My Escape from the Cult of Thinness

So I'm on this journey to loving my body and healing my relationship with food. What does that even mean?! It means showing up every day to love exactly who I am in this moment. I hate going on journeys like this because I just want it to be over already. I don't want to do the hard struggle-y parts because they are hard and struggle-y. I would like to be writing in the past tense and sharing all of the things that I have learned wrapped up in a nice little bow. I hate admitting that I still struggle with loving and accepting my body. My body acceptance has always come with an asterisks: I love and accept myself*! (*If I can feel my ribcage sticking out when I wake up in the morning/*If I can see my abs in the mirror/*If I weigh under however many pounds/*As long as I don't eat however many cookies.) As I'm learning to make peace with food and give myself permission to eat whatever I want, I can feel my body changing--getting a little squishier, looking a little fuller. (That's me writing in the least judgmental way possible. What my old judgy brain would say is, "OH NO YOU'RE GETTING FAT! PUNISH YOURSELF WITH DIET AND EXERCISE TIL YOU DON'T FEEL THIS WAY ANYMORE!") I've come a long way, but it's important for me to recognize and own my residual fears around gaining weight. As a technically thin person, I feel an extra layer of shame admitting what a huge fear this has been for me. Despite my body dysmorphia, I know that I have thin privilege and by being afraid to gain weight I'm reinforcing a narrative of fat-phobia that got me into this position to begin with. There's a huge cognitive dissonance--on the one hand I believe bodies are like trees, they are all beautiful and perfect and come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but on the other hand I don't think I'm worthy of love if my back skin ripples over the elastic band of my sports bra. "It's okay for everyone else to be whatever size they are, but not for me."

From an early age, I remember being afraid of eating certain foods and gaining weight. I saw my mom cycling on and off of the Atkins diet, Weight Watchers, and a number of other programs designed to control weight and size. She would never impose any dieting or restrictions on me or my brother, but I remember wishing she would. I was convinced there was some secret to eating and body management she wasn't letting me in on. I began to idealize dieting partially out of envy--why do you get to control your food and body and I don't?!

I was also jealous when my little brother got to go to a nutrition class at Children's Hospital because he was a little overweight. I couldn't help feeling like I should have been the one in that room. (I remember sitting in the lobby with my mom obsessively reading the nutrition pamphlets and selecting "Baked Lays" as a snack--not because I particularly wanted them, just because they had the lowest fat content of all the chips.) I wasn't technically overweight as a kid, but I always felt big. I was always the tallest girl in my class, so even though I was pretty proportional, I was physically larger than the other kids. One time I was a co-flower girl with my cousin who was my age but much smaller. We wore the same flower girl dress, but mine was 2x bigger than hers. I felt like we were a walking "Who wore it better?" and it definitely wasn't me. Even as an 8-year-old I was jealous of her body. I remember hating these pictures at the time, but now I think they're hilarious and adorable. (A few notes: 1. I still do that T-Rex move with my arms when I'm holding too many things, 2. I was never allowed to get glamour shots done at the mall but this second pose was definitely what they would have looked like, and 3. Whose job was it to teach me how to squat elegantly?! You're fired.)

I almost wished that I was overweight so that my desire to be smaller would be taken seriously and I'd be whipped into shape. I fantasized about eating nothing but cucumbers when I grew up. I found a diet book in the bathroom drawer that listed the calorie content of every food and included the ominous line, "You might not be able to tell the difference between a medium peach and a large peach, but your hips will." I ate this up. Not the food, but the message that food would make me fat and I should be afraid of my body getting bigger.

I was also in massive denial that any of my disordered thinking and eating could be the result of internalizing unrealistic beauty standards portrayed in the media--"No way! I'm an intelligent person! I know that the media portrays unrealistic images of beauty and thinness--they're not going to fool me!" But it turns out those ideals were so internalized that I mistook the disordered thoughts for my actual thoughts. Essentially, I was brainwashed by a patriarchal, fat-phobic society. The Handmaid's Tale is happening right now under our noses--we live in a world that tells women they need to be smaller. "If you take up less space, your life will get big and beautiful!" Whether it was conscious or subconscious, I bought into this lie. The diet mentality hijacked my brain space so I couldn't use it for thinking helpful thoughts, following creative impulses, and connecting with people; I was just using it for dumb stuff like micromanaging all of my food and exercise choices. (Sneaky patriarchy.) I was trapped by the idea that I could control my body--especially once I was able to do so "successfully." I felt productive by spending a hours working out everyday and rigidly tracking and eating a protein-filled diet because I was getting smaller. Not only was this unfulfilling after the initial weight-loss high, but it was also extremely addictive. Chasing the high of losing weight eventually devolved into an eating disorder. I became obsessed with controlling my food and my body instead of dealing with what was actually going on in my life--like uncomfortable feelings. (That was a wild realization, that my eating disorder wasn't really about the food at all! More on that later.) Essentially, I bought into a cult idealizing thinness and now I'm working towards deprogramming myself. (That's what you call it when you help someone get out of a cult! I'm obsessed with cults. Maybe this is why!)

The first step to deprogramming is self-love, self-compassion, and self-acceptance. And not just loving myself when I'm at a certain weight or size--loving all the versions of myself I have ever been and will become. I love the Katie who felt chubby in her flower-girl dress. I love the Katie who felt the need to lie about her weight on her drivers license. I love the Katie who thought she had it all figured out after losing 20 pounds and running a half-marathon. I love the Katie who didn't know how to be home alone without binge eating tortilla chips and ice cream. I love the Katie who was afraid of bread. I love the Katie who ate a delicious burger with a bun yesterday and didn't feel guilty about it. I love the Katie who ate some free donut hole samples at Gregory's Coffee today and felt a little guilty about it, but then caught herself being judgy and nipped the negative self-talk in the bud. I love the Katie I am right now and the Katie I will be tomorrow and the next day and the next day. We are worthy of radical self-love. It's not even all that radical, it's just what we deserve.