Near the beginning of my treatment, my therapist at Center for Change had me write down a list of EVERYTHING that I believed about food and my body. That was brutal. I knew as I was writing it that none of it was true, but it still was so true to me. I still believed all those things. This next post is about how those beliefs formulated.
Another time we went through my life story and talked about all the major events of my life so far, good and bad. I got emotional thinking about them because it helped me realize where my feelings of self doubt and deprecation came from.
I grew up doing ballet. Even when I was little I thought that my stomach shouldn’t stick out too far in my leotard and tights. I saw celebrities and heard about this magical thing called a “flat stomach” and thought nothing else was acceptable for me. So I started creating these false beliefs about what was beautiful. I was letting the world pigeon-hole what beauty is, leaving out all the other beautiful things that exist.
Some people in my life were just naturally built with smaller frames. My genes make me more...womanly. There is no getting around that! Even when I had my eating disorder, I still had what curves my body could hold on to. I compared my body to others. I felt like a black sheep in pictures with my older sisters because I was a couple sizes bigger. They never did anything to make me feel “fat.” It was all stuff I made up in my head. This is all stuff I assumed people thought. Something about Satan is he tries to make you create beliefs off of assumptions that are usually lies.
The factors above are pretty obvious as to what contributed to my eating disorder. But one of the biggest factors that contributed is a life event that is a little less obvious. When I was 14, my brother dealt with some major health issues. I felt very alone because my parents were gone most of the time, running him from doctor to doctor. I often came home from school to an empty house and went to bed to an empty one, too. It wasn’t my parents’ fault. I don’t hold a grudge at all. They really did their best to be there for me during those times. And it was just hard to see my brother and parents struggle.
Because of this trial I numbed myself and didn’t feel much sadness nor happiness. I sometimes made myself cry at sad events. I emotionally ate to cope. I didn’t exercise. I was very lethargic and gained weight and started to dislike my body immensely. This carried on to my freshman year of college. I developed depression, mostly because I was homesick and didn’t know who I was outside of high school. The numbness started to wear away, and it turned into complete sadness. I started to hate my body more, and emotionally eat more. I remember laying in bed all day because I felt like a whale. I remember not wanting to go to a party because I was bloated. I was a MESS. Moral of the story: I had issues that I didn’t cope with. I just buried them. BAD IDEA.
Fast forward to a few months into my mission. A couple times after meals with members I just felt SO FULL. I could not concentrate. I also emotionally ate when I was stressed. I remember eating an entire sleeve of saltine crackers after dinner and feeling so sick. At first I think I thought about eating healthily in a mentally healthy way too. I needed to eat healthy so that I could focus on serving the Lord. My goal was to just not eat when I was full so that I wouldn’t get sick. I wasn’t perfect at it. Totally ate a lot of that yummy yellow cake sitting on our counter once. But I got better. I started setting more goals, creating more restrictions. One dessert a day. Then two desserts per week. A whole month without desserts. Only two servings of carbs per day. My meals were getting smaller and smaller. Obviously, I lost weight. When I lost weight, it became something so gratifying. Because of the way we have been conditioned in the world, I felt like I had accomplished something so important and amazing. And so...that’s kinda how it became an obsession. It started with one little restriction and ended up being a massive list of restrictions that I wrote down, and now I want to find that list and burn it. INTUITIVE EATING IS THE WAY!!
I’ll tell you all about it in posts to come. Thanks for listening to me spill my heart out. Honestly, this is very therapeutic for me. My hope is that if you are struggling with eating or with your body, or if you know someone who is, then recovery is worth everything you have. I know you think that people are crazy that tell you you are worth something even if you aren’t skinny. But you are. You will feel happier finding worth in who you are, not a number on a scale.
McCall Darling, thank you so much for your painful honesty and sharing a very personal triumph. I too had a period in junior high of feeling so very badly coming home from school in the afternoon. I was being bullied by a girl who was two years ahead of me, and the constant threat of her waiting for me after school to "beat me up" made me ill on multiple levels. I would come home for an "after school snack" and gorge on my mama's home canned peaches and cottage cheese. We called the purge, seagulling (after the story of the Mormon crickets,) in the 70's. Even more damaging than purging was the shame that accompanied the behavior of misdirected self-loathing. Thank goodness for the healing power of the atonement with our afflictions. Intuitive eating is spiritual nourishment. Loves to you!
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