From Giverny to Boston, from sickness to health — a journey through eating disorders
Hello, dear readers. This is a vulnerable share — I hesitated to share this story, but I think sharing of our struggle stories is a powerful force for de-stigmatizing mental illness.
In the above photo, I was taking a trip to France to study arts history, with great people. In the estate of Monet (Giverny, not too far outside of Paris). I was so blessed. And I was probably thinking about how many calories were in my lunch. And this was the second time in my life when I had fallen into these cycles of disordered thinking regarding food and my body, and had lost a dangerous amount of weight. I didn’t think I was fat, so I told myself that I wasn’t anorexic. But, by the clinical classifications, I indeed was. I was scared to death of gaining a pound. It was a private hell — always hungry, and always afraid of food but dying for it at the same time.
The first time, I was a sophomore in high school. I was starting at a new school and in a new competitive studio dance company. Having only begun formal dance training a couple years earlier, but completely hooked, I worked harder it at than I had at anything else in my life. Apart from loving every second, I was determined to catch up with my same-age dance peers. Dancing hours upon hours (in studio and at home) also helped me to lose some weight I did need to, health-wise; coming off a growth-hormone medication had led my metabolism to slow down faster than my eating habits could change. “You look great!”, I kept hearing as I kept losing weight, and I wanted more of that. The thinner I got, the more I felt like I could be a “real dancer.”
Nothing could make me grow taller, but thinner I could get. My height and proportions (long torso and short legs, opposite to the “dancer ideal”) were immutable. But I could be thinner, I thought — on both conscious and subconscious levels. And thinner I did get, until it went way, way too far. I do believe that sociocultural factors played a part — such as social dynamics at my school, insensitive (even sexist) comments from young and immature brothers, and cultural conceptions of beauty that is the water in which we all swim (particularly women). Thankfully, due to social support, and — yes — a pure love of food that overpowered a will to self-deprive, I returned to a much healthier weight by junior year of high school. But the demon of eating disorders reared its ugly head again four years later — sophomore year of college.
That’s when I found myself in Paris, with the opportunity of a lifetime but my disordered eating leeching the joy within it that I might have experienced. Once again, something in me believed that if I were thin enough, I could be — and valued as — a beautiful dancer. I connected to my worth in that dancer identity, in an art form that had stolen my heart. On a deeper level, it was about control. With a sense that so much of my life had been out of my control, how much I moved by body, and what I put into it, could be under my control. And that was an intoxicating belief — whether or not I consciously realized it (indeed, looking back, I can see that much of this happened on subconscious levels). On another level, much of what I had worked for felt like achievement for authority figures (parents, teachers, principals, coaches) — this, this, was just for me.
Through all of this, there was rising of deep scars that hadn’t healed. Depriving of my body of the fuel it needed certainly wasn’t going to heal those scars, but perhaps this was those scars’ way of making themselves seen. Through yoga, therapy, and a rigorous inner journey through graduate school in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, much of that healing has happened.
Do I still have body image issues? For sure, I do. But I’m doing what I need to take care of my body, mind, and spirit. I’m on the right path towards full healing. Disordered patterns around food and the body are an addiction — I know it’s something that can take hold of me again. All I can really do now is live my fullest life, not get stuck in regret, and do what I can to take care of myself. The below photo is me doing just that — at a much healthier weight, pushing at my body’s potential with both strength and softness.
A couple of requests, dear readers. First, nurture and treasure young girls. Deeply ingrain in them that their worth is so much more than a number on a scale, or how much they do or don’t conform to societal (largely arbitrary, and commercially-driven) beauty standards. If you teach dance, prioritize artistry over physical aesthetic. Make body positivity the norm. And thank you for reading. I see you and value you, what ever struggle you’ve gone through or are going through. You matter, in all your strengths and flaws.