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Everyone Has Some Sort of Eating Disorder and Body Dysmorphia Part One

Just not good enough

By Angie Craig Published 5 years ago 7 min read
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Everyone has some sort of eating disorder and body dysmorphia, it’s just the situation of the world today. Since the 80s, I truly believe this has gotten worse with social media; it's everywhere you look, nowhere is safe anymore. Back in the 80s, I watched my mum as she battled with her idea of what a perfect body should look like. I watched as my nan battle and slowly die from her eating disorder. Each woman battling a different side: a different kind of mindset. With my mum, she always thought of herself as overweight, and standing at 4'9'' she was maybe a little curvier than most people back in the 80s, but I used to think she was perfect. Shapely legs, beautiful hips which she used to carry me on, amazing arms to which she would give the most amazing hugs with. To me, she was perfect, and as a child, I never understood why she didn’t love her body. I loved her, shouldn’t she love herself too? Although she never become underweight and I never believed she was overweight, it was where her mindset was at that time. The woman loved her food and she could eat, but she would torture herself with self-loathing and hide her body under baggy clothing.

Photo by Denis Oliveira on Unsplash

My nanna was the opposite: she battled and battled with her eating disorder. Standing at 5'9'', my nanna was so underweight that she could no longer stand, her painful joints couldn’t hold the weight of her body. I remember being a wee child and having her arms around me and thinking, for god’s sake nan, eat something. I could feel her bones under her skin, and the hug felt like a skeleton hugging me from the grave. I never understood why she didn’t eat, and no matter how thin, how bony she got, it was never good enough: she wanted to be thinner. On the very odd occasion I did see my nan standing, I could see the bones poking through her skin. In my teens I had this mindset that I was going to eat what I wanted when I wanted, but I would never become so unhappy with my body that I would become either of the two woman.

It wasn’t until my 20s and with the rise of social media that I started to understand the idea behind it all. Whenever I looked into the mirror, I only saw what I didn’t like about myself. This month my hips were too big, the next month my breasts were too big, then they were too small. I battled, but I don’t believe I battled as much as the woman did before me. I suffered from an overactive thyroid, so my weight was up and down, and I blamed the disease for my weight and size.

In my 30s, I really found my love of food, creating cakes, making bacon sandwiches at 2 AM, roast dinners on a Sunday and curries with as much cream and the good stuff as I could get into them. By my mid-30s, I was comfort eating. I was lazy, I became weak, I couldn’t run as far as I could in my 20s, I would sweat and puff my way up the road, and every day I looked in the mirror and blamed my disease. It’s the disease that’s doing this to you, where’s the cream cake? The disease is stopping you from running, where are my cigarettes? My potbelly is getting bigger, where’s the bottle of wine? Taking responsibility for my own actions wasn’t something I was doing; I was blaming the disease and other people around me, but not my mindset.

I didn’t see the connection because it was different, it wasn’t the same mindset that I had seen growing up, but the conditioning was there, already rooted into my subconscious by the most amazing and influential woman I had around me. We were conditioned to believe that if we didn’t look a certain way, then we just weren’t good enough.

This was when I started to take responsibility for my own actions. I stopped asking for approval from other people and started doing things for myself. The gym was first. I had tried the gym a few years ago, but it just never worked out. I paid for my membership and started going three times a week, then twice, then once until I wasn’t going at all and paying for a membership I never used. But this time, I made a promise that I would go, that I would ask for help from other gym members, that I would lift the bar and work up to putting weights on the side. I made a promise to myself and I stuck to it.

I took back my power, stopped seeking permission from other people and no longer needed approval from anyone; the only person I needed approval from was myself, and now I give myself permission to do the things I want. It wasn’t until the past couple of years that I learned that I had a eating disorder, and it was in fact something I had learned from the women around me. I stopped blaming the disease and looked at myself, the people around me, the magazines I read and the social media I was following.

Now, every time I look in the mirror, I don’t look at the things that upset me, only at what I love about myself, and it turns out: I love quite a lot about myself. I’m one badass, I have done and seen some amazing things in this life, and my body, my power unit, has been the vehicle that has taken me to these places and experienced these things. My body is one healthy unit; yes, I still suffer from illness, but I’m not in pain anymore, my knees don’t hurt, nor do my back and hips, it was the weight that I had put on that was putting a strain on my joints, not the muscle spasms I have through my illness, which seems to be receding since I started taking responsibility for myself. The illness, as it turns out, was only a vehicle for me to blame. I found a love of running again. I can’t run far, but I run as far as I can, then walk and run again, and I love it. The freedom of putting on a pair of training shoes and going out for a few miles is clarifying, and for that hour of my day, my mind is free, clear and at peace.

I don’t talk to other woman about weight, size, or diets, but I still talk about food, recipes, clothes, desire and all the good stuff we are meant to be talking about. I tell everyone how amazing they are looking and I tell them when they are not. I don’t shield myself or them when they have something to say about the way they are looking, why they are looking withdrawn or pale. I stand and I listen and I no longer sugarcoat my words in fear of upsetting their feelings. As women, we need to tell the truth to each other and give each other support and not shield ourselves from the pain of life. Everyone suffers, and we need to be here in the moment for each other. It's time to stop getting frustrated with each other and tell each other how we are feeling and have faith that not only our female friends will be there for us, but all our friends, male or female. As humans, as people, we put so much pressure on ourselves and each other. Shouldn’t we take some the pressure from each other?

I’ve stopped following any social media that makes me feel less than what I am, and I fiercely protect my energy and no longer take part in what makes me unhappy. We are here on this earth one time; no matter what you believe in, this is the only life you have right now. I eat, I go to the gym, I dance, I go to the clubs, I drink, I wear what the fuck I want, I’ve stopped asking people permission to be me and with no fucks given, I am not here in this life to punish myself or anybody else for that matter. I’m here to enjoy myself.

I’m breaking the conditioning that told me I wasn’t good enough, because I’m amazing, I’m curvy, sexy, and delicious. I choose to love myself, the way I am, and no fucks are given.

In doing so, perhaps one day, by beautiful strong girls will also break the conditioning I have set upon them. Together, maybe we can break the chain of conditioning that was set upon us before we are even born.

Photo by Irina Murza on Unsplash

happiness
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About the Creator

Angie Craig

40 something and I think I have finally found myself. In the past few years I have gone through a crazy of experiences. getting married too young, divorced, solo hiking, the pennine way, learning to live with PTSD, I have stories to tell.

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