Episode 12: The Curse of The Ambient Community Standards

I have noticed that the discourse around eating disorders typically walks hand-in-hand with conversations surrounding beauty standards. Throughout my entire coping-box-writing life, I’ve been hoping to communicate that eating disorders are NOT about dieting, losing weight, or achieving #hotgirlsummer #hotdoglegs #bikinibridge goals; disorders like anorexia and bulimia are mental illnesses triggered by emotional duress that can’t be expressed in another way.

And yet…

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to SOME level of aspiration to be attractively thin (a status determined by society/the media we consume). Yes, a part of me coveted a body that was beautiful and, maybe even more importantly, romantically desirable. That part of me got itself tangled with the anorexic part.

As a child, I was, like, really pretty. I know I was really pretty because I had SO MANY BOYFRIENDS. I had a boyfriend in first grade, two boyfriends in second grade, and then I got married at recess in third grade.

But in fourth grade? Two things happened:

1. We moved. Moving is never good for one’s status amongst the beauty hierarchy of elementary school.

2. I got glasses. And started wearing a ponytail.

Suddenly, I found myself without any recess dates and also it turns out my marriage to Kevin wasn’t even legal in the first place so I was utterly and hopelessly alone.

Did this bother me?

No. I was ten. I had other things to think about. Softball, violin, pen-pal obligations, dance routines that needed to be choreographed to the sweet sounds of Enya, a pond filled with frogs just waiting to be caught, and a new kitten we got specifically to kill mice and who was distinctly not at all interested in anything other than killing mice which meant I had to strategize all sorts of methods to force her into friendship. So yeah, I didn’t have time for affairs of the heart.

By the time I entered middle school, I took notice of the hand-holding, long-hugging, and jacket-sharing practices of my classmates. I also started to notice that none of these activities involved…me.

Did this bother me?

A little. My hormones were starting to exist and they were like: “hey, it would be pretty cool to hug a boy or something!” But again, I had much to keep me preoccupied. The whole violin thing was taking off plus I had made big progress with my cat/new-best-friend. No time remained for romance.

By the time high school rolled around, I started to wonder…will anyone ever like me?

Lucky for me, a young man named Matthew walked into my life and answered that question with absolute authority:

NO.

Not only that but he enlightened me, generously, as to why no one would ever like me.

I was ugly.

Can you imagine if he hadn’t informed me of this fact? I would have been like “is it my personality? Is it because I’m shy? Or that I live in the middle of nowhere? Or that my thoughts around sexual-activity-as-a-minor are clearly illustrated by my decision to wear my dad’s old polo shirts and my brother’s soccer shorts to school each day? Or that my thoughts around sexual-activity-as-a-minor are clearly illustrated by my dedication to sentence diagrams and Greek Mythology? Or that I’m a violin nerd at a school without any other violin nerds? Or that I’m obsessed with my cat?”

Nope. Thanks to Matthew, I knew my absence-of-a-boyfriend was entirely because I was ugly.

Before Matthew, I had no idea that my nose was big, my hair was greasy, my pimples were disgusting, my breasts were small, my glasses were dorky, and of course…I was fat. Luckily, he alerted me to, and reminded me of, these things every time I saw him.

Matthew didn’t attend my public school. He was also a young violinist; we had the same teacher. We were assigned to play together in a chamber group that rehearsed every Saturday afternoon.

Oh wait, did you think this verbal bullying went down at my public high school where nobody understood me because I was a brilliant young artist and they were all jocks? Please, don’t be so cliche. My public high school experience was mostly great: nobody bullied me there (however, I did struggle in physics). Only when I traveled across the state to my beloved music school did the berating begin.

I’ll never forget the day I hid in the women's bathroom at the music school, believing the feminine-force-field that guards all binarily-gendered bathrooms would provide a safe refuge from the unrelenting taunts that found me in all other parts of the building. Impervious to such a line-of-demarcation, Matthew burst into the stalls, screaming at me, “You are so ugly you will never be loved.”

For me personally, even though I’m more of a visual learner, I got the point when he verbalized my ugliness to me with that precise language: “You are so ugly you will never be loved!” However, he wanted to take the learning experience a step further. I guess you could say what happened next was my first experience with hybrid learning!

Matthew hacked into his brother’s email account. Under the guise of this alter ego, he sent me frequent romantic messages and even a few propositions. I found the emails very creepy and upsetting, even though I believed they were from Matthew’s brother. A year or so later, Matthew admitted that the e-mails were actually from him, not his brother. “Who would ever like you anyway!” he proclaimed. My parents and teachers brushed these assaults aside, claiming that Matthew probably just had a crush on me.

By now, again thanks to Matthew, I understood very well that I was ugly. Furthermore, I learned THIS important lesson: when boys treat you poorly, especially when they verbally abuse you over the course of years, it's because they like you. It’s a good thing to be liked by boys and it’s therefore good when boys bully or abuse you. It’s definitely better to be liked by a boy than to feel validated as a human, so seek out men who will treat you like this. They like you the most and this is a good indicator that you are doing great.

My senior year, I transferred to a high school for the arts. It was great to be in an environment where I was surrounded by those who understood my passion; I delighted in being pushed by the amazing talent I saw in those around me. I also loved that I never had to speak to Matthew or see him again.

But the lesson Matthew taught me stuck. I was ugly. I didn’t date anyone the entirety of my senior year. I graduated without my first kiss. Oh stop. Don’t feel sorry for me. I had a great year and, since I already knew I had a big nose and fat body, I wasn’t surprised. Sure it hurt when my crushes paired up with someone else but at least I understood the reason.

I guess things started to feel truly sad when I wrapped my first year of college still single and unkissed, still standing on the sidelines and watching my crushes choose the other option, still rabidly aware of my nose, pimples, and tummy. It only added insult to injury, though, when I noticed that even other ugly people were getting it on. I started to think that maybe when Matthew had trapped me in the bathroom and screamed “You’re so ugly you will never be loved,” it was a legitimate curse.

As a powerfully cursed person, I realized that I couldn’t change my nose, my hair, or my eyesight. (By that I mean: I couldn’t afford rhinoplasty, I had no idea what a flatiron was, and sticking my finger in my eye for contact application just wasn’t happening). However, I could change my weight. The summer between my first and second years of college, I began restricting. And it worked.

As all dutiful young violinists do between official semesters, I attended a summer music intensive between my freshman and sophomore years. With this slimmer figure, I found myself seduced by one of my fellow classmates. We locked lips under the stars beside a mountain lake; at age 19 I finally received my first kiss. And it was 100% because I had lost weight. At least, that’s what my anorexic voice told me: My thinness had made me attractive enough to be loved! At last; curse broken!

The next day, that boy dumped me to chase down some other girl. That hurt. Already my brain was clutched in the grips of anorexia; my disease told me that I wasn’t skinny enough to be pretty enough to actually make someone like me beyond a one-night-kiss. Alas, we were still under Matthew’s curse. Alas, my anorexia convinced me to restrict food intake further still.

A month after this, I returned to college a shadow of my former self. I was very skinny and quite sick. But I was also ready to party! Yeah college! I partied on the weekends and made-out with random boys, just like I was in the movies! Boys wanted to kiss me! They asked me for my number! My anorexic voice celebrated: I was loved! It was all due to my skinny body! I was finally pretty! Assuredly, Matthew’s curse was broken!

This is where the story ends because, as you know, I was pulled out of school and enrolled in residential treatment. Fun fact: I had zero boyfriends when I was in treatment, even though I was very thin.

All of this is to say that: yes, there was a part of me that felt so deeply ugly and unloved that I decided to starve myself into society’s idea of loveliness. It’s not the full origin story of how I got so sick, but it’s part of it.

I hate that. I hate admitting that. It’s so average, so weak, so commercial, so anti-feminist.

Of course, I can blame such a mind-trap on ‘Them”: the beauty industry, Hollywood, the patriarchy, capitalism. THEY put those thin people in TV shows, advertisements, and movies; THEY promote wellness influencers; and THEY market products to hide every blemish, bump, and bulge. The problem with this line of thinking, with blaming it on “them,” is that we as individuals, and particularly as women, are held at fault for succumbing to such commercialized influences.

In the years leading up to my eating disorder, I didn’t consciously look at models or actors and think “oh hey I better be skinny or nobody will like me.” Growing up we often didn’t have TV and my mom never bought me fashion magazines like Glamour or Seventeen. I’ve never been one for brands or fashion trends (although I did love the Delia’s catalog #eldermillennial). However, a bunch of men treated me affectionately and romantically when I was very skinny and it made me feel loved. Along with underlying anxiety, depression, perfectionism, and the trauma of an abusive teacher, this way that men responded to me was powerful; that type of attention kept my practice of starvation in full effect.

As I mentioned, to this day I feel guilty and ashamed for allowing myself to fall under this vein of thinking. I bet you, dear reader, might be judging me for it, even just a little bit. Maybe you’re thinking: couldn’t you have self-esteemed yourself out of this one? Read an article about J-Lo’s big butt and embraced your own curves? Witnessed a mural that reads “You Are Beautiful” in cursive writing and instantly felt your true power?

If I may, perhaps we could all take a step back and, instead of putting the onus on me and how I responded to the behaviors of society, let’s ask: how do cishet men perceive beauty as it is dictated to them by the media, and how does that impact the way they treat women and seek attraction?

(And again I will take this moment to remind us that men too suffer from eating disorders. Men too are under pressure to look a certain way because of cultural beauty standards placed upon them. However this is my story and for me, the way men responded to an underweight and unhealthy body reinforced my illness’ power over me. They have that power and are trained to behave a certain way because we live in a patriarchal society.)

(And also I will take a moment to affirm that gender is a construct and every human can suffer from an eating disorder. But constructs exist in my society and some of them are very powerful. I do not intend to use language to exclude; rather my language is telling a story that exists in part because of the constructs of gender in my society.)

If in cishet relationships, a part of our attraction is conjectured to be a desire to procreate, then why would cishet men be attracted to bodies that show signs of poor reproductive capability? Hips that require children-sized pants to stay girded, a braid of thinning and luster-less flat-ironed hair, skin that maintains a green hue even under color-correcting foundation, a brain too starved to hold an engaged conversation. These aren’t traits that scream, “I am fertile as heck and ready to carry your child! Once that child is born I will ensure its safety and keep it away from fire until it is old enough to comprehend such danger and harness the power of the flame!” On the contrary, these are traits that say, “I am weak and ready to be controlled! In many ways I am a child! I don’t have the brain power to consider the threat of an open flame! Three cheers for the patriarchy!”

This is the part of the post where I present some sort of solution or coping mechanism to help you through your own struggles with body image, disordered eating, or bullying. What this blog post is yearning for is a method for disarming body-shaming bullies or perhaps a method for dismantling the patriarchy. Sadly, I don’t have either. Yet.

Through the ups and downs of my own romantic adventures and the peaks and valleys of my own body image battles, here is what I keep coming back to:

1. I have to help smash the patriarchy and I cannot help smash the patriarchy with a weak body and a malnourished brain. To do this I have to stay strong, energized, and nourished. Oppressive systems poison our romantic relationships; dismantling the system is just as important as attracting a partner. To quote the Rally’s commercial circa 2003, “You gotta eat!”

2. Along those lines, if I have the chance to help young boys (and grown men!) understand how our society dictates a norm of attraction and behavior that harms women, I take that chance. I invite you to join me in this endeavor.

3. It’s always helpful to know a good counter-curse when it comes to matters of the heart. Apparently this information is readily available on WikiHow. If only this was the case back in 1999!

4. I want to focus less on being beautiful and more on expressing and cultivating my own beauty. Beauty attracts true connection on an individual basis; the beautiful things in life often fall short of truth. Anorexia does not create beauty for me or for anybody else. If I have the chance to help young girls (and grown women!) understand this fundamental truth, I take that chance.

5. There are times when I still feel deeply connected to 13-year old Rachel and her state of low-self-worth defined by feelings of unsightliness. While a part of me wants to tell her, “hey! You’re not ugly! And you’re definitely not fat!” The wiser part of me tells her, “even if you are ugly, it doesn’t matter. You still deserve to be loved. Everyone does.”

The American art critic David Hickey once wrote, “The beautiful is a social construction. It’s a set of ambient community standards as to what constitutes an appropriate visual configuration. It’s what we’re supposed to like. Beauty is what we like, whether we should or not, what we respond to involuntarily.”

My eating disorder convinced me to seek the beautiful but not the beauty. Anorexia assured me that were I to be beautiful, without blemish, bulge, or bump, I could be loved. The only way I could maintain society’s “appropriate visual configuration” was through a diet that starved my body and my soul. Yes, people were attracted to me in this state. Their attraction wasn’t love, though: it was lust at best and an abuse of power at worst. When we cultivate and embrace the beauty instead of the beautiful, we attract real love.

What I’m trying to say is this: being skinny isn’t nearly as hot as being really freaking passionate, thoughtful, impressively skillful, healthy, nourished, and true-to-yourself. That is beauty and it looks different on everyone. Your particular beauty won’t be what everybody likes, but it will be what certain individuals respond to involuntarily.

To be sure, I am in no way suggesting anyone partner-up with a person they are not physically attracted to. I’m just saying that, deep down, people are attracted to all sorts of looks and styles. We are trained to think attraction relies on thinness but it does not.

Most of us want to be loved. Personally, I crave many types of love: romantic love, friendship love, family love, mentorship love, etc. We make all sorts of mistakes when putting ourselves out there to find love. For one example, I wanted romantic love so badly that I believed the taunts of a 13-year-old boy; I nearly killed myself in the hopes that my “beautiful,” thin body might entice romantic interest. For another example, I once used Tinder.

But that’s a story for another day.