This marks day number two of my body image meltdown. At this point in my recovery, I should know better than to entertain these thoughts, but it's getting harder to plug my ears to all the noise. I should note that as an educator, this is my second day back at work. More than likely, all of these feelings are related to all the junk accumulating in my brain--fears of inadequacy, imperfection, worthlessness, etc... I just hate that even after all of this time, I have moments like this, when loving my body is a struggle.
Here's the issue: I went back to work, and lo and behold, a female colleague has lost a shit-ton of weight. She didn't even need to lose weight, but she was getting married, and well, we know what brides tend to do. A friend of mine looked at her and called her "teeny." My emotion? Envy, emerald green, jade and evergreen envy. Bitch. SO not fair. Why does SHE get to be so tiny. Um...you can see where my brain went (on a mini-vacation to hell).
When I first saw her, I literally panicked. I glanced from her legs to mine and did the whole comparison thing. I noticed how "teeny" she looked in her dress, her lithe legs, the way her bones slightly showed--my god, I was a mess.
How does one recover from body image HELL? First, I had to acknowledge that somhow I was supplanting my feelings with a focus on the body. That's always where my eating disorder loves to go first and foremost. Anorexia needs me to feel insecure, needs me to feel slovenly and disgusting, so I will begin the endless restrictive cycle. I must recognize this happening, so I can slam on the brakes.
Second, I needed to reconnect with reality. Did this woman lose weight? Yes. Did she lose too much. Yes. Her weight loss has nothing to do with me. It is not an indicator of my beauty or worthiness. I had to get real. Moving my glance away from her, I peered at all of the other bodies around me. I looked at my friend, who is not teeny, but full-sized, and I noticed that her beauty was radiating. I love her just the way she is, and when I look at her, I only see the kindness, warmth, and humor that she possesses. Her size doesn't matter to me.
I continued my scan of the room and witnessed such a variety of shapes and sizes, some bigger than others, some smaller than others--each attractive in its own way. My anxieties settled. Yet, it still bothered me that my eyes are trained so acutely as to see only the smallest of women. It's as though the anorexia seeks out validation that I am no longer the smallest woman in the room, and quite frankly, that's probably the core issue.
Years of struggle taught me to believe that to be special, to be the best, to be worthy, I had to be the smallest. Being the smallest brought me pride and honor. It made me feel strong and in control. But I'm no longer clothed in anorexia. My body is the shape it was manufactured to be--smaller than some, bigger than others. The rub is that it's so fucking hard to relearn the way one perceives and interacts with the world. There are moments when I am strong and confident with my self and don't need anorexia's validation that I'm someone worthy of health. Yet, there are moments, like the last two days, that remind me of how strongly I yearn for my anorexic body--in these moments, I struggle to name the feelings. I'm left with envy, self-deprecation, and unrest. It's just much, much easier to focus all of my thoughts and energy on hating my body and feeling completely self-conscious. When I do that, I don't need to think about those other ugly feelings and figure them out. I don't need to confront or deal with anything. I self-medicate with the self-harm of an eating disorder.
What do I do next? For christ sakes, we work within feet of each other! To mend this glitch in the system, I need to continue sorting through the muck and figure out what I'm really feeling. I need to do self-care, like blogging, talking to friends, getting sleep, eating well and enough, laughing, etc... I need to remember all the wonderful things I have gained from losing the eating disorder. I need to forgive myself for not being "teeny." It's okay to let that go. It's okay just to be the size I was manufactured to be. It's okay.
Cheers!
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