I wake up to pee at 2:46 am and the first thing I think about is my stomach.
More specifically, how it looks.
Automatically, as if instinctively— but the kind of instinct born from lies rather than truth— I slip my hand up my shirt and feel for my abs. It’s the middle of the night. Pitch black. Eyes barely open so as not to fully cross the chasm between sleep and wakefulness.
And I am flexing my abdominal muscles and feeling for their definition.
Like the PTSD response of losing your keys and obsessively checking your purse to reassure yourself they’re there, I am obsessively checking my stomach to reassure myself that this one piece of my physical attractiveness (at least in my mind) is still there. A PTSD response from… media? Body comments from my teenage years? I’m still trying to figure out why I do this.
But it’s nearly 3am, and I can’t hold it any longer. Sure, I feel ashamed that I’m doing this, but I’m tired. I will think about that later.
When I wake up, I think about what I ate the night before.
Especially if we went out and I ate things whose ingredients I couldn’t control. At 6:13am when my eyes open for the first time, there is anxiety on my chest. Some from work and the pressures I put on myself to “do enough” and “be productive.” Lots from grading myself on the previous day’s eating. Going over all the calories and macros. Giving myself little imaginary gold stars and demerits for protein-rich, nutrient-dense meals and sneaky Reese’s cups, respectively. Using those gold stars and demerits to then plan what I’m going to eat on this day.
When I go to get dressed and see my now 8+ hour fasted belly in the mirror and see that it is flat, I will feel okay about what I ate. Only then, though. I do not know how to feel okay about what I ate without physical “confirmation” that I can feel okay about what I ate.
Eating and appearing are cycles that feed themselves, after all.
The snake and the tail. The one informing the other. The two inextricably intertwined.
When I see skinny girls, I wonder what they eat.
When I see muscular girls, I wonder what they eat.
When I see larger-than-me girls, I wonder what they eat.
When I watch Selling Sunset, I want to see how long I can go before I get hungry.
When I watch her muscles cascade like sandy desert hills, I want to increase my carbs.
For me, tiny waists and dainty arms exist from a lack of calories (and, in the case of Selling Sunset, lots of plastic surgery.) Big muscles exist from an influx of food. Bellies and hips and all the other things we’re told not to have exist from “too much” sugar.
Food and appearance: forever see-sawing.
Me: forever teetering between.
Have you ever been on fire in plain sight but no one tries to extinguish the flames because oddly, no one can see them?
This is what it is to struggle with food and your body, but not to have a “full blown” eating disorder. To be a “functioning addict,” if you will. But unlike an alcoholic who leaves a physical trail of their bad behavior, the havoc I wreak is an absence of something, not a presence. It’s hard to notice what isn’t there but could be: menu-freedom, spontaneous ice-cream dates, bake-offs, movie snacks.
Unlike anorexia, bulimia, or the like, the rot of not-quite-an-eating-disorder lives beneath the surface. You cannot see my anxiety as I look up the hotel gym before we arrive, needing to know ahead of time whether or not I will be able to workout, and if so, what I can do. You cannot see my shame as the waiter turns to me and I order a salad-dressing-on-the-side-no-cheese even though I want a quesadilla. You cannot see my panic as a scoop of unweighed, unmeasured protein hits my dinner plate.
Nope. This fire is invisible.
To be clear, this is not a cry for help.
To be clear, many girls and women you know are being consumed by the same or similar fires. And to be clear, many of us lie about it out of shame for years. You can feel assured that I’m “okay” simply by the fact that I am writing and sharing these words. Doing the work out loud like this has perhaps been the biggest (also hardest) step forward in working through those disordered thoughts.
This is not a “help me” sign. This is my eye-contact with that which begged I look away for years. This is my flashlight in the dark for anyone else in their own darkness. This is my human-ing in public, in front of the world, not because it’s easy or fun, but because what’s the point of human-ing otherwise? Are we even human-ing if we aren’t doing it in communion with others? What good is this life if we do not share it, the whole host of it? The beautiful, the shameful, the still-figuring-it-out-ful?
I think it is what we all want most but cannot say: to be fully human. Known and seen completely.
And welcomed even so.
Emily you are seen! Thank you for your courage and vulnerability to share from the deepest and most authentic places. Your words will inspire and help many.