My Body And Me, We Are Less Than Friends
This post was made in response to a friend’s public revelation about her relationship with food. She asked for other people’s experiences, and this is mine.
Post is from 7th Jan 2012:
There is nothing attractive about my body. I am scarred, I have stretch marks, as it currently stands I’m fatter than I’ve ever been. I have never felt comfortable in my own skin but I used to be able to feel good about myself if I dressed up in nice clothes and did my hair and make-up.I felt presentable, like I might be attractive to other people even if I couldn’t see it. But even that’s gone now.
When I was little I was overweight, no two ways about it. I was tall with it making me a target for other kids at school as not being the norm does. But I think my major body issues probably began after I told my mother the kids at school were teasing me for being fat. She did what all mothers would do, told me to ignore it, went to the school and reported the bullying etc. But she also put me on a calorie restricted diet. It lasted about as long as hers did like every other diet I ended up on through primary school but I think it linked something in my head - things were bad in my life because I let myself be fat, not because other people were jack asses. I know she was trying to help, and likely had her own issues about weight - I’m the same dress size she was and she was 3 inches shorter than I am - and I don’t blame her. After all my weight wasn’t healthy when I was small.
I went through a short period in the summer after my GCSE’s when I lost a lot of weight (I was a size 14/16 the smallest I’d been since I hit puberty) where if I got dressed in nice clothes I almost felt sexy, as boys started paying attention in a way that wasn’t a joke for the first time in my life - my first kiss had been a boy trying to win a bet that he could pull the aggressive fat bird. My step-mum hated this of course, telling me I couldn’t go out looking like that and continuing the age old tradition of informing me my backside was the size of Wales. She always took great delight in telling me when she thought I’d put on weight and ensured I was aware how much bigger than her two girls I was. But hey, she didn’t like me and I can see she was transposing her own body issues on to me too.
In 6th form I was used as a method of making the other girls feel better. If they felt fat they would complain in front of me because they knew I would tell them that “Hey you aren’t as big as me” and they could feel better knowing that at least some one in their friendship group was fatter and uglier than them - didn’t help I managed to fall in with some of the skinniest prettiest girls in my year I suppose but that’s how it goes. Also though inadvertently ending up within this social circle the attention I got changed significantly. Briefly I had had a period where I was found sexy in my own merit. Now I had to find a niche. We had Model Pretty, we had the Quirky Geeky Girl, we had the Small Skinny One who doubled up with being The Not A Girly Girl. We also had a Curvy Loud Bubbly One, who also was the Slightly ‘Wilder’ One. Which left me as The Last Resort. One of the most depressing things you will ever have to go through is watching a guy come over and hit on, and be rejected by every single one of your friends before coming over and sullenly asking “So how about you then?”or probably the worst, over hearing “Na mate if the others won’t take you try her- the fat ones always put out”.
When I got to Uni I realised that people found me attracive. As in me not everyone else I knew “but she’ll do”. It boosted me somewhat but I realised that I didn’t feel as good as I had two years before. And the only difference I could find was my weight. So I stopped eating regularly. I dropped from two meals a day to one every three, and only then because people would feed me or because I felt dizzy and faint and realised it’d been three days since I last ate. It got so bad that I went from actively not eating in the first few months, to just forgetting what hunger felt like. I didn’t eat unless fed or faint because until one of these things happened I didn’t realise I hadn’t eaten or more accurately that I needed to. Occasional binge days would happen, where I’d be so hungry I would eat everything in sight, but for the most part I would eat one meal every two/three days. And the weight fell off and the attention seemed only to increase and I felt good. I now looking back realise that going out and drinking yourself into a stupor four/five days out of seven whilst not ever eating wasn’t feeling good it was having an entirely unhealthy relationship with my body and refusing to admit my parents split was having any effect on me but at the time I felt good.
Then I started seeing my SO, who bless him realised my eating habits were unhealthy before I did. It started off small - during weeks he knew I’d be too busy to eat he’d appear where ever I was with a sandwich or order me to take a break and come over, and when I did he’d cook me dinner. After a while we just started buying a weeks shop together as we ate together everyday anyway. and it took me a while to realise that I was eating. Daily. Sometimes more than once a day. And my relationship with food was better - I didn’t feel bad for eating a full meal and something for desert if hungry still, something I realised I hadn’t not felt for a long time.
Of course this lead to some weight gain, and I fretted over that but I attributed the panic to my crazies - that had suddenly emerged as an entity rather than me just being thick - rather than to body image issues as a seperate thing. Recently however I’m back on only one meal a day and only then because my SO makes me. If he didn’t feed me then I don’t think I would eat. I have days where I get around it and eat properly, but since midday yesterday (taking the past over 24hrs as a typical example of a day) I’ve eaten a sandwich, a biscuit and a cupcake. All because people were expecting me to eat. I can’t dress up to feel pretty as all my dressy up things don’t fit, don’t suit me or for some other reason are unsuitable.
In short I’m worried this will lead to me heading back down the road of less than two meals a week.
