Learning to Love What I Once Hated

I don’t look like I have an eating disorder. Like everything in the modern world, there’s a label for them. You’d better be able to see collarbones, thighs that don’t touch, arms with no fat, and a body with no curve. But unlike common opinion, eating disorders don’t have a certain look. Eating disorders could be smiling holding an ice cream cone on Instagram. Eating disorders could be dining in at an expensive steakhouse. Eating disorders could be grocery shopping in the cookie aisle. Eating disorders could look happy, but they aren’t. Eating disorders throw away that ice cream cone, eating disorders can’t finish the appetizer, eating disorders only fantasize about putting that box of cookies in its cart. Eating disorders can look one way, but come to find out, they are something else entirely.

In the summer of 2016, I was 140 pounds and a size nine/ten in most jeans. I had a round face with a bit of tummy fat. My thighs touched, and you couldn’t see my collarbones. In my mind, I was fat. I didn’t look like the pictures of the models in the magazines. I wasn’t even close. I refused to look at pictures of myself as if denying my body was going to make it any smaller. I would stare at girls on the sidewalk and fantasize about their jean size, and what it must feel like to say their shirt size out loud. I thought about what it might be like to not have to feel obligated to suck in my stomach. I thought about a happier life. What I would give to have my old body back. The body that knew no war.

That same summer, I was enjoying a vacation with my family on the beach in Virginia. There was one night on our visit where we walked the pier. Lined on both sides of me were fishermen. I watched as flailing fish struggled for water and trapped crabs searched for freedom, and suddenly, the life that I’d been living didn’t feel like my own anymore. I felt like I’d lost my way. For 17 years, I’d eaten grilled chicken and steak and had never given it a second thought. Now, I was questioning everything I once thought I knew, and it was terrifying. It became obsessive.

I stopped eating meat on June 11, 2016. I did it overnight, without ever giving it a second thought. It certainly shocked my parents. I went from their pork, burger-loving daughter to a novice non-meat eater in 24 hours. Looking back, and my parents will probably never admit this, they probably felt as disconnected from me as I did from myself. Making the decision to cut meat from my diet was like watching another person dictating how I should live in my own body. It felt controlling at first because I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I went into both vegetarianism and veganism with only the need to do it, but no idea how.

When people ask about my eating disorder, the one question I hear is “When did it start?” The technical answer is age 17, and I give that one a lot, but the truth is, for me, my eating disorder didn’t start at an age, it started at a coming of age. When I became vegetarian, I was slowly creeping into that dangerous zone of being aware. When I became vegan, I felt like I was on a different planet. I often tell people that my eating disorder came as a result of almost being too aware of what I was putting in my body. When my tendencies started, I googled everything. I didn’t just cut out sweets and calorie-dense food, I cut out healthy fats and carbs as well. I was determined to be completely pure of all evidence of carelessness when it came to food. I would often ask Siri what the healthy carbohydrate consumption was for an average person per day, and I would cut that in half or more.

If it wasn’t for my mother, my life would look completely different. She kept me grounded and honestly, she kept me alive. She always kept a wary eye, and when I ate nothing more than one small red potato and five whole carrots roasted in the oven, she would tell me she was worried about me. She wouldn’t yell. She rarely raised her voice at me, but she always spoke, and sometimes that was even more than I could bear. I resented her. I hated telling her what I planned to have for dinner because even if she didn’t say anything, I could still hear her voice. I hated when we shopped together because she would always argue with me about how a medium size was more than big enough for me. I hated going out to eat with her because usually the only vegan option at any restaurant in the midwest is french fries, and I couldn’t bring myself to consume the fats, oils, carbs, and calories that french fries exude. I hated grocery shopping with her because a normal grocery trip that should take 30 minutes ends up taking me a couple hours because I sit in the isles researching nutritional information. I thought she was the problem, but in reality, it was all my own.

I hate my body. I’ve hated for a long time. I’m healing from my eating disorder, and I still hate it. I look in the mirror, and I see a size 11 in jeans, a large in shirts, and a double chin when I don’t hold my head high enough. I see crooked teeth when I smile and I see a huge ass when I don’t stand tall enough, but there are plenty of things I don’t see, too. I don’t see the freckle on my eyelid that Sawyer talks to me about as he compares his to mine. I don’t see the glimmer in my eye when I talk about what I love. I don’t see my hands. The hands that have dried tears, held sleeping babies, written stories, giving pats on the back, and held a child’s face as I gave them a kiss on the forehead. I don’t see the heart that has hurt but has been healed. I don’t see the smile that has been broken but still shines. I don’t see the happiness that once shined through me like a piece of stained glass. These are the things that matter. I know that now. I just have to learn to love those parts of me too, and hopefully one day, the person that loves me most is me.