I only judge myself, I am not judging you

“My Love Hate Relationship with My Body” series Part 1 and Part 2

I have written about my body image and my fucked up view of my weight.  I want to make some things very clear.  When I stood on that scale and it said 160, to me I was fat.  Very fat.  Horribly unhappily fat.  I want it very clear that the only person I judge is me.  If you weigh 160 I do not in any way think you’re fat.  Miss Banshee, in her Weight of the World post, put it perfectly when she said “To me, everyone else, EVERYONE else looks…right. The way they’re supposed to. Whatever weight they are. Perfectly normal and fine. Everyone but the image in the mirror. That one’s a freak”

Body dysmorphic disorder. My sister has admitted to having serious body image issues to some degree.  I will admit to having this same disorder to the Nth degree.  I don’t know where either of us get it.  (In an email to me, when I asked her this question, she is able to explain to me exactly why she feels this way.  I wish I was so self aware and insightful.) I don’t remember specific incidents that would have cause it. I remember, when I was a teen, wearing the latest fashion, which was short shorts (like up to my hoo-ha short) and half shirts.  Bare mid-drifts were the fashion in the 80’s.  (thanks Madonna)  And like most teen girls just discovering their sexuality and the power their bodies have over the boys, I dressed to show off the most skin.  My Dad didn’t like it.  What father would?  Compound that with the fact that he was a preacher, and had an image to maintain, I was an embarrassment.  I probably should have been embarrassed if I had any common sense.  But even then, the comments he did make were more about the fact that even when I was dressed, I wasn’t really dressed.  It never had to do with my body.

From the day I sat in the bathtub beside my BFTS Debbie, I have hated my thighs.  I haven’t always acted on that hate, but I have always thought my thighs were too big.  Ever since my high school friend commented on my flat stomach, I have been hyper aware of my stomach.  There were many nights I would lay in bed and if my hip bones didn’t protrude above my stomach by 2 inches, I worried.  If my stomach wasn’t hollowed out, I would worry I was getting fat.

My body turned 40 a couple of years ago.  And with that momentous birthday came a changing of the guard.  The weight that was all too easy to pack on thanks to cheesecake, margaritas, and pasta three nights a week, now stubbornly clings and refuses to budge or leave.  That’s not true.  The first 30 fell away pretty easily once I eliminated the cheesecake, the artery clogging Sunday morning brunches, Saturday afternoon lunches at Applebee’s, and the weekends full of margaritas or rum and coke.  Add to that the stress of the break-up, and it’s surprising 30 pounds is all I lost.  It should have been more.

But here I am, still not happy with the image in the mirror. Summer is right outside my door, and right now none of my shorts or skirts fit. But, I am determined I will not spend this summer in jeans and a frumpy old woman’s swimsuit.  This time? I’m going to do something about it.  The right way.

My love hate relationship with my body Part II

For Part I of this series, go here.

After my first baby, the rules of my control game changed. It was no longer about controlling what I did or didn’t eat.  It was all of a sudden all about getting back into my own damn clothes and the numbers on the scale.  My son was born in October.  By Thanksgiving I was back in my own jeans (size 8 ) and by Christmas I was back in my skinny jeans (size 5).  I was fueled by the envy of everyone around me who was amazed at how quickly I had gotten back to my pre-baby self.  I lived on the attention.

I spent the next 13 years playing this game.  My weight fluctuated between 115 and 120. I was still just as obsessed with the numbers on the scale and the numbers on the labels of my jeans.  And yet, every time I got pregnant, the games stopped, but started right back up again, the day I came home from the hospital.

By the third go round (after the birth of Newt) I recognized the pattern. I knew in my head that it was unhealthy, and yet I was helpless to let go of the control, and the attention it garnered from my friends.  It wasn’t long after Newt was born that my marriage to the girls’ dad changed.  To be honest, I always had a difficult time with PPD (thanks BPD) and their dad had his own version of PPD.  The fights were epic and our relationship was out of control.  The one thing I could control? My food intake.  And I controlled it with drill sergeant precision.  The numbers on the scale reflected just how happy or unhappy I was in my relationship.

I wasn’t happy in my marriage.  It wasn’t good.  So I sought my happiness in my weight.  I believed, wrongly, that if I could just get down to 100 pounds life would magically be perfect, fairy tale happy.  I starved myself.  I popped diet pills, I used laxatives.  I stopped just short of throwing up but only because I *hate* with a passion that burns brighter than a thousand suns to throw up.  I had my limits.  They were few, but I had them.

They day before I finally left the girls’ dad, I stepped on the scale and the number that day? 98 pounds.  I am 5’ 7”.  At this point? My size 3 jeans were hanging off of me.  I was wearing sweatshirts because I was always cold. I had no body mass to keep me warm.  That day?  I stood on the scale, saw 98 and just stared.  I had won the game!  I was under 100 pounds for the first time since I started this game all those years ago!  I had reached my ultimate goal.  I was winning.  The competitive voice in my head said “Way to go.. now lets see HOW FAR under 100 you can go!”.  The reasonable voice in my head said “Look you’re unhappy here. This is proof that this relationship will kill you.  Get out.  Save yourself and your kids.”

I listened to reason.

I left.

But the games didn’t stop.

I allowed myself to eat and put on enough weight to get above 100 pounds, but just barely.  I couldn’t give up all that I had gained (or lost as the case may be) but I couldn’t survive weighing less than 100 pounds.  Also?  When everyone you know is expressing grave concern about your weight you kinda can’t ignore it or them.  So you do the bare minimum, whatever it takes to get them to leave you alone, without giving up the game.

That was seven years ago.

Five years ago this August I met Brian.  Four years ago next month, I moved to be closer to him, get away from the girls’ dad, and give the girls (and me) a better life. I was still playing the games.  Food was still the enemy.  Brian’s family? Loved to eat.  They loved to cook, especially his dad.  And they ate real food.  Steaks, shrimp, crab, lobster, pasta, biscuits and gravy.  And drink? Margaritas or rum and coke, Mimosas or Bloody Marys for breakfast.  And the cheesecake.  Oh god the cheesecake.

I played my games for a while, but his family? Made it their mission to put some weight on me.  And when faced with all that food, all that glorious, fabulous food it’s hard to play the game.  Then Brian said “I love you.” and then promised me bling if I just gained some weight, and promised to love me for ever if I would just stop playing the games and get healthy.  And did I mention the cheesecake?

Slowly but surely the food, alcohol, Brian and his family won out over my rules.  I was safe, I was secure, and I was loved.  It was ok to eat.  And I ate.  And slowly, one by one, my outfits stopped fitting.  My jeans got too small, my shirts were too tight, and the numbers on the labels of my clothes got bigger and bigger.  There were days I would stand in the bathroom looking at my reflection crying for all I had lost (or gained…)  Crying because I had never seen myself at a normal healthy weight and I hated this ‘fat’ me.  Crying because I was losing the game I had played most of my life.  It was at these times Brian would tell me “I love you, and I love this, and you look wonderful, and healthy and please stop crying.”  I would tell myself it was enough. I would tell myself it was ok to be ‘fat’ because Brian loved me.

It wasn’t that long ago that I stood on the scale because absolutely nothing fit any more.  None of my clothes fit, I had started buying new clothes, with double digits on the labels.  The number on the scale? 160.  The only other time I had weighed anything close to 160, I was 8 months pregnant with a baby.  This time? There was no baby.  This time? I was fat.  Nobody commented on it. Brian’s family still told me I looked good. Brian still told me he loved me and the extra weight.  But that wasn’t enough. I didn’t love me.  I didn’t love the extra weight.  I had lost.

I knew I had to change things, but I also knew I couldn’t go back to my games again. I couldn’t go back to anorexia and lose the weight that way.  My girls are 11 and 14 now and they watch me.  They pay attention.  They would notice, they would see the games that I played and the dangerous ways I fought to lose the weight I so desperately hated.  I knew I had to change, but when you know there’s a cheesecake in the fridge that his mom bought just because she knew I loved cheesecake, it’s hard to change.

When Brian and I broke up in December, all of a sudden the steaks, and pasta three nights a week went away. Suddenly there was no cheesecake calling my name before I went to bed each night.  Now, there would no longer be biscuits and gravy and bacon and eggs for breakfast every Sunday.  There would no longer be lazy days spent watching television in bed, eating and napping a lazy Sunday away.  And without much effort at all, 30 pounds fell away.

I’m still not happy.  I am happier than I was at 160, but I’m not where I want to be.  I am playing the numbers game, but not obsessively like I did years ago.  Frankly, I like food, and I’m just too lazy to play those stupid games.  This time, I am watching what I eat and not eating nearly as much as I used to.  Just this weekend, since the weather finally warmed up, and we’re only a couple of blocks from the school, the girls and I went to the track and walked around it. That is something I can do every night.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss the game.  There are times I wish I had that kind of self control again, but I know this time? I have eyes on me, I have daughters that I influence and I don’t want them to live the life I lived with anorexia.

My love hate relationship with my body Part I

I spent Saturday morning reading the posts over at Curvy Girl Guide.  I have never considered myself a ‘curvy girl’ but I have a love/hate relationship with my body.  To say that I have body image issues?  Is like saying Charlie Sheen is crazy.  He’s Shite Crazy.  And I? Have body issues.

I clearly remember the first time I hated my body.  I was 9 years old.  Yes, 9.  My best friend Debbie came over to spend the night.  Debbie was The. Most. Popular. Girl. in 5th grade.  Everyone wanted to be Debbie’s friend. And this week? She picked me. (yes, this week, that’s how we rolled back then. Crazy stupid now, but then? Life or death. Period.) Oh, and you should know that the goal of being someone’s friend was to have a sleepover.  That was the crowning moment in a friendship.  The irony of that moment?  Once you had a sleepover, the friendship was done.  We would go to school the following Monday (sleepovers were always on Fridays) and start looking for a new friend because you could only be friends with one person at a time.  Anyway.. that’s an entirely different blog post for another day.

So, Debbie came to my house for a sleepover!  I was making it big!  I was going to be the 2nd most popular girl in 5th grade because I was Debbie’s BFTS (Best Friend till the Sleepover) and she was spending the night at my house!  She rode the bus home with me, we did all the usual girl sleepover things.  (she had a training bra! She let me wear it! Scandalous to a preacher’s daughter.) And then, for whatever reason, we had to take a bath.  So, because we were BFTS’s and we did *everything* together, we jumped in the tub together.  (what? Back then? That wasn’t weird at all.  It was the 70’s still.  DO.NOT.DO.THE.MATH!) We sat side by side in the bathtub, legs stretched out in front of us.  And we could sit side by side. Know why?  Because Debbie was no bigger than a minute.  She was tiny.  Ethiopian tiny.  And sitting there beside her, I saw her skinny tan legs, next to my pasty white thunder thighs and for the first time in my entire life, I was jealous.

And ashamed.

And didn’t know what to do about those feelings.

True to form, Monday morning, back at school, Debbie and I both started looking for new friends, which had everything to do with the Friendship protocol, and nothing to do with my body envy.  But I never forgot…

My first bout of anorexia came my Sophomore year of high school.  Thanks to genetics I had always been a bit on the skinny side. I had always been one to eat whatever I wanted and never worried about my weight.  My sophomore year I had strep throat twice and that spring, caught mono.  With the sore throat and all the sleeping going on, eating just got in the way.  So, I didn’t.  When I finally went back to school, it was fun to see how little I could eat in a given day.  It became a game, a contest with myself.  It got to the point I was living on a Hostess Cherry Pie and a carton of milk a day.  That’s it.  Period.  And some days I would only eat half of the cherry pie.

But even that? Had nothing to do with my weight.  It had everything to do with my ability to control how little I actually ate in a day.  (and the attention/envy of everyone around me. Finally I was the Debbie in the friendships I had.) It was a game I played with myself.  I didn’t think anything of it.  I was blissfully unaware of the number on the scale, because I never stepped on a scale.  I was completely unaware of how I looked until a friend of mine commented on how she wished her stomach was as flat as mine. (At that point I was all “YES! Somebody wants to look just like me! Just like I wanted to have legs like Debbie’s!)  I didn’t think there was a problem, even when my dad brought home nutritional drinks and told me I had to drink one before breakfast and before dinner every day. He meant before as in drink them and then *eat* something too. (I drank them, because he made me, but I didn’t eat anything the rest of the day.)  By this point, it was a contest of wills.  I had been winning the “How little can I actually eat” game I played in my head and I was not about to let my dad lose it for me now.  I distinctly remember vacation trips when we would stop at an all you can eat place for breakfast and I would have 1 piece of sausage and a glass of milk.  That’s it. That is how far my control had gone.

My anorexia never started out about my weight, it always started as a control game I played with myself. I eventually started paying attention to the numbers on the scale. Obsessively paying attention to the numbers on the scale.  Because those numbers? Were the scoreboard in my control game.  Those numbers determined if I was winning or not.

In the midst of these games I was playing with myself, I had three babies.  Each time the pregnancy test came back positive, the food games stopped. I never worried about the weight or the amount of food I ate the entire time I was pregnant with any of the kids.  It was never about me then, it was all about the baby.  But the day I came home from the hospital, I wanted that weight gone.  That is when the games became about the weight, the numbers on the scale, the size of my jeans.  After my first baby, the rules of the game changed.

To be continued….