Anonymous Turmoiler: Unhealthy Obsession With Body Image
Sometimes eating disorders are too easy to hide.
Sometimes you look totally healthy and everyone thinks you’re ok when you’re having silent mental breakdowns ALL. THE. TIME. Pair that with life long anxiety and you become an expert at hiding things. You learn to stay silent to avoid people trying to help with words that are actually triggers.
“You don’t NEED to lose weight, but have you tried this?”
“I LIKE your thick thighs”
“Curvy body types are IN!”
I grew up with an average height and weight. My doctors never told me I needed to lose weight and I always liked being active and eating healthy foods. However, average was never good enough for me. I grew up with a sister who’s a professional dancer. People commented constantly on her long, thin legs and super toned, skinny body. People were jealous of her. All clothes looked amazing on her. By comparison, I was the fat one. On top of that, my extended family consists of a few more super skinny girls that I was always comparing myself to.
After being around them I would feel like a whale.
We would be talking about boys and parties and all I could think about was why their thighs didn’t squish when they sat down and why I had stretch marks on my hips. Why could I see their tendons behind their knees when they walked and the cellulite on my legs just wouldn’t go away?
It didn’t stop with my sister and cousins. Comparing my body to other people’s quickly became an obsession that consumed everything I ate.
When I was in high school my doctor told me she could count all my ribs and asked if I was getting enough to eat.
I remember my mom showing her friends my prom pictures and they all commented on how thin I was. Though they said this in worried tones, but it made me feel amazing. I liked the concern. I liked that I could finally be around my sister without feeling fat. But it didn’t stop there.
I became very uncomfortable if I wasn’t the skinniest one in the room. If I ever saw someone more lean then me, I immediately berated myself for being a fat whale.
At 23 I still feel this way sometimes. People with anxiety and type A personalities are very susceptible to body image issues and obsessive tendencies. I’m a little on the short side and have wide hips, which makes me look a lot bigger than I am. As an adult I’m told this is “sexy” and “womanly.” But every time a guy assures me that he LIKES my wide hips after I complain about them, or someone compliments the way my curves look in a dress or skirt, all I hear is “You’re fat. You’re fat. You’re fat.”
I’m working out 4 times a week now and am actually terrified that I’ll gain weight from putting on more muscle (muscle weighs more than fat and that whole lecture). Maybe one day I’ll learn to be happy with my body the way it is, wide hips and all. And maybe one day I won’t obsessively check the scale and compare my body to other people’s. But for now I’m working on toning and accepting the body I have. After all, there are worse things to be addicted to than health, right?
