A Little Trip Down Memory Hell (& Back)
Hello beautiful!
Keep in mind that this post is something I wrote specifically to be read in front of an amazing feminist writing club called Bleux Stockings Society and I was EXTREMELY nervous so I wrote this with lots of cues included in the writing: extra parentheses, commas, etc so that I would remember where to have certain pauses and inflection, ya know? So bear with me! I really want to share this with y'all because I'm hella proud of it and of the fact that I actually read it in front of a group of living breathing, human beings!
Enjoy, my friends!
Remember
I still remember the day I realized my body was no longer a vessel meant for playing on playgrounds, sprinting at full speed to all destinations, or pretending to be a lion with ear splitting “roars” reverberating through any establishment or home I may have been in- a place for my energy to become reality. I was smacked in the face by the realization that my body was here to be seen and was meant to look a certain way to draw attention. To be noticed.I was in middle school.
6th grade to be exact-FUCK MIDDLE SCHOOL.
Show of hands for who else hated middle school with a deep fiery passion.
Those 3 years of hell had me feeling like a front line soldier in the movie 300 (minus the chiseled abs and rugged beard). Avoiding arrows (nasty little twats in my grade who made fun of me for no reason- “brace face”- half of our class has braces, fuck you Brittany!), dodging spears (the turds who wouldn’t waste a single second of their day to acknowledge my existence), all while dragging around a massive, war torn protective shield (wearing the exact same hoodie every single day- whether it was 30 degrees outside or 100, because hiding my body was the number one priority. When making myself a shapeless grey blob of cotton with the words “St. Augustine, Florida” stamped across the chest was more ideal than showing the fact that I was a shapelessskin tone blob resembling the silhouette of a 2 x 4 piece of lumber) just trying to survive each miserable day.
I was looking around the middle school gym where we all had to congregate in the mornings before the first bell sent us to class and started to notice something very curious. I looked around and could see bra straps poking out of shirts, slyly showing from under tank tops, and thinking…holy shit everyone has a bra now? I looked down to see my tiny little body shaped much like the boy to the left of me- in absolutely no need of any support in the chest-al region. It’s like everyone grew boobs over night! Where did all these boobs come from??
Sidenote: I have one older brother, Paul, who was my best friend when we were little tater tots. We didn’t live in a neighborhood with lots of other kids and we went to school in a county about 30 minutes north of where we lived (because our mom was a teacher there) so none of our school friends lived close by either. We essentially just had each other and I pretty much emulated him until he got too cool to hang out with his baby sister- around when he went to middle school. (Totally understandable.) But when we were still little nuggets, we did everything together. Running around like wild beasts, making mud pies (that’s literally a pie dish filled with mud…), digging elaborate tunnels with spoons for the garden lizards we’d catch and have sprint through in a desperate attempt for freedom (don’t worry, we’d let them go after a little while), running barefoot through grass, leaves, gravel, and on concrete like it was clouds of cotton - rocking blue jean shorts and definitely no shirts. We grew up here in Georgia and we all know how horribly hot and humid it can get, so shirts were optional around our house.
However, I still remember the day I was told I had to wear a shirt, but Paul didn’t. I was outraged and totally could not wrap my mind around the fact that I had to cover up a body that was a damn near exact copy of my older brother’s- specifically from the waste up. Why was my flat little chest inappropriate but not his? I could not understand.
We were attending a fireworks show at a fairground down in Perry, Georgia and Paul and I were running around all crazy — kinda like the cows in those videos where they’ve never seen grass or sunlight before and they just wild out- our usual level of excitement. He had taken his shirt off because it wassweltering out (aka July in georgia) and I went to join him when my mom stopped me. I . was . flabbergasted. The fuck you mean I gotta stay all hot and sweaty but he gets to feel all free and breezy??
Fast forward and here I was in middle school wearing an oversized grey hoodie to hide the exact same hyperactive little body I couldn’t imagine having anyone see. Ironically I hated how small I was, how thin and shapeless I was compared to the girls who were getting curves and needing freaking bras already. It’s ironic, because this same feeling towards my body, this dissection of my existence in physical form, would eventually lead to my attempt to make myself as tiny as possible.
Let me just state one thing: Eating disorders aren’t about food. It’s not about the fucking food. It’s about the shit you say to yourself when you look in the mirror. The self deprecating nonsense that spews from your brain every second of every day. The feeling that you’re absolutely worthless and your life is completely out of control. Except for this one part…eating. Yeah yeah food, I know…but it’s not about the food. At least it wasn’t for me. For me, it was about control. I can control that. I deserve that. I’m not worthy of that thing called health. My body was mine and I was going to treat it like total dog shit if I wanted to.
I look back now and it’s like looking at a distant cousin or something. Someone I know I’m supposed to love because they’re technically family, but they’re just such a dick. They stand there at Thanksgiving with only 2 things on their plate, looking like the twigs they call legs are about to collapse under the weight of their own torso, or with a single gentle gust of wind, and then they turn down Nannie’s sweet potato pie? Nannie- the sweetest grandma and dopest cook in the entire world?? Her pie?? The fuck??
Just like how I can remember the day I realized I was supposed to care about what my body looked like and how it was seen -the day I spied the bra straps- I remember the day, many many years down the road, when I realized I had two choices. 1- to slowly continue to starve myself, hate myself, and be miserable until I DIE at much a younger age than I’d prefer or 2- get fucking better, be fucking stronger, and show people that hating yourself is a huge waste of time.
For me the switch flipped after I finally came to terms with the fact that I was hurting the people who loved me even more than I was hurting myself. I realized I couldn’t imagine watching someone I loved do and say the things to themselves that I was doing and saying to myself. It would have torn me to pieces to see a person I cared about essentially, slowly killing themselves and I couldn’t ignore the fact that I was doing that exact thing.
I’m insanely lucky, because I found something that shut that voice up in the back of my head that was constantly telling me I was a worthless pile of turds. It wasn’t easy, fast, or enjoyable but I eventually found a love for myself I didn’t even know possible. Every recovery story is different, but for me I found my way out through the support of a whole lot of people who love the shit out of me and through a renewed and long forgotten desire to be strong.
When I was little, shirtless, and most likely covered in dirt, I was constantly day dreaming about being a “strong girl”. Maybe it was my obsession with the Power Rangers (pink ranger halloween costume from 1st grade to 5th grade) or my fascination with female professional athletes, but I always day dreamed about being a total bad ass. Not necessarily a body builder, but a physically strong human being. And as of yesterday (I read this on May 21, 2018), actually, I crossed the finish line of my 11th half ironman triathlon (let me explain for non triathletes- it’s a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride, and a 13.1 mile half marathon all in one day-which adds up to 70.3 miles total and is the reason I am gingerly limping everywhere at the moment) and in crossing that finish line, I claimed my first ever podium at that distance as the 3rd female in the 25–29 year old age group. *Pause for my inevitable choked up cry face because that shit rules* All I could think about, as I was happy crying all over everyone and everything in my path, was how grateful I was to be there- with my family, my insanley supportive partner, and a buttload of friends- alive (really hot and tired as fuck, but alive). I was overwhelmed with gratitude that I found a way to love myself back to health and to a strength I’ve never known. I’m a strong girl and I’m so damn lucky, because not everybody gets that moment or gets to see what the freedom from an eating disorder feels like.
Ironman 70.3 Chattanooga Finish Line — May 20, 2018
This is the only body I’m ever going to have and whether its rocking a grey hoodie in 100 degree weather or flying around shirtless in 100 degree weather, I’ve decided to love it. To look in the mirror and say, “DAYUM GIRL,” and to take compliments by saying, “thank you,” instead of diverting to some “humble” self deprecating joke. To not waste one more second in that life where I hated everything about myself. To live my life full (both in my belly and in my heart — dumb joke, but I’m doing it anyway) because that distant cousin isn’t invited to Thanksgiving anymore and Nannie’s sweet potato pie kicks ass.
Love y’all.