It seems like for as long as I can recall, I've always had this albatross around my neck. the specter of issues with weight has been my constant companion through every stage of my life since the age of 10. I'm not sure when i started developing those issues, but i have a pretty good guess. at any rate, the source of the weight issues aren't relevant. what matters more is figuring out how to move beyond it.
I remember weighing myself when I was in 6th grade. Until that time, I had always been slender and underweight for my age. My identity was wrapped up in being the scrawny one in a group. I weighed myself something during the 6th grade and realized I was slowly approaching the 60 pound weight mark. I was horrified at such a large number, but after reading some teen magazines, I realized I was still underweight, much to my relief. In seventh grade, I approached the 70 pound mark, and again, I viewed this weight gain with much trepidation. The very idea of weight 70 pounds boggled my mind. I pretty much started starving myself on and off at that point to maintain a weight in the 70's...After awhile, I realized it was a losing battle because I was also hitting a growth spurt. I tried to rationalize it and reassure myself that with my height gain, my weight was still proportional to my size. It seemed to make a strange mathematical sense to me that my weight should be a multiple of 10 of whatever grade I was in. This rationale consoled me for a few years while my grades were in the single digits.
However, by the time I hit 10th grade and actually did see a three digit number on the scale, I was determined to do whatever it took not to be any fatter. I starved myself, took diet pills, worked out like a mad woman...anything I could do to keep the weight off. To the outside world, I was a normal narcissistic teenager who was possibly too preoccupied with my weight, but no abnormally so. I managed to fight off concerns and questions about my weight for a few years, or so I thought. Sometime prior to entering college, some friends approached me because I was really gaunt and unhealthy looking. Their concerns seemed unfounded to me because while the numbers sounded alarming to others, I knew what I looked like under my clothes it was a repulsive sight.
One day, I was at Taco Bell with some friends. I was never really interested in fast food, but I wanted to be like a normal teenager. I ordered a single bean burrito and tried to eat it while my friends ate 4 times as much as me. After eating about two or three bites, I thought about the act of eating. I imagined that I looked like a cow with my jaws masticating the disgusting food. As the food went down, I felt my stomach lurch at the idea of food sitting in my stomach. I barely made it to the bathroom before I projectile vomited the contents of my stomach into the toilet. That was the beginning of a bad summer for me. I realized that I could stave off the concerns of my family and friends as long as they saw me eating. Thus, I began a summer of eating small portions of fat free foods and then throwing up when no one was around. By the time summer ended, I was 5'7" and 107 pounds. My mother was in India that summer, burying her father and settling his affairs. She came back, took one look at me and started crying because she hadn't been there to take care of me too. I felt a deep seated shame for my selfish obsessions and willful obliviousness to the concerns of others.
It took a few more months, but I slowly came around to a healthier approach to food. The biggest intervening factor was my new residence. My new home was in New York City, a location where your senses are bombarded on a constant basis. I learned to love food while living there. You can't live in New York City and love it without loving the food. So I explored the city with my stomach and taste buds leading the way.
Thus began the beginning of the end of a ten year struggle with weight. By the time I turned 20, I was nearing 125 pounds. Although I still felt like a heifer, nothing was going to intervene in my love affair with food. It didn't seem worth it to be skinny and miserable when there was a wondrous world out there to be tasted and savored. From the outside, I might have even appeared "recovered." I ate often and with blatant enthusiasm.
However, that feeling of repulsing others with my behemoth size never went away. I'm a few pounds over what the experts say is healthy, but I'm many, many pounds away from where I want to be. It's come to the point that I hate being in pictures because there is no way for me to shrink myself. The struggle of dressing myself is a chore I dread every day. If there was a way to shower with my eyes closed, I would. There is no limit to the things I would do if it meant I didn't have to see myself as I look now. The crazy thing is that I can finally see myself accurately for the first time and when I do, I'm constantly surprised by how I now look the way I always thought I did when I was at my lowest weights.
I no longer suffer from body dysmorphia, but it's not really a consolation. I'm 30 now and my outlook on my life hasn't changed. I'm reverting back to hating myself because I cannot accept how fat I feel. It's not really about the reflection in the mirror as it is about how I feel about the person staring back at me. There's no magic pill, prayer, meditation, self-affirmation or anything else I haven't tried to just accept myself as I am, regardless of the size of my clothes or the number on the scale.
When I think about having children in the future, I can't help but hope not to have a daughter. I feel anxious because I would never want a daughter of mine to go through these self-image and self-worth issues. I want to tell my non-existent daughter that she is beautiful just the way she is and that her self-worth is a result of her amazing personality, not the size 0 jeans or double digit weight. How do I explain to her that it's ok to love yourself for who she is when I cannot do the same? How do I do this when the very idea of getting pregnant and gain the subsequent weight terrifies me beyond belief? I want my non-existent daughter to stand proud without worrying about holding in her stomach for pictures. But in order to pass down any such lessons and instill a sense of confidence based on inner beauty, I have to start walking that walk.
After wasting 2/3 of my life on inane concerns about self-image, I'm ready to take that step. I just need someone to point me in the right direction.
