I know this isn't tumblr, but trigger warning: bulimia.
I thought I was always fat. Looking back, I didn't even start to get somewhat chubby until 6th or 7th grade. But I don't remember a time in my whole life that I didn't think of myself as fat. You see, my parents were obese, and they didn't want me to be. They had good intentions, but they didn't know how to eat right either. Instead, they made me feel guilty whenever I ate bad food. Which was hard because bad food was what was always around. From a very early age, I associated food with guilt. But I was already addicted to junk food and fast food. So I would eat in secret, disguise my guilt. But I also dieted. I spent a lot of time outside, trying to be the skinny kid I thought my parents wanted. I remember spending hours running up and down the stairs outside our house.
And thankfully, that's all it was at that time. I felt a lot of guilt about eating, but it only occasionally affected my life. (No need to get into the specifics of those!)
When I was 13, a lot of really hard things started happening in my life. I gained 25 lbs a year 8th grade, 9th grade, 10th grade, and 11th grade.
When I was in 8th grade, I was bullied a lot at school. My California attitude just did not fit in Kentucky. I lost all my good outlets - volleyball, girl scouts, friends to play outside with. I ate a lot because it was the only comfort I knew. But the guilt followed me. I don't think anyone at school even ever said much about my weight, but I had always been told I was fat by my parents. In my head, there was no way that the mistreatment at school was unrelated to my fatness. I skipped breakfast and avoided eating at school. (In fact, I had a friend at the time who insisted I was anorexic. I managed to joke about it enough to persuade him not to ever tell an adult. He brought it up daily, and somewhere deep down, I wished he would tell someone so that I could stop.) Because after school, I would come home, ravenous, to a usually empty house, and eat everything in sight.
After binging, there were only two options.
Binge - Guilt - Purge - Relief
or
Binge - Guilt - Resist purging - More guilt - Lots of crying
So while I fought it, it was also the only relief that I had available to me. I couldn't understand why I couldn't be a normal person, normal-sized, eating food in normal ways. I was smart enough to know that eating disorders - especially bulimia - don't even really help you lose weight. But the guilt was unavoidable, so why not give in to the relief?
I tried harder to eat less. I sometimes went 3 days without food. I remember one time that my headache was so bad from not eating for a couple days, that I begged my mom to stop for McDonalds. She bought me a happy meal, even though I was 13 or 14. She also told me I wasn't allowed to eat anything else that night (though I probably did anyway, in secret). I just remember it reinforced this idea in my head - people as fat as me don't even deserve to eat anymore.
And maybe someone out there is reading this, who has felt these feelings before or is feeling them now.
And I'm sorry because the only way I can really actually help is through a one-on-one conversation. Please feel free to message me sometime, anytime. It would be a great honor to me to help you on this.
But I know that my experience is not normal. Most people heal very, very slowly.
When I was 15, I was ready to die. (I've talked about this on the blog before, so I'm not going to go into it now.) In desperation, I cried out to Jesus, knowing that if He didn't answer, there was nothing worth having in this world. But He did answer. And after that night, I knew that I should never have to feel that guilt and shame again.
Though I did, it was never as strong. Only one time after that night, did I relapse. I was at a party, and I had been dieting well. But at the party, I ate a cupcake. I was frustrated with myself, and I went to her bathroom, and I just had to erase my mistake. So I flushed my mistake down the toilet. And I knew that that was worse. That what I was doing to my body was worse than eating a cupcake. That what I was doing to my mind was worse.
And since then, I still have the occasional urge to purge. My last one was about 6 months ago. But I thank God that this urge amounts to nothing more than "I can't believe I ate that. I wish I didn't. What if? No. Never again. No matter what. I love myself the way I am. My love for myself cannot be negated by one thousand cupcakes."
So, that was a long story, but not necessarily all I wanted to say about this.
Like I hinted at, I've been "on a diet" pretty much all of my life.
Only twice have I ever actually lost more than 10 lbs.
The first time was when I was a senior in high school. I lost 36 lbs. I bought a senior prom dress that was much smaller than my junior one. When I tried the dress on to show it off, someone told me, "that would look so good if you lost 10 more lbs/" That was the exact moment that my diet died. Because I realized that no one, especially not myself, would ever be satisfied. I could never be skinny enough, be pretty enough, no matter how many days I got up at 4 am and worked my butt off.
In fact, it wasn't until a year and a half ago, that I discovered a blogger named Laci Green. She talks a lot about how our society shames fat people and expects, even wants, them to hate themselves. "If I'm insecure, you should be at least as insecure as I am with that body!" It might sounds silly, but it's really true. I had experienced this my whole life. It was then that I realized that I could love my body, skinny or fat, ugly or pretty, pimply or clear-skinned.
And the truth is that you will never have a healthy body without a good body image. You might be skinny, at least for a time, but your mind is not healthy if you only love your body when it looks a certain way.
And that's why I know that this is the time I will lose weight, whether it takes a year or 10. Because I will never give up on my lovely body. I care too much about it. I will always try to eat healthy, but sometimes I will eat a cupcake. And I LOVE that cupcake. I do not feel the slightest bit of guilt about it, just excitement that I get to eat something delicious! And the power in the thought that tomorrow I can eat something healthier. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll slip up or maybe I'll make a conscious decision to indulge. Either way is okay. And if I hate myself for it, that's just a silly reason to hate myself! And it doesn't help anyone. And it's not worth it.
Since September, I have lost 36 lbs. (I know, again.) And it's like some sort of test because I have been wavering around that number for about 4 months now. Maybe I will work out and eat decently my whole life and never get to that minus 37. God knows I have much farther than that to go. But if it's a test to see how much I really love my body, I will pass. Because there is no guilt in the cupcake, but there is pride in every workout, every healthy decision, and every time I decide to spend energy instead of sitting around.
Just remember, loving your body when it is a certain way, is not loving your body at all.
You are so beautiful, inside and out. And I'm so proud of you!
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