Eating Disorder Awareness Week, February 24 – March 2
Last year my sister and I went to a live taping of a popular television show. As we shuffled in, waiting in lines and lines and lines and going through security, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Over a decade ago I’d been to a taping of another show that offered a lot of perks in exchange for our time and enthusiastic claps and laughs. I also looked very different. And already I was starting to feel insecure about what I was wearing and how my makeup looked.
We were shown to our seats, two at the end of the third row. What struck me was how little room there was. The chairs, though armless, were small as if designed for a dollhouse. There was no space in between the chairs either.
“Which seat do you prefer?” I asked my sister.
She usually likes to be on the aisle, so that’s what she pointed to. That left me to sit next to a not-so-welcoming stranger. Still, I smiled and said hello. And almost as soon as I sat down I apologized.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I felt my body’s size next to hers and thought, “Sorry for taking up space.” Sorry for my large body, for my legs touching hers, for being in her space. I tensed all of my muscles and held my breath to try to compact myself.
I’ve read Sonya Renee Taylor’s The Body Is Not an Apology and yet…
‘I FELT FAT’
My first thoughts were about my body, and how I felt fat. I felt fat for taking up space, fat for not having any clothes to wear as I got ready to drive out to the studio, fat for spilling over the chair.
The person next to me angled herself away, turning her back to me. Perhaps it was all in my head, but it felt like a clear signal that she was annoyed with me, my body, my presence.
While I did start to spiral into old thinking—about my body, about eating, about exercise—I was faster than I used to be at recognizing it, and faster at re-routing it.
Kind of like when you want to buy a white convertible and all of a sudden that’s all you see on the road (known as the reticular activating system). I used this same technique to remember all of the different types of bodies there are in the world. Then I started to look around. There were plenty of bodies that looked like mine all around us. Bodies that birthed children, that ran marathons, that drove grandparents to appointments, that hugged and danced and hiked. And I knew that berating myself would not change anything in that moment. It would only take away from this activity I was doing with my sister.
By seeing someone’s body, we can’t know what it’s like in their heads. The dancers we watched made everything look effortless, but we can’t know how they are impacted by diet culture, or what lengths they endure to look the way they look. Just as we can’t assume that if someone is in a larger body certain things must be true.
‘FEELING FAT IS NOT A FEELING’
I also remembered something key during my efforts in eating disorder recovery: that feeling fat is not a feeling.
Through a therapist I came to learn about the Feelings Wheel. Developed by Gloria Willcox, it’s a visual tool to help people identify emotions and to cope better. It might sound cheesy, but when I first looked at it, I felt a calming wave. It gave my brain something to do. And recognizing my true feelings placed them where they belonged, and then I could use self-regulating tools to calm down. What’s more—it de-emphasizes my body. My body isn’t the problem. It’s never been, even though I spent years thinking it was (even at my lowest adult weight).
So, while my first thought was that I felt fat, my second thought was, “No, I’m feeling sad. I’m feeling hurt. I’m feeling disappointed.” Then it just becomes a gentle inquiry. “Why am I feeling disappointed? Is it triggering past memories? Is that my emotion, is it true, or am I projecting?”
There are opportunities all around us, inviting us in to take a second look, to inquire a little deeper, and recognize the small wins.
There were countless times in my youth and 20s that I dismissed all the human range of emotions and distilled it down to “fat.” Someone rejected me? I felt fat. I ate too much? I felt fat. I was running late, stuck in traffic? I felt fat. It might seem silly to think of these connections, but for me, I felt everything wrong was the direct result of my body. In response, I’d starve or berate my body for it. Sometimes it manifested in criticizing how other women looked.
A GIFT OF GRACE
The recovery for someone who struggles with eating disorders and body image challenges isn’t a straight line. Sometimes we get triggered and it’s hard to recalibrate. But my hope is that we can continue to allow ourselves and others grace.
In reconnecting with my body, I realized, and continue to realize, that I can feel something emotionally (sad, worried), physically (bloated, full), mentally (stress, fatigue), spiritually (hopeless, disconnected) without it having anything to do about how “well” I was eating or exercising.
After the show was done taping, the crew started popping all of the balloons that fell from the ceiling in their grand finale. My sister wanted one of them before they popped.
“I’m sorry, it looks like they’re all gone.”
We got up to leave. And then one person walked over to my sister, balloon in hand, and gave it to her. I teared up at this gesture of kindness, of consideration, of joy. Instead of focusing on the balloons all around us, I was only focusing on the popped ones being swept into the garbage.
Instead of focusing on how I feel fat, I can choose to focus on all of the things my body does for me automatically. And there are a lot more functions (the heart! the digestion! the blinking!) than are instantly obvious.
There are opportunities all around us, inviting us in to take a second look, to inquire a little deeper, and recognize the small wins.
