My relationship with Food

Ugh. Food. Love it, hate it, eat it, avoid it. It's been an ongoing battle basically since I can remember.
Yesterday, I was talking to my roommate's girlfriend and she mentioned that she battled through anorexia a few years ago and weighed herself the day before and was 150 pounds at about 5'8" I think? And she was saying how she had never weighed that much before in her entire life and wanted to lose weight. How strange is it that we base how we feel on how much a scale says rather than how we feel or look. If we feel healthy and exercise and eat properly but are still a bit on the "chubby" side, why is that a bad thing? It shouldn't be, because the person across the street can be incredibly thin and eat junk food all day and never exercise. It's an incredibly messed up perspective of weight that we have here in North America, and it affects everyone at an early age these days.

Back in the day, when I was about 5 or so, I started over eating. Maybe even at an earlier age than that, but that's pretty much when I start to remember things. My worst memory from childhood is this: We bought girl guide mint thin cookies and I asked the parents if I could have one. They said yes, and so I stuffed one in my mouth and stole another one out of the box and ate TWO cookies. Yes, I said it, TWO whole cookies. And that's my earliest memory of the start of my overeating. Another memory is when I was eating a cheese string and one of the sisters opened a bag of chips. Instead of eating my cheese string by peeling it and enjoying as a cheese string should be eaten, I ate it like a block of cheese so that I could start eating chips asap. Frickin disgusting right? I didn't think so at the time, but when I think back to that moment, I feel repulsed and guilty. Why did I do that to myself when I was younger? Eating was always a boredom or emotional thing. I'm bored? I can entertain myself by eating. I'm feeling stressed or sad or pretty much any negative emotion? Eat. That should solve the problem right? It's so weird that food can make me feel better momentarily. And I say momentarily, because later on, I'm going to regret those chips I ate. That chocolate that I ate. Whatever it was that I stuffed into my mouth and didn't even really taste or enjoy because it was filling the void in my mental state. So this all started in an early age. I was probably overweight by the time I was 6 and in first grade a least. Maybe earlier, I can't really remember, but I can remember being overweight by the time I was in grade 6. And that's when it really started to affect my life.

Middle school kids are assholes. Yes, not mean, not jerks, big fucking Assholes. Not that I realized it at the time, but I know it now. I see the news saying how somebody killed themselves over teasing from their peers because they were gay, didn't look "right", etc. How messed up is that? That other people have that much influence on how someone feels about themselves. Even if you love other girls, you can't 100% ever feel feel comfortable right in today's society because someone is going to give you a look that bothers you one day. Even if it is one look in a year, it's going to affect how you feel to some degree. Same with fat people. "Skinny" people are going to judge those people, even just "thinner" people will judge them. Why are they eating? They should just starve themselves, right? Sure. That's how eating disorders start. You want everyone to get a mental disease just so that people can satisfy the ideal North American look? That's fucked. So here's my story. Throughout grades 6 to 8, I had a good group of friends I guess. I played basketball and volleyball and was friends with Tiff and some of the other girls that I went to elementary school with and whatnot, and I didn't think twice. It got worse in grade 7 I think when Nicole showed up and we were good friends but we weren't really. She got her boyfriend that year (that she knew I liked) to pretend to like me and pretend to ask me out over MSN (because that was how we communicated back then). Imagine how I felt when I found out it was a joke. Or my "friend" Jill who harassed me constantly calling me fat and stupid online and then in person, pretended it was her "sister" that was online using her account to be mean. Can anyone guess how I felt when a group of boys asked me if I was a "dyke" one day during lunchtime. I didn't even know what that meant at the time. And during those 3 years, I honestly didn't even realize that these things were probably done to me because I didn't look like the other girls. I was about double their size. Pretty "fat". I cried one day because my teacher called my face "round" because she was teaching us the word round in french. I was super aware that I didn't fit the typical female physique for my age and so I decided to make a change at the end of Grade 8. One of my friends in middle school (also not really a friend after all) had a major eating disorder. She didn't eat. She was anorexic. I didn't even realize that was a real thing until I started hanging out with her a lot. Welcome to eating disorders, Sarah.

That was the summer I stopped eating properly. That's the summer that fucked me up for the next 7 year of my life. That sounds pretty severe, doesn't it? It's not that bad, although it kind of is. I wouldn't eat breakfast if I could avoid it. I would eat minimal food for lunch, and then pretend I wasn't hungry at dinner time so that I could eat only half a bowl of rice and get away with it. I started going running. I started becoming emotionally unstable. I can remember hiding food in my room so that food would look like it was eaten and then I'd sneak it into our garbage cans in the back when I found time to do it. One of my memories is sitting on the couch watching TV and the sisters came back from the library with a movie that they wanted to watch. All they wanted to do was watch the darn movie, but apparently it was the end of the world. I cried, went for a run, and I don't think I ate much that day. It felt good. Feeling hungry felt good. That meant I was going to be skinny soon. If I lost weight, everyone would love me in high school. Makes perfect sense.

Except that is exactly what happened. I felt better about myself and therefore was more outgoing when I got to high school. At 120 pounds and 5'3" ish, I looked good and I fit in to the norm. I was skinny. And people liked it. People talked to me, I had friends, I made the volleyball team, I made the basketball team, and life was good. Except I still wasn't eating properly. I threw out sandwiches that mother made me because I didn't want those calories. People liked me when I was skinny. Why would I want to get fat again? But then I would get dizzy spills during sports practices. You'd think that I would realize that something was wrong if that was happening? Nope, I LIKED it. That meant I wasn't eating enough and that made me proud of myself. But this wasn't an everyday thing. This is about the time where I started my binging and then to compensate, I wouldn't eat. It was a cycle. Sometimes I'd eat too much, then I'd "reverse" it by not eating. And it was a problem for 3 years until grade 12 began. I stopped playing sports entirely and started feeling totally happy for the first time. I started dating guys and because I wasn't playing sports, I gained weight. At that time, it didn't matter. I gained about 15 to 20 pounds that year. It didn't bother me. I had real friends that I would hang out with and go out for lunch, and go for coffee and go to Dennys at midnight. It was so much fun. And I had a bit of a meltdown when I realized how "big" my grad dress was going to be, but I was so happy with everything that it didn't really matter all that much.

Flash forward to the week that triggered the return of my unhappiness with my weight. It was the week before my recital for my ARCT. I got sick. Like so sick that I was in bed, couldn't stay awake for much time, couldn't eat, etc. Probably mostly due to stress. Guess who lost 10 pounds in a week and was reminded of how good it is to feel hungry? That's right. And it came back in full effect just in time for university.

First year was a change. I was independent and living in an entirely different city than my parents. I made friends because high school had taught me how to be outgoing. And I started dating Zach. Remember him? I wish I didn't sometimes, but that's a story for another time. I gained weight in just the first few months of living in Lister. Unlimited access to fried foods, chips, kraft dinner, ice cream. Everything I could possibly imagine. A binger's dream. But that weight gain came with feeling incredibly insecure about myself. I was messed up emotionally for the entirety of my relationship with Zach. He moved into my room with me pretty much as soon as we started seeing each other and I lost potential at friendships with other people on my floor (although we were still friends, we didn't have the kind of friendship that I wish had come of living in that first year), mostly because the two of us isolated ourselves from everyone else. I want to say it was his fault, but it was my fault too. People didn't like him. People in general just didn't like him but I loved him, so I spent my entire life with him for those 2 years. And I grew more insecure. I thought people didn't like me because I didn't have friends, not realizing that it was my fault. I gained more weight, and Zach got depressed. A bunch of things happened and in the end, we were both in such a negative mindset that we were feeding off of it from each other. And then came the times I cut myself. That happened a few times through the course of our relationship. I would reach points of such depression that I couldn't get out of bed and I would cry and he would make me so sad that I would turn to physical pain in order to feel less emotional pain. That just isn't normal. But this was the way I felt for 2 years. And in that time period, I battled through eating disorder. I would stop eating for periods of time. I would binge and try to make myself throw up. I drank myself to sleep a few times. It was really just not a good time. And still, I couldn't lose weight even when I was starving myself because I'd gain it back as soon as I started eating again. At that moment, I can truly say that I hated myself in every way possible. Never have I ever felt such self loathing. I have never hated anyone in my life as much as I hated myself during that time. And I never ever want to feel that much hate ever again.
Finally, we broke up. Thank god. Or else I would never be who I am today.

When we broke up, so much clarity came into play. I moved home for the summer and worked at Alberta Environment and that summer was a huge change. I didn't have this negative cloud surrounding me the entire time. People still liked me even though I thought I was fat and ugly. People still talked to me and treated me like a human being. In fact, people seemed to love me, and I realized that it wasn't me, it was how I was perceiving myself that was the huge problem and how that other person in my life wasn't making anything better. I started eating properly (since I was living at home, I got real meals for dinner, had food to feed myself for breakfast and lunch, etc.) and that was also the summer that I started to do yoga. Like I've blogged before, yoga changed my life. But I remember making friends at work that summer. I was suddenly free to do whatever I wanted. I went out to the bars and had a great time. Balance came back into my life. My weight came to it's natural equilibrium, and I felt happy again. Truly happy. I started dating other people and life was fabulous. It was a sudden turn for the best, and everything felt good again. I felt like I recovered from everything. I biked to work sometimes, I did yoga, I had a social life, and I ate properly. It all compounded to a healthy lifestyle, and it felt great.

And since then, I've never been back to that same place. I still hate my body some days. I still don't eat as much as I should some days. I still like feeling hungry. But I know that's not how I should feel. So it helps just to know that it isn't as important as my brain seems to tell me it is. And I've got amazing people in life that help me get through those days. I binge on cookies and then I remember to eat healthy and how much better it makes me feel. I remember that my body shape isn't the same as the stick thin girl that I see at school. I remember that not everybody who stares at me is judging me for being "fat" but maybe their eyes are just in that direction or maybe it's because they think I'm cute or they like the outfit I'm wearing. I know I'm not fat, but I'm always going to have that voice in my head that tells me otherwise. And some days that voice is stronger than on other days. I still eat when I'm stressed. I'm going to gain weight sometimes when life gets overwhelming. But if I try to eat healthy and keep my body physically fit, I can get through it. I'm never going to let myself fall into that depressive state, but some days I feel super shit. It's an ongoing battle and it totally sucks. But that's life. And shit happens, yet life goes on.

I have friends that support me in everything I do. An amazing family that cares about me. And a boyfriend that tells me I'm beautiful every single day of my life. I can feed myself. I have clothes. I have a home. I have running water. The sun rises every single day. And I couldn't ask for anything more. I'm happy but I have those days. We all have those days. But when you have a clear perspective of life, things will be okay. That's what my last 23 years have taught me. Life is what you make it, so why not say fuck it once in a while.