I had an interesting thought today...
One of my many fears of recovering from my eating disorder and gaining weight is what I think other people will assume about me.
I worry that if I look healthy and normal on the outside then everyone will assume I'm fine, happy and coping well on the inside. They'll have higher expectations of me. They wont realise how much of my time is taken up by eating disordered thoughts, and will therefore expect me to do better at everything.
However.... I challenged that thought today!
There's a lady in the office where I'm working atm who is SCARILY underweight. In the past I might have found seeing her triggering... but now seeing her has actually helped change my views slightly.
Now I don't know if she has an eating disorder, or some other illness, but my immediate thought was that she must be suffering with anorexia. Other thoughts that went through my head (I'll be honest here!) were that it is NOT a good look! she looks ill, lifeless and unattractive. I thought that I definitely do not want to end up looking like that ever again.
The interesting thing was that at no point did I look at her and think, wow she must be having a hard time and be very unhappy, she probably doesn't like herself much or she's calling out for help.
These ideas didn't even occur to me... someone who has been in that position and is very atune to it... so I'm guessing the average person wouldn't go much further than thinking she's very underweight, she doesn't look well.
THEREFORE, QED, CONSEWUENTLY, SO, HENCE, IN CONCLUSION AND FOR THIS REASON....
... losing weight and being noticed as thin/ill will not necessarily make people understand that I'm struggling anymore than being at a normal weight would. I hope managing to straighten out this fear in my head will make weight gain just that little bit easier!
I cannot show my emotions through my body image, I have to use my voice.
Much love
xxxx
5 comments:
These are the exact same thoughts that go through my head every day at school. I'm so scared people think i'm fine and think i'm fully recovered. But then again, on the other hand, i don't want people to interfere with my thoughts! it's a double edged sword with me!!!
this is actually a very encouraging story for me xx
'I cannot show my emotions through my body image, I have to use my voice.'
Thank you for this, I think this is something that I really need to remember too. My parents are understandably very concerned about my physical health and use every opportunity to point out reasons for gaining weight, but I worry that they think that being underweight is the only problem and won't understand if I still struggle once I get to a healthy weight. But actually it's completely in my hands, people can only be there for us if we're honest about how we're feeling and learn that it's ok to ask for help!
I think that's great realization to have. In all honesty I am probably at the same unhealthy weight as the girl you're talking about and it is definelty not an attractive thing. I really like that what you said about us using our body to convey our emotions on the inside. That's a great way of explaining it.
<3 Tori
I can relate to so much of what you said! Abusing our bodies to express what words cannot, is never the answer.
This is one of my fears too…though we have to remind ourselves that this is just another one of anorexias traits, and we have to keep pushing through those triggers, just like youve done, in order to keep reaping the rewards (because thats the only way we are going to achieve them!) I think youre doing great!
Lucie x
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