“My weight has been something I have struggled with for as long as I can remember…”
A statement I once held as truth. It is not true and has never been.
When I was in 5th grade, I moved from a private school to a public school. I don’t remember being afraid of the change. I’m sure I was a little, but I actually remember being excited to go to school with some of the kids in my neighborhood and being able to walk/bike/rollerblade to and from school (sorry, mom, for all the times I forgot to take my shoes with me and you had to bring them since, apparently, rollerblading through the halls at school was frowned upon). It was a little overwhelming to go from a small private school to a large, much more chaotic public school, but I don’t remember it causing the fear and anxiety that I’m so familiar with now in any new situation.
And then it happened. I met a mean girl. Her name was Cheyenne, and I can still see her face. I was sitting in the lunchroom with my friends, and my hands were cold. I put them together and stuck them between my thighs as we sat and talked. She noticed me, recognized that I was new, and decided I would be the person she belittled that day to quench her own demons' thirst. I didn’t realize that then, but now I understand that she likely had a slew of issues of her own that went unseen, and she needed my help with them.
She called me fat and accused me of playing with myself in front of a room full of my peers who knew nothing about me.
My weight has been something I have struggled with since that day. This is a true, accurate statement.
I knew I wasn’t playing with myself, of course, but was I really fat? I’d never considered it before. Then I started seeing that I was built a bit bigger than some of my friends… so it must be true. I must be fat. This continued to snowball.
I wasn’t actually fat.
Until I was.
Food became my refuge. My friend. My comfort. Food is still my refuge, my friend, my comfort. I know it seems silly to some, but food is how I self-medicate. When I am suffering an emotional low, it becomes nearly impossible for me to keep from stopping at the grocery store and loading my cart up with every bit of sugary junk food I walk past (salty, too, I don’t discriminate). It’s not like the romanticized images of thin women curled up on the couch with a cat as they cry into a pint of ice cream after a bad breakup and then move on the next day. Not at all. But those are the images I see when I want to tell myself it’s normal and ok.
Food is my drug.
A funny thing about food - you can’t just stop eating. And unhealthy food is EVERYWHERE! It’s easy, it’s fast, it’s delicious, and it’s cheaper than therapy.
Fighting the urge to eat everything, everywhere is really, really hard. Logically, that seems so silly. I’ve lived through much harder things than making the right decisions when it comes to food, so what’s my problem? How can I be so weak?
Oh, look! There’s the self-esteem/self-worth issues sneaking in. Guess what that does? Encourages me to eat. “I’ll never be thin enough, pretty enough, strong enough, smart enough so I might as well just eat it all. At least I’ll feel better for a few minutes.”
I managed to give it up for a while. I lost 100 pounds, went to the gym every single day for 200+ straight days and swore I’d never go back.
Oops. Here we are again.
I’ve made changes in the last month or so and cut out sugar almost completely, but I know enough to understand that my grief journey comes first. If I pile on now, I’m sure to fail so I’m making changes without pressure because I want to feel better.
My weight is not my worth. I’ll keep saying it until I believe it.
I encourage anyone else who is struggling to do the same. You're not alone.
And, Cheyenne, if you’re out there, I truly hope that you are a happy, whole person today.
