All or None. Black or White. Fat or Thin?
One thing that has greatly affected many areas of my life, for much of my life, is my perception of my physical self.
Flashback to over twenty years ago: my pre-school graduation. This is my first memory of true disgust with my body. FOUR YEARS OLD.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was wearing a neon rainbow tie-dyed t-shirt underneath a pair of short-alls and some white "tennies" (cut me some slack, it was '91 ;). Graduation was held a popular and fun Mexican restaurant. After enjoying some chips and salsa, I got up and went to the restroom. Standing in the blue-painted stall, I was struggling to get my short-alls re-buttoned- and I distinctly remember thinking I'm too fat. I can't get these buttoned because I am too fat...
I spent the next 10 years with these thoughts in my head- because they were the truth. I was a very overweight little girl, and I knew it. It seemed that when the end of every school year rolled around, I would plead with myself to work hard and lose weight over the summer, so that when the next school year started, I would no longer be the "fat one" or the little girl who already had "boobies." It never happened; I only seemed to gain more weight than I should every year. By age 12, I was dancing on the fine line between "extremely overweight" and "obese." Imagine being a tween, and not being able to fit into the largest size of pants (at the time, only a 13) in the junior's section. Or the fact that you aren't even officially a teenager yet, and your stomach, thighs, arms, chest, ect. are already covered in stretch marks. Or that you can't move without jiggling. I'd spend so much time looking in the mirror, at my naked body, imaging what it would like without all of the fat rolls. Imaging myself thin and beautiful, and with only one chin. My heart ached with longing.
The pressure I felt in high school is what finally turned things around. It happened so fast; it seemed that I went from eating healthier and exercising to self-starvation and over exercising. The weight seemed to melt off; and in less than I year, I went from the overweight/obese line to the low healthy/underweight line. There was such a short period of time that I was at an actual healthy weight, that by now, my perception of myself was so warped, I didn't see anything in the mirror but Obese Em.
Over the next eight years, my weight stayed fairly low; usually slightly underweight, but often periods of low healthy, with only one period of time where I was emaciated. Very underweight.
Until now.
I don't know what happened. Severe stress and anxiety? Health problems? Admitted- my eating hadn't been great by any means, but it hadn't not too different than it's been over the past several years. Recently (as in, for the past 6 weeks), I have been making an extreme effort to be eating better. To force myself to eat- even when I'm emotional or anxious. I'm sick of the fucking eating disorder, and I feel much more powerful and self-aware.
But I only seem to keep losing. Or at least, for sure not gaining.
One of the hardest parts is dealing with what I see in the mirror. I've never seen myself as thin; underweight or slightly healthy, I would look in the mirror and see the obese, stretch mark covered 14 year old. Obese Em.
Now, when I look in the mirror, I find myself so... confused. Sometimes I will look in it- and I still see someone who is overweight, full of flaws, needing improvement and to lose weight everywhere, and of course, covered in stretch marks (not much that can be done about those). But more and more frequently... I look, and am absolutely horrified at what I see staring back at me.
An emaciated girl. Skeletal, fragile, every bone sticking out. Breakable. Sickly. Malnourished.
People reach to give me a hug, and I cringe, imagining what they must be thinking, being stabbed by my hip bones. Strangers stare, and I feel ashamed and embarrassed knowing what they must be thinking. Vuni (love of my life), pulls me into his lap, and I feel awful, knowing that my boney ass can't be comfortable.
The sick part of my mind somewhat relishes this; how relieving it is, to look in the mirror on a regular basis, and NOT see Obese Em staring back at me. How good it feels, to not expect a fun-house style reflection. How amazing, uplifting, SPECTACULAR it is to look in the mirror and realize that I am far, far away for the obese days. But... it keeps me in this place of fear- of gaining weight.
I don't want to lose. In many ways, my rational mind knows just how fucked up this is. None of my clothes fit, and I know that I don't look healthy. I feel embarrassed for poor Vuni and my parents, worried how they must feel, having this tiny, sickly person in their presence. The difficult part is that I feel like I have been making an effort to be healthy- like I said, I've been making tremendous efforts to eat. Get in plenty of vitamins and minerals, get my fiber, carbs, protein (a little difficult, as I've been a vegetarian since I was a child), ect. It feels like so much as it is... that moving past this, and bumping up my intake, is nothing short of terrifying.
But why?
I know that if I start gaining the much-needed weight, I won't instantly go from here to obese (or anywhere relatively near that). I just find myself so terrified of all the times that I looked in the mirror and saw the Obese Em. Because I obviously didn't stop seeing Obese Em when the weight melted off. I felt Obese Em, even when underweight, because no matter how dedicated I'd been to working out and toning, the stretch mark-covered flabby skin just doesn't disappear. I saw a lot of Obese Em last year; my weight was actually the highest it'd been since I was a senior in high school, but not for healthy reasons (alcohol...).
Not only is it a fear of seeing Obese Em that scares me, but also... I can't work out like I once was able to. I now have an ICD for my heart problems, so I am very, very limited in what I can do; motion-range wise, weight-limit lifting wise, and of course, how high I can get my heart rate... which isn't much. I can't even jog, if that is any sort of indicator. Nope. Fastest I can go is a quick walk. Let's also add the fact that complications from my most recent heart surgery (my new ICD is sitting on a nerve) has made it even harder; some days, just doing daily chores fatigues me, and my arm/back/neck/chest are just in too much pain for me to do very much.
So, in some ways, I feel I have valid reasons to be afraid. I'm afraid of the distortion and all of the thoughts and emotions; I'm afraid because to maintain, to stay healthy, I have to put in that much more effort and stay that much more consistent. I can't go for a run or bike ride and burn off a splurge. I can't not think about what I'm eating, without thinking about my activity level.
I don't know where this puts me. I don't want to starve myself. I don't want to chew and spit, or worse, purge. I want to be able to enjoy food, and I feel like these past few weeks, I truly am getting so much better. I'm eating breakfast every. single. day. I'm trying to listen to my body, eat, if even just something very small, when I'm hungry. If I'm craving a protein source over my go-to solution of fruit, I try to listen to that, and address it. I WANT to be healthy and whole, so that I can enjoy my life.
But I'm afraid of the next step. I'm afraid to make myself gain. And the next hurdle I face is getting over this fear :/
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