The beauty of being able to feed yourself.

As I sat by the television with J, C, and G, my new housemates, I marveled at how far I’ve come. Staring at the clean bowl of curry chicken pasta and salad I’ve just finished, I felt a swelling pride that comes whenever I stop to think about the way I used to be with food and now. I felt healthy, for I’ve made a well balanced tasty meal (based on my nutritional sciences background) without counting calories. And it filled me just nice, leaving me warm and fuzzy with the knowledge that I’d just been good to myself by feeding myself. To many, this probably sounds like the ranting of someone mad. To some, this is a dream which they hope will come true for them eventually. Since the eating disorder struck, I never thought I could ever take care of myself, especially when it came to feeding myself. Never thought I could eat a meal without mentally counting the calories or devising methods to burn it off later. Never thought I could prepare a well-balanced meal and enjoy it with others around. Never thought I could live, obsession-free. And I did. It strikes me as strange sometimes that I used to be bulimic and anoretic. How did I get by days and weeks and months on muffins or cereal (aka my ’safe’ foods)? How did I live my life so blindly, focusing only on work and losing weight, instead of reaching out for health and living life the way I would’ve liked to? How many people, how many others are suffering from the manic obsession that binds them to be slaves to food or hunger, and living life in the most torturous manner ever? Self-starvation is probably one of the most complex mental disorders to hit town. It’s a slow and torturous process, where the person kills herself painfully, deciding subconsciously that she doesn’t want to live, pushing the limits of her capabilities as a human – ‘how long can i last without food? how much can i disappear right before everyone’s eyes?’ To think I ever hated myself so much hurts. And I don’t ever want to go back there.

A really amazing book I’m re-reading:

Wasted by Marya Hornbacher

 

A memoir of her journey through an eating disorder from aged 9, Wasted is peppered with vivid and intricate details of her ordeal, and its relevance to those with the disorder is almost painful because it causes you to think about your own disorder/life. Its descriptive paragraphs are rawfully honest, probably too hard for many to take, I can imagine.

 

As painful as it is to read the book, it serves as a reminder for me to not walk down that road again, and why I’m losing a ‘friend’ I had with me for 3 years of my life.

 

I pull out several excerpts from her book:

 

On denial:

“I knew it the way alcoholics know in the back of their brain that they have a problem. They know, but they don’t believe it’s out of control. The convenience in having an eating disorder is that you believe, by definition, that your eating disorder cannot get out of control, because it is control. It is, you believe, your only means of control, so how could it possibly control you?”

 

On it’s development:

“You are making an ineffective statement about this and that, a grotesque, self-defeating mockery of cultural standards of beauty, societal misogyny. It is a blow to your parents, at whom you are pissed.”

 

And it is so seductive. It is so reassuring, so all-consuming, so entertaining.

 

At first.

 

On the female cultural ideal:

My generation was raised on popular media, televion, teen magazines, billboards that bellowed “if you could choose your body, which would you choose?” with pictures of hard bodies getting yet harder at a very chic gym. Well what the hell do you think I’d choose? … We read the endlessly boring series of Sweet Valley High pulp novels like Bibles, with their  terribly chipper stories of twin sisters who were, of course, the most popular girls in their Southern California high school. They were smart and nice and always getting the guy. As every single book in the series reminded us, they were also blond, blue-eyed, tan, and a ‘perfect size six’. A pair of literary Barbie dolls. We read the books in class, hidden behind our math books. We stood in the school bathroom discussing the plots as we compared our thighs. Look at this, we’d say, slapping our bodies so hard we left white welts. Look how my fat jiggles. But you – we’d say, turning to another girl – you’ve got like the perfect body.

 

*It is crucial to notice the language we use when we talk about bodies. We speak as if there was one collective perfect body, a singular entity that we’re all after. The trouble is, I think we are after that one body. We grew up with the impression that underneath all this normal flesh, buried deep in the excessive recesses of out healthy bodies, there was a Perfect Body just waiting to break out. It would look exactly like everyone else’s perfect body. A clone of shapeless, androgynous models, the hairless, silicone-implanted porn stars. Somehow we, in defiance of nature, would have toothpick thighs and burgeoning bosoms, buns of steel, and dainty firm delts. As Andy Warhol wrote, “The more you look at the same exact thing…the better and emptier you feel.”

remember, mourn, move on.

“How will I fill the space which people now fill?”

“How will I fill those spaces which weren’t used for the eating disorder? Will they, too, become eating disorder time?” 

When I was leaving Singapore for Brisbane, the second time round for the last term of exchange, I was fucking scared.

Fucking scared because I had relapsed back home in Singapore.

I had taken the eating disorder to new heights as I tried to cope with the weight gain that came with recovering. It was back with a vengeance. It knew I was trying to leave it, and like a persistent ex-lover who can’t let go, it haunted me during the lonely hours. I couldn’t stand being alone, but yet I couldn’t stand being around other people because I felt disgusted with myself. 

How do I fill the space.

What is life without an eating disorder. 

For 3 years, the spaces were filled with food, obsession, excessive amounts of exercise – to avoid feeling, to avoid emotional pain through inflicting physical punishment. 

I return to Vancouver in 4 weeks to finish my degree.

I’m still fucking scared, as I was before.  

But as easy as it is to remember how the eating disorder took over my life and helped to ease the loneliness by whiling away the time, I don’t think I’ll ever go find him once more. As much as I fear loneliness and alienation from friends whom I’ve left behind 2 years ago, I can’t let in an eating disorder once more. To treat my body the way I did, I am ashamed and sorry for.

I mourn for the eating disorder because he had been my best friend at my worst moments but I move on, for he wanted much more than I am willing to give. He wanted my life, my soul and my spirit and he can’t have it back anymore.

Deserving every bit of it.

Looking down at my body, I can’t believe the ease of doing so.

I carry a non-eating-disordered-looking sort of shape, I munch on previously-labeled-BAD foods (and what nutritionists/modeling industries would probably still deem as o-no foods), I cease counting calories, and I don’t wish for the next trip to the toilet, post-lunch, to throw out expensive dinners.

I was never a fat kid. In fact, I was bloody skinny. So skinny until my teachers & friends made fun of me. Some called me Olive Oyl (from Popeye), some told me I’ll fly away with the wind (in a not-so-romantic way, mind you).

My life? Parents, like any Asian parents, were strict, but supportive. They never really pushed me to do anything that I didn’t want to do, just laid ground rules which I absolutely hated (can’t date, can’t go Orchard road – I did both still). Had plenty of friends, really sociable, talkative, enthusiastic, bubbly, the list goes on.

I guess you’d never expect me to have an eating disorder. I never expected me to have an eating disorder. Hello? I was Little Miss Perfect. Everything also perfect i.e. I was a Type A perfectionist. I was perfect at everything – or at least I wanted to be. Mind you, ‘perfect’ meaning ‘perfect’ based on society’s definitions: had good grades, on honours roll, had scholarships, scored 6 pointer O levels & 3 As for A levels (C6 for GP – GP how to piah?), chased for the secret of flawless skin , was skinny with a capital S. I was so driven to be perfect that I knew I could NOT have an eating disorder. Ironic.

At times, during my recovery, I felt like I didn’t deserve my eating disorder. Hello? I was by no means obese/fat, I was healthy, I was doing well in school, I was making so many friends, I was involved in everything & anything. What I forgot was that disease, disorders, luck, love, happiness have no criteria. And to quote the cliche: Everything happens for a reason – even the things we think as ’shitty’ and ‘f**ked up’. My eating disorder served as an alarm to start living free, and letting my own expectations precede society’s. To chose to pursue a life that is mine, instead of a life I thought society labeled as ’successful’.

And so to the stranger’s eyes, as I laugh (now much easily) with that twinkle in my eye: trust me, it took me a while to get here, but dude, the journey… is so worth taking.

Letting women back into our lives. Really.

The Deepavali holiday brought with it more than the extra sight of twinkly lights along Serangoon Road. For it, it came with another 2 checks on the list of things I wanted to be able to do as I recover from bulimia: to be able to be comfortable around people again, particularly women, in the presence of food.

For many women with eating disorders, the thought of spending time with women alone in the presence of food can be frightful. It’s a challenge to be comfortable, to be yourself, to be open, and to be able to laugh freely no bars hold. With women, it’s hard because we tend to be competitive, bitchy, and judgemental. We appraise one another, often regardless of our relationship with each other – best friend, stranger, sister, cousin, and we take mental note of things. Eating disordered women (EDW) tend [note that this is based on my observations, rather than a scientific & well-planned survey] to be Type A: competitive perfectionists. Everything tends to appear Black & White – no grey, no rainbow spectrum. Everything tends to be Good or Bad – fried food is bad and out of bounds, salad is good and therefore we MUST eat it every day. You get the drift. And because of all the labellings created, EDW end up looking through their tinted glasses on not just themselves, but the women around them. Oh she’s having a donut, yays. Oh no she’s eating salad, dammit. I must too.

Don’t think of us as bitches. It’s a reaction, or perhaps better described as a side effect. And it makes it so hard to be around women because EDW will naturally conclude that other women must be appraising them the way they themselves do. Even if non-EDW aren’t. Shutting off from other women is not healthy – we need our girlfriends to keep us sane, to listen to us whine about not having those Jimmy Choos, to swoon over McDreamy in Grey’s Anatomy, to discuss the latest developments in our relationship. We need our girlfriends to hug us, to remind us of some of the good things in life when we forget with the many stresses of life.

Over my course of recovery, I’ve encountered many challenges and one of the big ones include being able to make new girlfriends and meet up with old ones whom I’ve not seen in a while. But it becomes easier. Slowly and surely, I started opening up to more of my girlfriends, and I began to be more able to laugh my mad, genuine laugh, that comes straight from the heart. Thing is, I didn’t even notice the subtle yet significant changes in my life until it hit me: I’ve been able to laugh, I’ve been able to make plans to meet up with old girlfriends without the secret fear of feeling inferior or ugly next to them, and best of all, I’ve been able to be around food AND girlfriends. Nothing beats the feeling of having the energy to dance, to laugh, to sing, and to feel pure, unadulterated emotion – the good & the bad.

Having my cake and eating it. Heaven.

For caregivers of sufferers with eating disorders:

A list of ten guidelines for anyone who cares about someone with an eating disorder:

1. Recognize that eating disorders are not simply a problem over “food.” Eating disorders have multiple causes, not necessarily having to do with food or weight.
2. Do not focus on eating and weight. Do NOT say “It looks like you’ve gained weight” or “It looks like you’ve lost weight.” Do say “You have a wonderful personality” or “You have a wonderful sense of humor.” Do NOT compare calorie counts, exercise programs, etc.
3. When talking to an eating-disordered person, make “I” statements rather than “you” statements.
4. Do not treat eating-disordered people as lesser people. Continue to invite them places, even if you do not believe they will attend. Letting them know that they have friends who think of them in situations outside of the eating disorder is important.
5. Know that our helplessness is not necessarily a sign that we should be doing something else; it is a sign that there is a real limit to what we can do to make another person be or feel something else. It is important to remember that while we are helpless over some things—like make someone change—we are not helpless over making our own authentic responses to someone.
6. Offer human company and empathy. To empathize, we need not necessarily agree with the person’s feeling or stance. There is a place for advice, information, experts, recommendations, pep talks, reassurance, distraction, jokes, confrontation. But that place is generally after a person first feels that their experience is understood and accepted for what it is.
7. Know that people who are in recovery acknowledge the importance of being loved and being believed in. People who are in recovery say that it was important that friends and family members kept trying to reach through to them.
8. Bear in mind that people with eating disorders yearn to know that someone could both know the worst about them and love them and care about them anyway.
9. Get support for yourself. Find a friend, counselor or support group. Get information on eating disorders as well to help you understand their experience and to help you know what to expect and what might be helpful. Don’t let your newfound information on eating disorders speak for the eating-disordered person you know. Recognize that every person’s story is different: different causes, different triggers.
10. Understand that getting into recovery can be hard, but well worth it!

Sources: Sheila Reindi and M. Suzanne Repetto. “What Should I Do?” 1991. For more information: Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders, Inc. National Eating Disorders Association

Could’ve been doing that right now but no thanks.

Selamat Hari Raya

As I sit here in the office, alone, I start daydreaming.

5 minutes later, it hit me like a jolt of lightening: I’m not longer scared to be left alone with food. It’s hard to imagine that just a year ago, i was so afraid of being alone with myself, with my thoughts, and with food.

I was afraid of being alone with myself and my thoughts because I didn’t trust myself, I didn’t want to feel anything that was not ‘good’ – such as disappointment, anger, jealousy, hurt.

I was afraid of being alone with food because to avoid feeling anything that was not ‘good’, I’d binge on ‘bad’ foods I’d been restricting myself from for days, months, years.

Looking back, I feel really good, really [and unashamedly] proud of myself for coming so far. I can’t say that I don’t feel ‘gross’ and ‘fat’ sometimes but it’s remembering and pulling out ‘combat’ thoughts to those that I’d picked up along the road of recovery. And I’m damn proud to say that I’ve got plenty of them stored somewhere in the recesses of my mind, ready to leap out and slam those negative prick-y thoughts out of my way.

And now, it’s back to work.

Cheers to a great weekend y’all [I'm really starting to like this word.]