Trigger: Body image, disordered eating, mental health
I have a rocky relationship with clothing that probably has occurred ever since I have had an awareness of the expectations of female bodies (from a depressingly young age). I have been through baggy phases, never showing my tummy, dreading summer and wearing a bikini / swimming costume, being scared when stretch marks first appeared on my thigh, crying in changing rooms when confronted with a 360 degree reflection of myself. And so on. I have limited foods, binged foods because the feminist side of myself says I am being ridiculous, dieted, obsessively exercised, punished myself for eating, for not working out, for feeling like I need to do all these things. I have felt confident sporadically, a gross mess most of the time, beautiful, happy, and sad. I look in the mirror and think yeh this looks alright before changing 30 seconds later into something that hides my tummy, I have existed solely in jogging bottoms so people won't see my legs, I then went through a period of thinking my legs were the best bit about myself, I have spoken to myself about having a nose job, my eyes squint too much when I smile, I have fantasised about graphically eliminating the rolls on my stomach, I have avoided doing things because I was scared about how I would look, I have wrapped myself in towels, I have hurt myself because of all these feelings and more.
I like to think of myself as a fairly sensible and aware person. A part of me knows that this maelstrom in my head is the product of A.) Myself B.) The society I have been raised in. This summer I went through a hyper-controlling eating phase where I would periodically restrict what I ate and then binge at another point because 'I deserved it'. I pushed myself to see how long I could go without eating and in doing so developed a toxic relationship with the bathroom scales. If I got the number I wanted I would be happy, content and if I didn’t I would punish myself. And I think the part that was most frightening is that I enjoyed it whilst being unhappy. I got a sick pleasure from denying myself food, from feeling that my baggy jeans now need a belt, from thinking that I am so strong because I don't need food. It seems ridiculous that in a society where food is in abundance, covering millions of supermarket shelves, and that I am in a privileged position to afford these foods that I systematically went about denying it to myself. I had the option to eat and chose not to. And slowly food lost all interest to me, I would look in the fridge and be uninterested and so would opt not to eat; thus the cycle continued. Part of this may have stemmed from a control issue: I was moving to London and although I put a brave face on it I don't think I have ever been more scared. The move was inevitable: I was moving to a big city that I have been to three times, I was effectively leaving home, starting an effectively online MA course in the midst of a pandemic, I was becoming 'independent' and was so, so scared. So perhaps part of it stemmed from a need to enact some form of control over my life, to feel like I was in control of myself. I am not sure. But I do know that this process of denial is not solely contained this summer, it probably spans for the majority of my teenage life. How I am perceived by others, how I perceive myself has always been in my mind.
It is only recently, and over Christmas, that my relationship with food has begun to improve. Slowly. I am re-discovering cooking and baking. And it is a re-discovery. If you deny yourself joy you have to take the time to uncover it again. It isn't perfect but it's something.