7.6.21 // food is not my enemy [part II]
Part 2 [Trigger Warning: Eating Disorder]
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Food is not my enemy.
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As I mentioned in my previous post, my relationship with food really started to deteriorate in my university years.
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On weekdays I'd find myself fanatically working out, avoiding foods to then spend weekends binging. What had started as just restricting became a full-on yo-yo. It was a loop, a cycle of shame and restriction that repeated over and over and over again.
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I had completely lost my ability to listen to my body for what it needed for substance, when it was hungry, and when it was full.
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At that point, food was my enemy and I needed to control it. An example of my perfectionism in its most raw and human form.
Finally, in my senior year, I went to the free university therapist for help with my relationship with food. It was a terrible experience. I felt like she wasn't listening because I wasn't a classically diagnosed eating disorder. I also had a very average body and raised no alarms in her mind. When I was speaking I felt so small, but not in the way I wanted to be "small."
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I wish I could say that today I'm "good to go!" I still find myself triggered around comments about weight and even when Taylor goes on long runs (because I should be exercising that much!!), but what I'm working towards is balance and a renewed relationship with food (and exercise).
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It's taken great therapists, following positive role models, understanding my triggers, and reworking my broken ways of thinking, but for the first time in my life, I feel like I see her, I see the eating disorder for what she is.
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First, she has a name, her name is "Samanatha" and she is the one who gives me the passive-aggressive comments, the shaming, the false narrative. Taylor and I named her because I don't feel like she is me, a part of me, but she isn't me and it's helped me see those thoughts and keep them as just that- thoughts to let go of, not action.
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I know I have a long life of unwinding and teaching myself to love my body and embrace food and exercise in a way that my body wants and needs, but each day I'm taking a step.
