I often ask myself – “What the fuck am I doing?” There is this autopilot part of me that takes over when I don’t want to show up. It utilizes all of my old coping strategies, like the eating disorder. I’ve been struggling as of late.
I put on quite a bit of weight in this latest round of treatment and am so very far away from my old sick body. That doesn’t keep my eating disorder from wanting to get me back to that place, though. There have been a few days where food has been really fucking hard and my therapist suggested that I had “made the decision” to not eat. That got me really pissed. It was confronting and suggested I had made a bad decision. I felt a lot of shame and guilt about it. Am I a bad person for allowing Chuck to take the reins?
Unfortunately, what used to be a source of success and accomplishment isn’t fucking working anymore. It used to be that a week of eating less would result in a decrease on the scale. These days, a month or two months of that behavior yields no results! It is infuriating. Is this the point in recovery where we say that the eating disorder no longer serves us? Has my body completely revolted? This is a battle between the wisdom of my body and the recklessness of my mind.
If I’m honest, there has always been that power struggle. If I am a victim to my body then I fully give in to my “fat genes.” If I am a victim to Chuck, then I am giving up my life to the pursuit of being thin, but I have control. We are all victims of fatphobia. It is ingrained in the very fabric of our society from BMI (bullshit) in medical care to all the fucking diets claiming to be “the one” to fix our body problems. I used to hate the fact that in my after doctor’s appointment summaries, I was observed as being “well nourished.” I could have gone weeks without sufficient nutrition, but yet I was still seen as “well nourished.” As a people, we deserve better from our healthcare system. Eating disorders need to be part of regular screening. People in larger bodies need to be accepted and treated with respect. All bodies deserve to feel comfortable on airplanes, at movie theaters, and on massage tables.
Recently, I was seeing someone in a larger body. They were constantly talking about their pursuit of weight loss. While I understand this was an attempt to self deprecate and not be seen as complacent about their body size (as diet culture dictates), I cannot be around it. My recovery depends on surrounding myself with people who are not engaged in diet culture. But this is the conundrum. We all want to feel seen and loved. For some reason, a single person seeing and loving us in our lives doesn’t satisfy the need to be seen and loved by society, which diet culture promises. But, unless we are a straight, white, cis, fairly normal sized guy – SOCIETY WILL NEVER LOVE US! Yet we continue to try so fucking hard, ignoring the people right in front of us.
Why am I like this? I’m never going to be in the limelight. Even if I was, it is likely I wouldn’t be seen as my authentic self. Only this socially acceptable version would show up. For example, I am allowing myself one month to grow out my facial hair to see what it does. I had a dental appointment last week and considered shaving for it. In thinking through things, I realized I wanted to shave only to make others more comfortable with me. If my very being makes others uncomfortable, then the situation is not safe for me. I have often looked for external measures of safety, as I still don’t feel safe in my body. I didn’t shave though, and nobody commented. No one shamed me. It all worked out and I was able to keep a promise to myself, even though it felt uncomfortable. As much as I want to believe it to be true, attempting to assimilate and blend in by dieting will never be a safe thing to do.
The point of all of this is that we don’t have to be victims, to our circumstances. I’ve decided to reclaim “well-nourished” and am in pursuit of that in every way. Mentally, physically, emotionally. Societal gender norms, and body goals will never provide me with that. But me, the Well Nourished Daddy, and the people in my life, who truly see me, most certainly will.
