I Struggle With My Body Image
I wrote this story about 5 years ago for a class. It sums my story up well. If you are struggling right now, some of it may be triggering, just to warn you.
It seems as though everyone I talk to has some period in their past that they aren’t proud of, or when they rebelled against what they know was right. As a teenager, I was a pretty well behaved kid. I gave my parents minimal trouble and I basically always did well in school. I came from an upper middle class family and lived in one of the nicest parts of town. I never had any trouble making friends and I was always involved in activities around school. Most people probably thought that I had the perfect life. What I have learned since then, is that no one has ever lived a perfect life. Growing up I was always naturally thin, which wasn’t unusual since most children of my generation were often playing outside or in recreational sports. I had never given my body weight any thought until the first semester of 7th grade. I was standing in gym class with my friend, Brianna, when a bunch of girls started talking about their thighs. We put our knees together and looked at how much space there was between our thighs. Brianna had the most space, and some girls had no space at all. I had a little bit of space, but not nearly as much as some of the other girls. This was the first time in my life that I have ever given weight a thought and ever since then I have never stopped thinking about it. That year I worked a lot harder in gym, walked home a little faster than I usually would, and I never ate lunch. For some reason I became very aware of what I was eating and what other people were eating. I started saving my lunch money and rationalized that saving the money was much more practical than buying a lunch. No one really mentioned it since a lot of girls didn’t get lunch because they felt self conscious about eating around boys. The summer before the 8th grade I went clothes shopping with my mother and my sisters as we always did before a new school year. We walked into Old Navy and I grabbed armfuls of pants, all size 0 or 2, and rushed to the dressing room. The first pair I attempted to put on were a pair of khaki cargo pants, which had just become the latest style. They didn’t fit. My mom asked me to come out and show her the pants, but I refused. Then she threatened me by saying that if I didn’t show her the pants, she wouldn’t buy them for me. I reluctantly told my mom that the pants didn’t fit. She told me that it was fine and that she would grab me a 4. I was disgusted. When my mom came back the 4 fit me perfectly. How could I have allowed this to happen I thought to myself. It was clear to me that my weight was getting out of control. Throughout the 8th grade year I restricted my calories as much as I could. Instead of taking the bus home, I would lie to my dad and tell him that I was staying late and getting a ride home from a friend's parents, but really I would show up late because I was walking home. My weight obsession continued, but I never really completely stopped eating. I didn’t know much about fitness or nutrition, and I never had heard of anyone who didn’t eat and lost weight. In second semester 9th grade health class, we learned about Anorexia Nervosa. Most of the kids in the class just shrugged it off or napped as usual, but I listened intently. I thought that this whole "not eating" concept was intriguing. I had considered not eating, but I didn’t really know what would happen if I did. I thought that I was the only one who had even considered something such as this, and even though it was described as dangerous, a voice inside me was telling me that once I was back to a size 0 I could just start eating normally again and my life would be perfect. That night I logged onto America Online and ran a search on Anorexia. Most of the links were very boring and just went on and on about how dangerous it was. Of course, I ignored these sites. I didn’t want to know about how cure my disorder; I wanted to know how to lose the weight even faster. I was almost ready to give up when I came across a site called Blue Dragonfly. The site was called a "Pro-Ana" site, which I hadn't heard of before so I decided to check it out. This was the most shocking thing that I had ever seen. This site taught people how to starve themselves and lose weight. It had tips on how to not eat, what foods had "negative" calories, how to hide that you aren’t eating, excuses to use on your friends and family when they try to get you to eat, and there was even a chat room and a message board. I created a name on the site and started talking to dozens of girls with the same problems that I had. Only, instead of helping me get rid of my problem, they helped me make it worse. There were fad diets listed, journals of anorexic girls, and pictures of thin models. We called these pictures "thinspiration" and encouraged each other to keep notebooks full of these pictures so that whenever we had an urge to eat we could look at them. We could buy bracelets that would remind us not to eat. Everything was about control, and we encouraged each other not to let food control us. What we didn’t know, was that was exactly what were allowing. Suddenly the secret that I had been keeping for so long that had made me feel all-alone could come out. I would log onto the website every night after my parents went to bed and talk to all of my new friends. The girls were from all over the world, and after a couple of months, the membership grew from 40 people to over 300. I had become one of the regulars and became very close with some of the girls, who sometimes would even call me on the phone. Even though these girls had very little else in common with me, it felt good to talk out loud with a person about my secret. I would often partner up with people on the net and we would be fasting "accountability partners". I bought myself a scaled and would weight myself 10-15 times a day. I became very withdrawn from my friends at school, although my grades didn’t suffer because my desire for perfection spread from just my weight to every aspect of my life. I started stressing out if there was anything in my life that wasn’t completely perfect. I wanted to be in control of everything, and if I felt as though I wasn’t, I felt as though I was going to die. It wasn’t until the 10th grade that I got extremely thin. When you stop eating you get a thin layer of hair on your skin that looks like peach fuzz, and you are always cold. My temper was very short and I was always very fatigued. My parents sent me to a therapist but I never told her about Blue Dragonfly or the eating problems. When she would mention that I was not eating or the changes in my life, I would blame it on school or say that I was stressed about friends. I knew that I couldn’t tell anyone, because I was scared that they would try to make me eat. At the time, I couldn’t have imagined anything worse.
The Blue Dragonflies and I referred to anorexia as affectionately as "Ana", as though the disease were a person that we held in regard as our best friend and our worst enemy at the same time. None of us wanted to let Ana down. Because of this my entire life became a lie. People at school would ask me what was wrong, and I would tell them it was trouble at home. At home they would ask me what was wrong, and I would tell them it was trouble at school. I lied about missing meals during the school day, and at home it didn’t matter because everyone was so busy that we hardly ever sat down and had a meal as a family anymore, so I would just lie and say that I had already eaten. My friends surprisingly put up with my attitude this whole time
The summer before 10th grade my parents made me go to an "Eating Disorder Camp". It was like a Nazi Prison to me, they made you eat all the food that they gave you and you couldn’t go to the bathroom after you were done eating, because they feared you would make yourself purge. They wouldn’t let you exercise for long amounts of time, or even weight yourself. All the size tags were ripped out of our clothing, and we were given uniforms. It would drive me insane that I didn’t know what size uniform I was wearing. I stayed here for 2 weeks, but my parents buckled on the first visit that was permitted and let me leave. I promised I would eat, and I did for about a month afterward.
Since no one knew about Blue Dragonfly, I still logged on every night. I became more determined to keep the weight off and not let anyone make me gain. I convinced myself that all of these people were just jealous and wanted me to be fat so that they would feel better about themselves. I continued the behavior all of 10th grade year, only it became more difficult to hide. However at this point I was almost a professional at faking that was eating or lying about having eaten. I would only eat in the presence of my parents so that they thought that everything was normal. The lies continued to grow, and so did my relationships to the girls at Blue Dragonfly.
One afternoon in 10th grade my mother had come home from work a little bit early and we were watching Oprah on the couch. To my horror, the episode was on Pro-Anorexic sites on the Internet. Several sites were named, but luckily for me Blue Dragonfly wasn’t. I was horrified that my parents would find out, so now I had to be even more sneaky, always remembering to delete the history on the computer after I logged off at night. Soon after this, Pro-Anorexic sites started getting banned from the Internet. The webmasters of these sites had to become sneakier because mainstream web hosts such as Yahoo and Angel fire would no longer allow such sites to exist on their domains. However, Blue Dragonfly remains untouched to this day and is more popular than ever with over 1,000 members.
I wish that I could end this memoir happily stating that I have heroically overcome my eating disorder, but that wouldn’t be true. Although I have been doing better for about a year, I still cringe every time I eat and count every calorie. My parents have made a deal with me that if I keep my weight above 120 I can continue to go to college, but I will soon have to find my own strength to keep me from turning back. I know now how dangerous this disease is, and I have seen many of my close friends die. I know that it is "stupid" but for some reason it controlled me, and sometimes still controls me. Although I don’t think that I will ever sink so low as to starve myself again, I will never be able to say that I am healed. Much like an alcoholic, an anorexic can never truly say that they are free.
It seems as though everyone I talk to has some period in their past that they aren’t proud of, or when they rebelled against what they know was right. As a teenager, I was a pretty well behaved kid. I gave my parents minimal trouble and I basically always did well in school. I came from an upper middle class family and lived in one of the nicest parts of town. I never had any trouble making friends and I was always involved in activities around school. Most people probably thought that I had the perfect life. What I have learned since then, is that no one has ever lived a perfect life. Growing up I was always naturally thin, which wasn’t unusual since most children of my generation were often playing outside or in recreational sports. I had never given my body weight any thought until the first semester of 7th grade. I was standing in gym class with my friend, Brianna, when a bunch of girls started talking about their thighs. We put our knees together and looked at how much space there was between our thighs. Brianna had the most space, and some girls had no space at all. I had a little bit of space, but not nearly as much as some of the other girls. This was the first time in my life that I have ever given weight a thought and ever since then I have never stopped thinking about it. That year I worked a lot harder in gym, walked home a little faster than I usually would, and I never ate lunch. For some reason I became very aware of what I was eating and what other people were eating. I started saving my lunch money and rationalized that saving the money was much more practical than buying a lunch. No one really mentioned it since a lot of girls didn’t get lunch because they felt self conscious about eating around boys. The summer before the 8th grade I went clothes shopping with my mother and my sisters as we always did before a new school year. We walked into Old Navy and I grabbed armfuls of pants, all size 0 or 2, and rushed to the dressing room. The first pair I attempted to put on were a pair of khaki cargo pants, which had just become the latest style. They didn’t fit. My mom asked me to come out and show her the pants, but I refused. Then she threatened me by saying that if I didn’t show her the pants, she wouldn’t buy them for me. I reluctantly told my mom that the pants didn’t fit. She told me that it was fine and that she would grab me a 4. I was disgusted. When my mom came back the 4 fit me perfectly. How could I have allowed this to happen I thought to myself. It was clear to me that my weight was getting out of control. Throughout the 8th grade year I restricted my calories as much as I could. Instead of taking the bus home, I would lie to my dad and tell him that I was staying late and getting a ride home from a friend's parents, but really I would show up late because I was walking home. My weight obsession continued, but I never really completely stopped eating. I didn’t know much about fitness or nutrition, and I never had heard of anyone who didn’t eat and lost weight. In second semester 9th grade health class, we learned about Anorexia Nervosa. Most of the kids in the class just shrugged it off or napped as usual, but I listened intently. I thought that this whole "not eating" concept was intriguing. I had considered not eating, but I didn’t really know what would happen if I did. I thought that I was the only one who had even considered something such as this, and even though it was described as dangerous, a voice inside me was telling me that once I was back to a size 0 I could just start eating normally again and my life would be perfect. That night I logged onto America Online and ran a search on Anorexia. Most of the links were very boring and just went on and on about how dangerous it was. Of course, I ignored these sites. I didn’t want to know about how cure my disorder; I wanted to know how to lose the weight even faster. I was almost ready to give up when I came across a site called Blue Dragonfly. The site was called a "Pro-Ana" site, which I hadn't heard of before so I decided to check it out. This was the most shocking thing that I had ever seen. This site taught people how to starve themselves and lose weight. It had tips on how to not eat, what foods had "negative" calories, how to hide that you aren’t eating, excuses to use on your friends and family when they try to get you to eat, and there was even a chat room and a message board. I created a name on the site and started talking to dozens of girls with the same problems that I had. Only, instead of helping me get rid of my problem, they helped me make it worse. There were fad diets listed, journals of anorexic girls, and pictures of thin models. We called these pictures "thinspiration" and encouraged each other to keep notebooks full of these pictures so that whenever we had an urge to eat we could look at them. We could buy bracelets that would remind us not to eat. Everything was about control, and we encouraged each other not to let food control us. What we didn’t know, was that was exactly what were allowing. Suddenly the secret that I had been keeping for so long that had made me feel all-alone could come out. I would log onto the website every night after my parents went to bed and talk to all of my new friends. The girls were from all over the world, and after a couple of months, the membership grew from 40 people to over 300. I had become one of the regulars and became very close with some of the girls, who sometimes would even call me on the phone. Even though these girls had very little else in common with me, it felt good to talk out loud with a person about my secret. I would often partner up with people on the net and we would be fasting "accountability partners". I bought myself a scaled and would weight myself 10-15 times a day. I became very withdrawn from my friends at school, although my grades didn’t suffer because my desire for perfection spread from just my weight to every aspect of my life. I started stressing out if there was anything in my life that wasn’t completely perfect. I wanted to be in control of everything, and if I felt as though I wasn’t, I felt as though I was going to die. It wasn’t until the 10th grade that I got extremely thin. When you stop eating you get a thin la
By:
CallipygianVenus
Age:
21-25
,
Female
