Body Dysmorphia: How do you see yourself?

I was well into my anorexia before I realized the way in which I saw and gauged the size of my own body differed from the way it was percieved by others. This revelation occurred when, after I'd lost 40 lbs, my mother, who had always been much smaller than me, handed me a pair of her pants to try on. It didn't make sense in my brain. How could I come even close to wearing the size that she wore? I had never been that size. Sure, I had lost weight and I knew that, but as far as I was concerned, I was still fat. I tried the pants on anyway, mostly to quieten her. Not only did I fit into the pants, they were so large on my body that they nearly fell to the ground even after I'd buttoned them. I couldn't believe it. I stood there in her bedroom, between the window and the ironing board, holding the waistband of my mother's tiny pants to keep them from falling off of me. I had never been so small in my entire life, according to the pants and every person who had ever known me. So why did I still see the same chubby, hopeless, miserable figure staring back at me from inside the mirror?

I had heard as a young girl that those individuals suffering from anorexia nervosa believed themselves to be fat when in reality they were frighteningly thin. My mother explained this to me when we saw the daughter of a local restaurant owner out at the department store. She was, at that point, the thinnest person I had ever seen, not to mention the skinniest person (apart from the cancer patients) in our very small, southern town. Her knee caps were the widest part of her body. Her cheekbones were sunken in as though she was sucking air. She seemed so fragile, probably 20 years old at best, though she walked across the parking lot with the gait of an 80 year old woman. All I remembered thinking was,
"How could she ever think she was fat?" 10 years later, people were asking the same question about me. I still don't have the answer.

Although I have made great progress in my recovery from anorexia and bulimia, I still have hang ups. Body dysmorphia is one of the biggest issues I still face. Here is the definition of Body dysmorphia as defined by the Mayo Clinic's website:

"Body dysmorphic disorder is a type of chronic mental illness in which you can't stop thinking about a flaw with your appearance — a flaw that is either minor or imagined. But to you, your appearance seems so shameful that you don't want to be seen by anyone. Body dysmorphic disorder has sometimes been called 'imagined ugliness.'"

I know that I've gained weight since I entered recovery, but it's very hard for me to understand that people on the street see me as, well, "normal." I assume that people think I'm chubby, or thick, or even downright fat. The reason is because that is how I see myself. When I look in the mirror, I see wide thighs, curvy hips, a stomach that isn't as flat as it could be. But it's more than what I see. It is so largely dependent upon how I feel. It is so very difficult to explain to people how it feels to be uncomfortable and restless inside your own body. I know many people argue "fat is not a feeling." I disagree. I have felt fat. I feel fat. I'm not saying it to gain attention or sympathy or even understanding. I'm saying it because that's the only way to explain how I feel.


I feel fat.
I feel like I'm too large to go out in public.
I feel like I'm too large to be seen.
I feel like people would say, "Damn, she's heavy."
I feel as though my pants are unusually tight.
I feel as though I don't belong.
I feel like I'm unworthy.
I feel as though I wish people would look the other way.
I feel like I should blend into the crowd and disappear.

So maybe fat is not a feeling, but the feeling that fat causes me to feel is uncomfortable. It's frustrating. And it's so very real.

The feeling, that is.

Sometimes I'll catch a glimpse of my body in a public place, where there are other bodies nearby to compare mine to, and I won't recognize myself. In the gym where I work out, my favorite elliptical machine is located across from a wall of floor-length windows. It is in a row with dozens of other machines which are always occupied. Sometimes, in the middle of my workout, I'll turn my head to the side to wipe my forehead with the back of my hand or brush my hair out of my face and accidentally see myself in the mirror, working out there beside all the others, and I'm taken aback by how I look. For that split second I don't look fat at all. I see my familiar brown hair, but then I'll see strangely sharp cheekbones, a bony nose, an unexpectedly slim waist. And the big kicker, normal thighs. It looks familiar, only not. It looks like me, only not. But it's only seconds before the confusion fades. I look down at my thighs, working and pumping in a circular pattern, and feel ashamed of how fat they look.

How fat they look.

I have realized that I am not very self-aware at all, even though I've always thought I was. I realize that I have no idea how I appear to others, what my body looks like charging around out there in the real world, how I'm viewed or judged or criticized-- or ignored. I only know how I see myself. I only know how irrational I am, how unfair I am, how unforgiving and appallingly self-scrutinizing I am.

I also know that I deserve better.

But how do we learn to take a step back and see ourselves as we really are? To see what I see sometimes in the mirror at the gym, or in a storefront window-- the self that somehow escapes me. Unfortunately, I don't have the answer to that either. But I do know this:

I am beautiful, whether I believe it or not.
I am worthy, whether I believe it or not.
I am important, whether I believe it or not.
I am good enough, whether I believe it or not.

The hard part is believing.
Isn't that what this is all about?
Learning to love myself unconditionally?

I guess I still have a lot of work to do.

Here's to believing.

Life after bulimia

I am at a point in my recovery where I have no problem talking about my eating disorder to most people. There are still members of my family who pretend my eating disorder never happened. Within the context of my family, it's a taboo subject that no one wants to acknowledge. I'm not sure if it's because acknowledging makes it real and they want to project the illusion that our family is perfect, or if it's just that they've never been able to understand the seriousness of it all.

Regardless, for the most part, I am open to talking about my anorexia. I am obviously open to writing about it. I am (God willing) teaching a 50-minute lecture about anorexia in poetry in December at the graduate school I attend in Los Angeles. I'm not scared for people to know I was anorexic. I don't mind talking about it. I want to create awareness. I want to admit that though my eating disorder is something I still struggle with, I've made progress and progress is possible.

But I've realized that my bulimia, well, that's an issue I'm not so comfortable opening up about. But why? Bulimia is just as serious as anorexia. It's just as frightening. It's just as devastating and damaging. I think the reason I have trouble owning up to my bulimia is that anorexics tend to think of bulimics as weak. Starving oneself becomes an act of skill and restraint, so binging and purging represent those instances of corporeality that the anorexic tries to suppress. If the anorexic wants control, bulimia is the loss of that control. At least, that's how it goes with my own experience. Certainly I no longer feel this way. I know that both anorexic and bulimic behavior is dangerous, deadly, and weak. Neither behavior signals strength. There is only strength in recovery, and I have recovered (and am still recovering) from both.

So why can't I talk about bulimia?

Why do I try so hard to forget?

Is it the physical act? Because it's so gross? Who wants to hear about vomit?

It's so much more than that. I'm not going to pretend that society understands eating disorders because I know that society does not. But even within the context of society, anorexia is typically glamorized whether directly or indirectly. Thinness prevails. It is to be aspired to. People make fun of bulimia, in my experience, far more so than anorexia. It's thrown around as an insult like it's something stupid, vapid girls do. I guess it's just harder for people to see bulimia as a legitimate eating disorder. It's about more than just throwing up after you've eaten. When I was bulimic, not throwing up after a meal was not an option. I had to throw up. I had no choice in the matter. I was throwing up 7 or 8 times a day when I was at my sickest. By that time, it was almost purely a physical reaction. I threw up without thinking about it. It's something my body learned to expect. It's like getting an itch and automatically reaching to scratch it without being fully cognizant of the action.

Only now can I see how horrifying it is.

How dangerous.

How could I have ever done that to myself?

Starving myself was bad enough. But then to give my body the food it needed so much only to take it away again? How badly I've mistreated myself. Maybe that's why I can't talk about my bulimia--because I'm ashamed.

I try to forget all of the time I spent bulimic. That entire segment of my life was chaotic and miserable. Part of not wanting to talk about being bulimic is inevitably my way of not wanting to remember those painful moments in my past. That was my rock bottom.

My God.

Whenever I feel like relapsing I think of those moments spent in agony crying on the bathroom floor. Sick from puking. Sick from laxatives. I remember the time I took NyQuil on an empty stomach because I felt so guilty and so ashamed of myself that I just wanted to sleep. I didn't care if I woke up again. I hadn't eaten in days. My body couldn't handle the medicine. I was falling asleep and throwing up at the same time. My mother found me passed out on the bathroom floor.

It seems like a dream.

It wasn't.

I feel so guilty for even remembering it.

That was four years ago. How did I ever make it back from that dark place? When I think that recovery is impossible I remember how far I have come.

I always tell people that there is most certainly life after anorexia. But that's only half of my story.

There is life after bulimia too.

Dizzy, dizzy

Today wasn't the best of days. I've been terribly sick and I can't even begin to explain why. I wrote a post a while ago about how incredibly dizzy I've been lately. It's more than feeling light-headed. It's completely incapacitating. It went away slightly but has come back full force. I went to a nurse practitioner a few weeks ago and she told me it was a sinus infection. I took the medicine she gave me to no real avail. Sometimes I hear noises that sound like the ocean inside my ear. My mother thinks it's because there's fluid in my ear. She spoke with my doctor (whom she works for) and they seem to think it could be something more serious like diabetes. Yeah, that diabetes. Years ago when my anorexia and bulimia were both wildly out of control, the same doctor gave me a pamphlet about the connection between eating disorders and diabetes. I guess there's a correlation. And I guess it was her way of warning me, but what was done was done. I guess it makes sense-- you go from eating nothing to eating a lot, then throwing it up and eating some more. It has to totally mess with blood sugar levels. It must disorient everything. This is another shining example of the bad things I've done to my body in the name of anorexia and bulimia. I hope that isn't what's going on, but I have noticed that the dizziness becomes most unbearable about an hour to an hour and a half after I have eaten. At that point, there's nothing else I can do besides lie down and close my eyes. I've also noticed a numbness in my toes and fingers. A week or two ago, my toe was numb for over 36 hours. It freaked me out. Talking about this is freaking me out even more. I initially thought it had something to do with a vitamin deficiency because I'm vegan and a very picky vegan at that. I don't know anymore.

I guess the only solution is to see a doctor, but I don't have medical insurance and I still haven't found a job. The last thing I can afford right now is another bill to pay. I could drive to my usual doctor back home but that's 9 hours away. They would see me at a discounted rate, but it still costs money to drive my car that far. Not to mention, I'm too dizzy to walk. I don't think I should be driving.

I think I'm going to try and get some sleep. I'm tired of speculating. It only stresses me out.


Okay, okay. I'm not getting worked up about this.

Tomorrow is a brand new day.

I'll feel better tomorrow.