Episode 11: My Five Things

There is this trend on TikTok right now: experts in all sorts of fields are stating the 5 Things They Will Never Do, based on their experience or profession.

By the time I finish this blog post, the TikTok micro-trend in question will likely have passed. Regardless, I am here to jump on this bandwagon! Though I am not a nutritionist, therapist, or eating disorder specialist, I thought I’d share the 5 Things I will Never Do as A Person Who Had an Eating Disorder!

Number 1: I will not say, “I feel fat” around children…

…nor will I utter any variety of such a phrase. You won’t be hearing an “I am gross” or “I need to lose my entire butt cheeks to fit society's ideal of a beautiful woman” from me, especially when young ears are around.

I do not live in a large body. If I tell a child that I am overweight, I am de-facto lying to them. I refuse to lie to children. Because I am a teacher, many kids instinctually put their trust in me; they might believe that I am fat if I declare it to be so. If they come to believe that my body is large when I am, in fact, not…where do they set their own ideas of “healthy” body shape and size?

I also don’t want to perpetuate the idea that having a larger body is a bad or universally unhealthy thing. Bodies come in all sizes and kids need to learn this from the adults they trust.

And finally, you can’t “feel” fat. It’s not an emotion. Stop saying that.

Lately, when I want to vocally disparage my own body and I feel the need for support, I will instead say, “I am having a bad body image day.” As I’ve mentioned before, I usually feel this way because of an underlying insecurity (often involving my music career.) Calling it a “bad body image day” reminds me that it is not my physical self that is bumming me out; it is my perception of it. This puts me one step closer to identifying the non-body-image forces that are messing with my self esteem, self-compassion, and self worth.

Along these lines, I will not engage with others who want to shame their own bodies or the bodies of others. If we hang out, it’s never gonna be that scene from Mean Girls where the plastics all take turns in the mirror, disparaging their own appearances. It absolutely is not going to be the scene in Mean Girls where Regina George says she wants to, “lose x lbs before prom,” and all the other girls have to be like, “No! What! No way! You’re so skinny omg!” Basically, if we hang out, it’s not going to be any scenes from Mean Girls (unless we deliberately watch Mean Girls and, in doing so, recite all the lines we have memorized because it’s really a great movie so no hate to Mean Girls). Also, we’re probably not going to hang out, period, because I have anxiety.

Just saying though, if you tell me you “feel fat,” I am not going to agree or disagree with you. I’m just not going to talk about it. I’ll awkwardly change the subject and let you sit with the discomfort of your own words because actually sitting with discomfort can be a very healing thing.

Unless, of course, I love you. If you come to me all, “I feel fat,” and I truly love you, then I’ll psycho-analyze you until I decide what you’re REALLY upset about. And maybe I’ll even share that diagnosis with you!

Number 2: I will not own a scale.

Okay wait, that’s not true. I jumped on the sourdough bread bandwagon during the pandemic and thus purchased a food scale to weigh my starter, flour, and salt. In my defense, I didn’t even buy the right sized table scale: it is very small and now my brother thinks I’m a drug dealer.

Anyway. I don’t have a scale because I do not need to know my weight. I know what you are thinking: but Rachel, don’t you need a scale to monitor your health?!? Actually, research is showing us more and more that body weight is not a perfect tool for measuring human healthiness. The type of extreme weight gain or weight loss that could indicate a medical condition would likely be perceptible without the use of a scale. This is where you say: but Rachel, your doctor weighs you, so it must be medically relevant! True, my doctor does collect my weight. However, my doctor also records my heart rate, examines blood samples, and screens me in a myriad of ways! I, on the other hand, do absolutely zero of those tests at home. I won’t even use those automatic blood pressure screeners at Walgreens because I’m afraid my arm will get stuck and then there goes my career. Seriously, why are we fine knowing our blood oxygen and cholesterol levels only once a year, but if we don’t know our weight every morning we feel complete loss of control over health and wellness?

For me, knowing my weight can quickly lead to obsession and disaster. I think this is because it is easier to be quantitatively obsessed with objective facts than it is to torment over subjective data.

For example, it is hard to measure ourselves with comments from others.

Exhibit A: Friend: You look Fantastic!

Me to friend: Wow! Thanks! You do too!

Me to me: Does she mean skinny fantastic or, like, booty-licious fantastic? Wait what if she was lying because she wants something from me? Am I being bullied? Am I ugly? Is there something on my face? Does this shirt look weird?

Or, Exhibit B:

Friend: You look tired!

Me to friend: Wow! Rude!

Me to me: Does she mean malnourished tired or, like, pregnant tired? Maybe I have the Calvin Klein heroin-chic thing going on? Is that a style again? Am I stylish? Am I skinny enough to be stylish? Is there something on my face? Does this shirt look weird?

Even the reflection in the mirror doesn’t always give us a straight answer when it comes to shape and size. (Gotta love those mirrors with a warp right at boob level, amirite?) But a hard and fast number? That’s something we can use. Sadly, In my eating disordered brain, there is no number small enough. I set a goal, I achieve the goal, and somehow a new, smaller number pops up. The obsession kicks in and nothing is right in the world until that number is achieved.

Therefore, just as I turn my head away as a needle pierces my skin for a blood draw, just as I let my doctor peer up my nostrils without asking for a play-by-play, so too do I step on the scale backwards at my yearly visit. I let my primary care physician analyze my blood count, my ear wax viscosity, and my weight, trusting that if there is a medical concern, she will alert me to it.

Number 3: I will not categorize food into good and bad categories.

I have officially canceled terms and phrases like “healthy, cheat day, clean, unhealthy, natural, diet-friendly, junk, pure, processed, fresh-not-frozen, alkaline, indulgent, splurge-worthy, etc,” from my personal lexicon. On the one hand, labels like these are terms of privilege. They come from corporate endeavors seeking to capitalize on our society’s normalized obsession with thinness and bodily control. Plenty of folks in our country cannot access or cannot afford to eat in the way that our society deems “good.” These food categories perpetuate the myth that good people eat good foods and have good bodies. In reality, our economic position and our genetic make-up determine much of what we eat and how we look.

In addition, for me, categorizing food leads to restricting, and restricting leads to anorexia. Food labeling is the gateway drug of eating disorders. Because our society has normalized/idealized the construct of “good vs. bad” eating, this portal to disordered restricting flies under the radar: it is barely noticed and if it is noticed, it is often applauded. Vegans, Keto dieters, or those who just won’t touch french fries are folks we celebrate for their healthfulness. Calm down, I’m not diagnosing every Vegan out there with an eating disorder. I am saying that anorexia loves black-and-white thinking. For me, participating in the all-or-nothing culture of food labeling offers a quick trip to restriction-town that I am not interested in taking.

Food is my energy: it fuels my daily regiment of teaching, practicing, emailing, dog-walking, cat-patting, and sleeping. It is also a social, joy-inducing part of my life. Rather than steering clear of particular foods, I prefer to eat mindfully and seek variety in cuisine!

Number 4: I will not mess with narcissists.

No narcissistic boyfriends, best friends, or mentors for me. Anymore.

Here is what I have learned about narcissists: they like to feel big and awesome. Along the way, they will make you feel small and worthless because that makes them feel bigger and awesome-er. You stick around; you tolerate them criticising you for really dumb things or yelling at you for really dumb things because they are big and awesome and you are small and not awesome so you must deserve to be criticized and yelled at.

The smaller I feel emotionally, the more I need my body to look small. If I feel small but my body looks big (by which I mean normal), this creates a cognitive dissonance for my eating disorder brain, causing me to restrict and lose weight.

Here is the other thing I have learned about narcissists: people who aren’t close to the narcissist have no idea how much criticism, yelling, and gas lighting is going on behind-the-scenes. Narcissists tend to be outgoing, charming, clever, and entertaining folks. People will tell you how much they love, admire, and enjoy that narcissist of yours. This makes it so much harder to stand up and say, “Hey! This narcissist here keeps telling me I’m worthless!” because nobody is going to believe that, or at least it feels as such. And thus you are stuck in the narcissist situation.

However, a suddenly ill body signals that something is wrong. Bizarre food rituals and eating behaviors send the message too. I hate to say it, but anorexia can be a damn good way to get your point across: it certainly worked for me in the past! However, I prefer to use literally any other communication method instead of my eating disorder. And this is why I won’t mess with narcissists.

Number 5: I will not allow the book The Best Little Girl in The World into my home.

On the one hand, eating disorders are complicated expressions of trauma and societal ills…on the other hand, nothing gave me an eating disorder more than that book. I’m not going to say anything more about it because I don’t want you going out and buying it and reading it. Like I am totally against censorship and everything, but I would 100% destroy every extant copy of that book.