than it sounds here, otherwise we wouldn’t be where we’re at, would we? However, if you can gather up all the effort you can find and overcome this hurdle, you will start getting better. Much quicker than you think it’ll take you. The longer you resist this weight gain, the longer it is going to take you to recover. Accept this weight gain as a necessary stage in your recovery, or even better, as a sign, a good sign that you’re starting to get better. There really is a reason for this weight gain. Without going into scientific detail, I would just say that your body is an intricate mechanism that doesn’t merely operate on energy in/energy out formula, as many blindly tend to believe. Your body works on complex self-regulating processes controlled by many different hormones, innate and acquired reflexes and what not else. Once out of its natural balance, it starts acting in most unexpected ways. In case of ED, your body has to constantly struggle to live on the bare minimum that you give it in terms of food every now and again. Of course that’s going to throw it off of its balance. Of course it’s going to go on survival mode. Of course you’re going to start gaining weight, once you start eating normally, even if all you eat is bare chicken breast and steamed veggies – your body will be holding on to its dear calories with its life, until it gets used to being regularly and adequately fed. However, once your body gets back to its balanced state, the excess weight that it has been holding on to so tightly for the fear of next famine, will slowly start to disappear. Trust me, it will happen. Until then, all you have to do is concentrate on eating healthy and balanced meals, something similar to what Tamara once posted here and here.

Back to the skinny comment– a year ago, I was still recovering. That’s when the friend saw me before we met up a few weeks ago. That’s what he was comparing the “skinny” me of a few weeks ago with. Hence the comment. The initial confusion described in the opening two paragraphs of this post aside, I have long stopped looking at myself in terms of skinny or fat. It no longer matters, now that I have recovered. I am neither skinny or fat. I am me. I’m normal. I’m healthy, I look healthy. I feel good and happy. Food is no longer a controlling factor in my life. It’s merely a necessity. Pleasant necessity that is. One other side affect or a bonus point of the recovery was that I stopped looking at food in terms of good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. Of course some of the food items out there should not be allowed to be sold to the public; hence I think that FDA is a useless institution that does not do its main job- protect the public. However, the reason I do not let myself get too carried away with the whole healthy eating thing is because a) I know how obsessive I can get, and switching one obsession with another merely defeats its purpose and b) the idea of recovery is not to learn to altogether shun all the unhealthy food, but is to learn to live with your choices, good ones and bad ones. The objective is that I don’t flip out every time I’m facing a slice of pizza. The objective is to be able to eat a donut and be ok with it. We live in a world of pizzas, and hamburgers and brownies and donuts – and although it’s always a choice between a slice of greasy pizza or lean turkey breast, I want to be ok when I choose the former instead of the latter every once in a while. I am finally at a point when these choices are no longer conscious efforts and struggles, but are intuitive, and balance each other out in the course of the time. And damnit, if I want a brownie, I am going to have one, without thinking about how many calories I will be consuming, or how I need to go for a run the next morning to make up for it.

I do enjoy running these days. Sometimes I wish I could run more regularly, or rather consistently, but I never allow the necessity to run to control my life or my schedule. Once a compulsive exerciser, I was well aware, that exercise abuse is just another aspect of what makes up eating disorders. I had to watch myself carefully not to fall down that pit yet again. At this point, almost like with everything else that I do these days, I run because I like it and not because I feel like I have to for the sake of staying thin or even for health reasons. Running feels good. It’s a challenge, and I like to challenge myself and test the limits of my reach, both mentally and physically. Some attribute this weight loss by the fact that I started running and that now I get more exercise that I used to back then. However, I think that the key is learning to balance, both my meals and my exercise, without falling into one extreme or another.

So there, perhaps a more lengthy response than I’d ever care to put effort to write, but perhaps some day someone will stumble upon this site and find this post helpful, somewhat encouraging. Reassuring. For now, after weeks of pondering and a four page confession, I am finally able to put the issue aside and shrug it off with a whatever.