A while back I published a post in which I gave a name to the illness I had been battling for some time. To be honest it was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. See we live in a society in which admitting something about ourselves which might be perceived as negative is a huge no go. At the time, what people didn’t understand what was that I did it for my own survival as much as attempting to motivate others towards honesty. That proclamation, on such a public forum meant that I was able to spread the accountability towards my recovery out to others also. I was finally admitting that I needed help and support and took that step towards actually letting my loved ones in for the first time.
People now often ask me about my recovery. As uncomfortable as it is, I welcome the questions because it means that we’ve taken some of the taboo out of speaking openly about eating disorders and mental health in general. In having these conversations I notice how people tend to realise things about their own thinking. They begin to understand that constantly focusing on how a woman looks, commenting on her appearance and glorifying ‘thinness’ is enabling a collective disease which is ravaging all of us.
The other thing that has come out of my declaration has been the ability to speak to people openly about the need to preserve our mental health and normalising the concept of seeing a psychologist. For my part I try not to shy away from this during everyday life and I hope that people find comfort and seek help based on the example I and many others are attempting to set.
What I have realised most of all is that no matter how uncomfortable it makes me, how much it hurts to look in the mirror each day or how hard it is to for me to eat normally and well, I must do this. For myself yes, but also for those who are struggling around me. I have to live out the example no matter how difficult it is.
There are days when I wake in the morning and my mind reverts to the thoughts around control that plagued me at the height of my illness. Every time I go the shops, try something on and it doesn’t fit right I find myself slipping down that slope again. It’s difficult to explain the guilt that comes with enjoying food because women for so long have been told that sacrifice is the key to life. We’ve been misled to believe that the smaller we are the more we will be valued. But this is simply untrue.
It breaks my heart at times to look around and see educated, strong women diminishing themselves down to measurement of their lives based on a number on a scale. I want to scream at them that this is a useless point of comparison, that they are so loved and that what they have to offer the world is beyond this. I want to hug them and tell them that it’s hard, that it will always be hard but that risking their life for the purpose of simply being skinny is not worth it. I want to admit to them that as much as I speak openly of my disease I continue to struggle with it each and every day. That I slip up and hate myself, but that I get up and try again the next day.
I want to tell them that they are not alone but that in order to live a life worthy of their best selves they have to fight. I need to tell them that I know it’s hard and that society will continue to tell them that they looked better before all the while not understanding the depths of illness that drove that appearance. See what matters the most is how we view ourselves. It’s how we love and accept ourselves; not based on our appearance or whether or not we fit into an impossible mould.
The truth is, recovery is hard. It slips up each time someone tells us that we’ve put on weight and asks what we’ve been eating lately. It wanes every time someone asks us when the last time we got to the gym was. It’s threatened again and again when people comment on how good we looked before and ask us what happened since.
What people don’t understand is that their words matter. But in truth we can never change this. I cannot control what others choose to say to me. All I can do is continue to speak openly about my own battle, call people out when they promote toxic rhetoric about women’s appearances and remind them that recovery is a journey and that our bodies will change because of it.
At the end of the day I value my existence and have hope for the future beyond what the scales below me read. I truly hope that my commitment acts as an example for those out there struggling alongside me. I want them to know that I waver too but that I keep going because I believe I am worthy of more than the disease that once controlled me.
Sx
I blog for Change. 