[tw: eating disorders, exercise addiction, ]
[tw: eating disorders]
A just society is one where you’re not being slowly pushed into an eating disorder from the age of 13.
It'ss not having your boyfriend of over a year not realizing you’ve been bulimic/EDNOS the entire time you’ve been dating him, until a week after you move in together.
It’s not having to know that his friends tell him he should be okay with it, because “Dude, remember she used to be so fat?”
It’s not having your friends thinking its okay that you work out 6 hours a day, because “you look great! I wish I had time to do that.”
I was the fattest girl in my class in middle school. Hell though, I wasn’t even fat, I weighed 123 lbs, but I was constantly ridiculed by all the guys.
And it HURT. Because when you’re 13 it doesn’t occur to you that its OKAY to be fat, it doesn’t occur to you that the opinion of those guys shouldn’t even matter.
So when I turned 15 I started “dieting”, I started telling myself it was okay to go to bed hungry , it was okay to stick my fingers down my throat until everything I ate came up. I told myself it was perfectly fine as long as I didn’t do it to often, as long as I was in control of it.
I internalized the hate for my fat, I saw it as something to be rid of.
I went through various periods where I was bulimic, where I exhibited anorexic behaviors, where I went on “healthy” diets with lots of exercise.
Lots, and lots of exercise.
And that’s what clicked in my mind. Exercise couldn’t be unhealthy right? I mean, exercise is good for you. That’s what the tell you in the media/ in the doctor’s office/in school. Exercise is great and you can never get enough of it.
They don’t tell you about over training. They don’t tell you biking 9 miles a day is excessive and unhealthy, because hey, weight loss is always good right? They don’t tell you running ‘till you puke is bad, hell, jillian michaels will stand on the biggest loser every night and tell you its a great thing.
And you’ll believe her.
And one day your boyfriend will come home and find you going on your 13th mile on your indoor cycle, crying while you throw up into a bowl because your legs are burning and you can barely feel them and you think you might pass out and you’re worried you won’t make it to 14 miles.
And all your friends and all his friends will think its fine because fuck at least you’re skinny now, and thats what matters.
And when you wake up the the next day to find that you’re boyfriend has thrown all of you’re exercise equipment out, you’ll break down in the middle of the living room floor begging him to bring it back, and you’ll sit there in the floor babbling to him about it while he holds you because its completely irrational for you to want it so badly and you know it, and when he tells you don’t need it you’ll just sit there repeating “please please please”.
And If you’re lucky you’ll get better.
And if a thousand other girls who are out there getting teased for their weight are lucky, they’ll never have to deal with what you’re dealing with.
But lets face it, most of us are shit out of luck.
