Life Lessons from Slimming World Poster Child.
Sometimes I worry that it is the most thing about me.
Sometimes I hope it is.
Eating disorders are funny because anyone who’s ever suffered from one will tell you that when they were at their “worst” they felt sublimely happy. That is, until they fainted or had a heart attack or became manically depressed. The reason for this romanticism is not because teenage girls necessarily enjoy starving themselves until they become unbearable to be around but because the world rewards this type of behaviour. I have such amazing self control that if I wanted to, I could simply not eat for several days. But that is not amazing self control, that is an insecure child wanting to feel sexy and in control. Don’t idealise me, please.
It began with me feeling a bit too big. When I was 11 I began to notice there was girls in my class who were smaller than me, funnier than me, prettier than me. I felt almost masculine in my demeanour, all clumsiness and. dark hair on my upper lip. I was one of the first in my class to get my period and I feel jealous when I hear stories about how happy some girls feel when it happens because they’ve finally “become a woman”. This was not the case for me. My period brought shame and depression and low self esteem that I now understand to be a hormone imbalance but at 11, it was gospel. These feelings felt like a universal truth; everyone knew what a disgusting failure was. My breasts were bigger than everyone else’s (in my mind at least), I had to shave my dreaded thighs which weren’t even close to having the coveted gap of the popular girls. I remember going to sleep at night wishing that I would wake up in the morning lighter, happier and of course, skinnier.
I often ask myself who would I be if I had not spent 7 years weighing myself at least twice a day and knowing exactly how many calories I’d eaten. The truth is, although I hate to admit it, I would probably be a much more achieved, popular and generally happy individual. The unending starvation broke something so instinctual inside me I wonder if it will ever be repaired, I doubt it. Men seem to be the only ones who can validate me because they were the ones who once called me “fat” and “like a man” and now they want to have sex with me. My once “butch lesbian” vibe has now blossomed in their minds into a quirky art girl they can smoke weed with and finger, and recall it when they’re married to a much “straighter” girl than I will ever be.
I talk about men when I talk about my eating disorder because that it was why I developed it. My father, my boyfriend(s), men in a general sense. All I ever wanted was to be beautiful and interesting and I wasn’t funny enough to get away with being attractive in that sense and God knows I was utterly useless at make up but what I did have, was my bones. My beautiful, fragile bones. As I became smaller, I became. more noticeable to men. Although now at the wise old age of 18 I realise that it was not my ribcage these men (I say men but what I mean is boys who wish they were men, just as I wish to be a woman but know I have not earned the right to call myself that yet) were attracted to, it was my newfound confidence.
The first time I ever fell in love, I gained five pounds which might not sound like a lot but since the age of 13 I had only lost weight. My communion dress is three sizes too big for me. Although he inevitably broke my heart he also loved me at the heaviest I had been in five years. An embarrassingly shocking revelation to me. I write about my experience of feeling sexy and skinny and whether they are the same not because I assume that every woman has felt this way but because I am scared that they have. And I will tell you this, fall in love when you are fat, when you feel fat at least. It is the most rewarding experience you will ever have. Fall in love when you feel too big and even better, fall in love with yourself. Of course no long term love is easy. My friends make jokes because I am the only one in the group who is sitting ordinary level maths for the leaving cert but I am still able to calculate how many calories I’ve eaten and burned with a scary precision. Loving yourself can be difficult because as with all love, the more you let yourself feel it, the more easily you can be hurt. I am genuinely offended these days when I look in the mirror and the little voice in my head tells me that I am taking up too much space. But the benefits outweigh this.
You will notice that throughout the piece I have mentioned very little about food and I have done this intentionally. It is not about food, trust me. I love food, I always have and that has never changed. I love going to restaurants or coffee and croissants in the morning or late night snacks with a good episode of “Orange is the New Black”. Loving food and (eventually) loving my body and realising that men would still want to have sex with me if I had three meals a day genuinely made me a more interesting , funnier, kinder person to be around. I remind myself of this as I am writing this piece because there is a danger of thinking trauma is the most worthwhile part of your identity. It is significant of course, that I suffered from this but there are many other interesting things about me.
As a hard line feminist I must remind the person reading this that diet culture was created to demean women and profit off of it. And already in my short life, men have taken so much from me, I will not let them take my body with all of its softness and it’s strength. They will not take this love that I worked so hard to keep away from me.
