The Body Issues: My Story

Unravelling Stereotypes, Stigmas, and Unhealthy Relationships with Your Body

This post is one I've tried writing and have never been able to go through with for almost a year now. It gets deep, and personal, and shows a darker side to my life that I've only just begun to talk about with others. It's also one of the longest I've written, and while I thought of separating it into three different posts, the story is better told together and I've merely bolded the sections instead, so read it as you wish.

The current world pandemic is shedding light onto many dark places in our society including all of the injustices and stereotypes people of color have had to face, how precarious the economy is, how vulnerable the low-income classes are right now, and how many of those issues are tied together. Physical health, economic health, and mental health have all been severely threatened by the pandemic; though many issues were already present before all of this began.

I'm writing today about an issue very close to my heart dealing with both mental and physical health: eating disorders. I was inspired to try to write this post again by my friend Bel's recent blog about "What I gained aside from weight" where she talks about her own struggles.

Before I begin, I just want to stay how much compassion and love I have for anyone who is struggling right now. These are tough times and while the summer brings hope it is also bringing more fear and uncertainty as COVID cases continue to rise across the US. It can be even harder to deal with a mental or physical illness during these times, so if you're having a hard time please, please, please reach out to someone. Even if you believe your problems are not as important or valid as those mourned you, your wellbeing matters and once you can help yourself then you can help others.

I am not a professional healthcare worker, so all of my words are based on my own experiences. If you are also struggling with mental or physical health issues please reach out to a professional. The number for the National Eating Disorder Associations helpline is 1-800-931-2237 and there are many other helplines available for different mental health issues.

Eating disorders often stem from underlying mental issues whether it's anxiety, past traumas, feelings of unworthiness, and so on. Regardless of the cause, the outcome can be varied from some common disorders like bulimia (often binge eating and purging), binge-eating (large amounts of food consumption without control and feelings of guilt), anorexia (most commonly seen as intensive weight monitoring and severe calorie restriction), orthorexia (obsession with eating healthy and exercising to burn calories), or merely unhealthy thoughts and habits around relationships with food and your body.

Now that some of the logistics are out of the way, lets rewind a couple of years to where this first began for me.

Part One: Falling

It began junior year of high school. That lovely, volatile age where all the societal pressures seem to converge upon you at once and your growing teenage brain just doesn't know how to handle everything. Six different standardized tests in a year? Including the ACT that could determine what college you get into and thus the outcome of the rest of your life? (PS that statement is completely untrue no matter how often you hear it, you can still be successful even if you don't get into your dream college or even decide not to go to college). Besides school there's club actives, state meets and championships to be won, practice after school and on weekends. Extracurriculars like band and choir, constant practice to try to make it into All-State or first chair. Relationships with friends or trying to find romance, just think of all of the emotions you had when you were a teenager. Everything seems to be heightened, more important, and it can be overwhelming.

I didn't realize it until later but around the same time I began to develop an eating disorder was around the same time I started to deal with anxiety, neither of which I recognized as issues until much later on.

I was dealing with uncomfortable comparisons between myself and others, which only was worsened by social media and the unrealistic beauty standards our society sets for women (and men too, though not always as obviously). I always strove to be perfect. Top of the class, captain of different clubs, first chair for flute, writing my own play to direct at one-acts, and so on. Junior year I started to get better at running and started to blur the line between being on the JV and the Varsity team for cross country and track. I wanted to get better, to master another item. At the same time, I also wanted to look the part. Have what I considered the "perfect body", which I didn't believe I had. From past comments about my shape, my looks, what I should or should not wear, small things that kept building up...I felt like I needed to change how I looked. The internet offered many solutions, as did my own mind as I compared myself to those around me and tried to copy what I believed was what I should be doing.

That idea of aiming for perfection manifested summer between junior and senior year of high school as my goal to eat as healthy as I could combined with increasing exercise to train for cross country turned into a raging eating disorder where I was cutting carbs, sweets, and basically any extra calories that I could all while burning off as many as I could by running more than I ever had before.

It did not end well. I lost a lot of weight, but I never cared much about the numbers. It was the overall look. Flat stomach with abs, toned arms, curves, thats what I wanted. And while some aspects were improving, I wasn't getting to the point I wanted. Then there were the side effects from under eating: I was tired and cranky all the time, I wasn't sleeping well, overall was not super pleasant to be around, and those around me started to notice. I noticed too, when I found one of my other close friends was doing something similar, but on a much more drastic scale and was seriously hurting herself. I tried to snap out of it, and slowly started increasing my calorie intake as I rationed with myself that since I was exercising this much and burning "X amount of calories" I should be able to eat "X amount" and not gain any weight. That mindset continued for over a year where I obsessively tracked basically everything I ate, while consistently under eating a certain amount each day, and still avoided certain foods.

I made it onto the varsity cross country and track team senior year, and each time my mileage and activity levels increased I lost my period. My concerned mother brought me into the doctor for a 'check in' before college began since I had lost my period during each sport season, and then lost it again during the summer. I got scared and evasive, since I didn't believe I still had an eating disorder and claimed I only had lost my period since I was exercising more than usual, but otherwise I was fine. The doctor agreed, put me on some birth control, and that was that.

It was not just that. The birth control bought my period back, with some not great side-effects, so I stopped that after two or three months, and then lost my period again for an entire year. I wasn't tracking or cutting foods as much, but I was training for half-marathons and triathlons, was walking more to get to classes and around town, and I after almost two years of unhealthy eating habits, did not now how to properly fuel my body. But it was fine, right?

Part Two: Getting Back Up

The fall of my sophomore year of college, I was encouraged to see a physician again since loss of a period (amenorrhea) is often correlated to low bone density, which can be dangerous later on in life. As someone who's lactose intolerant and eats a plant-based diet (vegetarian, mostly vegan), my calcium input was pretty low, so I went to talk to a nutritionist on campus to get some advice. In the following months speaking with her and the nurse I had begun to see, I realized that I had been struggling with this underlying eating disorder for the last three+ years of my life. While the climax was certainly summer junior year of high school, for the years following then I had maintained an unhealthy relationship with food that fluctuated in an out from restricting calories intake, to obsessive counting, to using exercise as a tool to burn off foods, avoiding certain foods, and so on.

So I was put on a meal plan, told to reduce my exercise, and scheduled an appointment to get a bone density scan. Being told not to exercise as much while eating more than I'd ever had in a while was really rough for me. The part of my mind I consider the "Eating Disorder (ED) Voice" was screaming at me constantly. "You didn't work out! You don't deserve to eat this! Three cookies--really?! Don't put that it your body, it doesn't matter if it's on the meal plan! You're disgusting. You're fat. You're ugly. You're unworthy. No one likes you. You won't ever be loved. You're stupid. Why can't you just do this?" Each day was a battle between the part of me that loved to run for the joy of it, that uses running to relieve stress and just get back into my body and out of my head, with the part of me that wanted to heal and that tried to follow the recommendations of rest and backing off from working out while still eating more.

After I took the bone density scan it was revealed that some of the vertebrae in my back had such a low density that they were bordering osteoporosis level. I had just turned twenty.

The recovery process was rough, and honestly still ongoing. I'm in a better place now then I have been in a long time, but there's always going to be good days and bad days. It truly has been more of a mental battle more than anything else. In the fall when I recognized that I still had an underlying eating disorder it was hard to reconcile that I had let it persist for so long when I thought I had gotten better. "How are you doing this to yourself? You're the one who let it get that bad in the first place! This is all in your head-you, you are the one doing this." The ED voice still likes to pop in now and then and compare my eating and exercise habits to others or to my past self, feelings of unworthiness or bad body image days are definitely more triggers. I'm starting to recognize those triggers and feelings, and getting better at ignoring the ED voice and listen to my body instead.

Part Three: Moving Forward

I am working towards loving and accepting myself for who I am. I eat food to fuel my body, and because it tastes good. I've eaten things I haven't in so long like dressing, (vegan) cheese and crackers, and any dessert I want. I've stopped counting calories. I don't look at the amount of sugar on the package label. I run because I love it. I workout because it helps me relieve stress, because I feel stronger when I do it, and because it's fun. I move for fun. I'm learning to slow down and stretch and relax.

I have come a long way since high school, and I still have a long way to go, but I'm no longer scared of that journey. Some days I have to force myself to follow the meal plan. To not workout twice a day if I feel like I ate too much or feel bloated and bad about my body. To just pause and accept myself and body, even when I don't always love myself. It's a process.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope you've gained some insight through my story and please don't hesitate to reach out to me either through this webpage or my email at mklaverick@gmail.com if you want to talk. I'm hoping to write a future post with some advice about how I've been working through the recovery process for anyone struggling right now. Please send me your stories, advice, and whatever else you'd like to share--wether eating disorder related or not.

Love and light to all of you living in this crazy world right now.

-An Adventurous Aquarius