Unexpected trauma

This is the longest post I’ve written, by far, and it contains a number of disordered thoughts, both from a traumatic experience last week and from other experiences throughout my life.  I do counter those thoughts and show how I’ve improved in many ways, but this is a post to read with caution (or not at all) if you’re not in a good place yourself.

—

The other night, I accidentally caught a glimpse of myself in a full-length mirror.  I hadn’t intended to, as I try to avoid mirrors as much as possible, and I was completely unprepared.

Panic doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt.  This body I’m trapped in is beyond unacceptable.  I’ve tried to pretend that my body is okay, but what I saw was so shocking and awful.  Even now, while writing this, I can’t bear to think about that sight.

Earlier that day, I had mentioned to my therapist that I was frustrated at how much my body still affects me, even though I’ve made so much progress.  I know my body size and shape aren’t really important.  People don’t love me despite my body; it’s completely irrelevant.  Yes, there are certainly people out there who judge, but it’s hard for me to understand why I care so much what those people think.

So why did this sight throw me so much?  I really don’t understand.  I was feeling good that day, and this completely broke me.  My body must be incredibly terrible for me to react so strongly to it, right?

I could barely think, but I managed to reach out to a friend for help.  I had visited with several friends online already that day, and I didn’t want to bother any of them again, but I didn’t know what else to do. 

I explained what had happened.  It seems like such a silly thing when I explain it, but he understood that it was traumatic for me and that it had deeply affected me.

He and I had previously discussed my work with sitting with my thoughts, as mentioned in my previous post.  He pointed out that something like that could eventually be helpful, but that I’m just not yet ready for that.  His implication that I will be some day was helpful, as was his observation that I’m not there now.  It felt reassuring, like he understood that this was too much for me to handle and that I’m not “wrong” to have this sort of completely disproportionate reaction to what had happened.

I knew that my body “doesn’t matter”, but that sight was so awful.  It was so hard to calm down.  Writing to him helped.

“I don’t want to be too big for anything.  I’m afraid of being too big for anyone in any way, especially someone I care about.  Too big to look at, too big to lift, too big to sit next to, too big to fit somewhere.  I knew this went back a long time, but this goes way back.  I feel like a scared child right now, a really really young child, and that just exacerbates the disconnect between how I feel and how I am.”

Things came up that I didn’t know were there, or at least that I hadn’t been able to really explain, even to myself.  I told him that I felt like I needed to process things that I couldn’t back then.  They’re so deep, though—it’s not easy!

He pointed out that, “the world isn’t as simple as if I’m small people will like me”.  My insides twisted as these words really hit home.  I read those few words over and over, trying to overcome my brain’s insistence that those last few words were true.  If I’m small, people will like me.  If anyone doesn’t like me, clearly, I’m not small enough.

Having him frame my thoughts so succinctly was helpful.  Yes, I did believe that.  But seeing the words written out, I realized that that core belief, which has been with me for so long but only recently uncovered, was just a belief.  It’s certainly not a truth.

—

I flashed back to vague feelings from when I was very young.  My sister was born when I was 23 months old, and I went from being an only child to an older sibling.  I don’t have situational memories of her being born, but I remember the feeling.  She’s the small one, and everyone loves her.  She gets the attention.

I think feeling displaced is probably a common reaction among oldest children, but attributing it to their size may not be.  I understood somewhat from my observations of adults that it was wrong to be big, and I felt that keenly when my sister was born.  I was moved out of my crib and into a “big kid bed”, because she needed the crib.  I was moved out of my car seat and into a booster, because she needed the car seat.  And I think I really missed the attention I got.

We have one home video, from when I was about 2.5.  I see my parents interacting with us both.  In fact, I feel like there was a bit more of me in the video.  I was walking and talking and singing, so perhaps I was a little more “interesting” on camera.  I’m not sure how things were off-camera.  But in a sense, it doesn’t matter.  I know how it felt, and it wasn’t good.

My youngest sister was born shortly after my 4^th birthday, and that didn’t hit nearly as hard.  I had grown to enjoy the role of being an older sibling, and it seemed more fun with more of an age gap.  I got to hold my sister on my lap, with an assist from a grown-up, and I remember giving her a bottle.  I felt important.

But really, throughout my life, I have grieved the act of growing up.  Seeing my sisters in the fronts of the shopping carts and knowing I was too big for that.  I loved helping out and pushing one of the carts, but I was saddened that I could never ride in the front again.  When was the last time I got to?  If I’d known it was my last time, maybe I’d have savored the experience more.  But it was too late.

—

It’s taken me years to process that I felt like I really didn’t get the attention I needed.  I’m not saying that it wasn’t there, but that was my perception.

I felt like it started to come back a bit as I lost weight when I was 11.  My dad didn’t seem concerned, but my mom was.  It was a significant weight loss for someone my age and size, but we didn’t really have good records of my weight before it started.  My mom took me to doctors and she was concerned, but I knew she was wrong.  They asked if I thought I was fat, and I lied and said no.  It didn’t feel like a lie, or perhaps it’s more correct to say that it felt like a justified lie.  If I had said yes, clearly they would have (incorrectly) assumed I was anorexic and forced me to eat more.  This way, I could convince everyone that I was “supposed to be small” and that I just “wasn’t hungry”.  I knew that was what was best for me, even if my mom and the doctors didn’t realize it.

I felt very bad for somehow deceiving people into thinking I was thin, when it was clear to me that I was actually on the other end of the spectrum.  I felt like a liar, somehow—not for saying that I thought I was thin when I didn’t think that, but for tricking people into thinking I was thin.  I didn’t know why they thought I was thin, but it was certainly something that I was doing.

I wanted people to know “the truth”, that I was really too big, but at the same time, I didn’t.  I hid behind t-shirts that were much too large for me, hoping nobody would notice how big I was.  My clothes in general seemed looser, but that must only be because I was so large that I was stretching them out.  My math teacher complimented me when I came back from the summer.  “You’ve lost weight—what’s your secret?”  She’d be so disappointed in me if she knew that I was somehow tricking her, too.  I needed to somehow actually lose weight, to justify her belief that I was worth something.

I started to really restrict, so as not to disappoint anyone.  I’m honestly not sure now how I lost that weight that summer.  I felt like I wasn’t changing my eating or exercise habits at all.  But some of the comments told me that I needed to continue this perceived weight loss, and then I started to be more intentional about restricting and “exercising”.

I still feel like my problems with exercise “don’t count”.  I never did the running for hours a day type thing.  I stood instead of sitting, and I walked whenever I could.  I remember babysitting for a couple.  It was an easy job—I arrived at 7, and I think the kids might have already been asleep.  I had the house to myself, and I walked up and down the hallway for hours, reading my book.  It wasn’t “real exercise” and wasn’t enough, but I felt like I needed to do everything I could to be thinner, even if it was minor.

I read my mom’s magazines, scouring them for clues that would help me and looking for ways to shave off a few calories from my meals or to burn a few extra.  Every little bit helps, right?

I got some positive feedback from people who mistakenly thought I was thin.  Some people even said I was too thin, and I wondered how I was tricking them even more than others. What if they found out the truth?

—

When we were little, my mom came up with a clever system to keep our clothes straight.  With three “girls” within 4 years of each other, my clothes would go to my middle sister, and then eventually to my youngest.  It could be hard to keep track of them as they passed from one of us to the next.

My mom put one small dot on the tags of my clothes, and when they got handed down, she added another.  Eventually, they got a third dot, to indicate that they were for my youngest sister.  The small one.

Finally, I lost enough weight that I was small enough to start getting clothes back from my youngest sister.  My mom turned the three dots into a line to indicate that they were mine again.

I thought subconsciously that that would fix things.  But, of course, it didn’t.  It wasn’t enough.

—

When I was 14, I was feeling pretty light-headed one night.  It was right after dinner, so I figured it clearly couldn’t be from lack of food.  I was unsteady on my feet, and my mom came over to help me.  Then she started yelling my dad’s name for some reason.  I couldn’t figure out why she sounded so panicked until I realized I was on the floor.

My dad, who is a doctor, came and checked me out.  He said I was fine and that I probably should have eaten more during the day.  I was tricking him, too.  I had a pretty good sense of how many calories I’d had that day, and it was definitely more than my body should have needed.  I wanted to lose more weight, and it was frustrating that nobody else seemed to realize the need for it.

If they really saw, they’d help me lose weight, because they’d know it was necessary.  It was at times tempting to let them know so they’d concede the point and help me eat less.  Maybe they’d even let me have some diet pills that were on the market then.  Those might help, though it would be shameful to need them.

I wanted to be independent.  I could be strong enough to manage my weight myself, without relying on others to limit my food or having to take pills for it.  I just needed more discipline.  I also needed to work to lose weight before everyone realized how big I was, before I lost everyone’s love, respect, and friendship.

—

Back to the light-headedness that night.  My dad told me I should have had more to eat, and then he told me to go to bed.  I think I got a little help getting up, and then I headed down the hall to my room.  I passed out again on the way there.

At least I showed him that I needed his help and attention.  Not that he was right about my food intake, but he could have at least helped me to my room.  I think he did after the second time.

My dad told me then, and he’s told me since, that he thinks my anorexia was for attention.  (I don’t think he admits that I still have anorexia, even in a larger body.  Funny how he thought I had it when I “clearly” didn’t, but now that I realize I do, he doesn’t see it.)  I felt bad to have wanted his attention that much when I didn’t deserve it.

My therapist pointed out that even if my anorexia was just for attention, that would have been okay.  We know anorexia is a very multi-faceted illness for me, but even if it was all a cry for help, there’s nothing wrong with that.  The desire for attention is not itself a bad thing, though perhaps there are better ways of getting attention!  Besides, that didn’t seem to work anyway.

I sometimes think that I just didn’t get thin enough to get the care and attention I wanted.  For my cry for help to be answered.  I created goal weights, but they were never low enough.  I’d hit one and immediately come up with a slightly lower one. At my lowest, I had just hit a goal—as someone who loves numbers, I found ways to make goals that were close together, so I could achieve goal after goal.  I didn’t need to look for nice, round numbers.  My next goal, in fact, was only 2 pounds lower than the one I just hit.  That was a really significant one, a really significant number to me.  Maybe that would have been enough.  Maybe then I would have gotten what I needed or wanted.

When I think about it more objectively, I realize that I should be glad I didn’t get any lower.  My parents had told me they had a number in mind (fortunately, they had the presence of mind not to tell me what it was), and if I got below that, they’d pull me out of school and put me in a hospital of some sort. I feel like programs back then probably weren’t very good or understanding—for a long time, I wondered if it would have “fixed” things and led me to recovery, but I’m not convinced.  The combination of the threat of hospitalization, where I might be forced to gain far more weight than if I just stayed at my almost-low-enough weight, and missing out on school, which was so important to me, may have been enough to keep me from going lower.  Or maybe my body was just tired of losing weight.

—

I’ve talked elsewhere about other times, and I think this awful feeling a few nights ago was more about my childhood experiences than the more recent ones.  I feel like I should discuss the beginning of my recovery now, to end on a happier note.  I’ve uncovered a lot, though, and I think I’ll end this post here.  That night was incredibly hard, and I still sometimes have flashbacks when I see that mirror (even from an angle where I don’t even show up in it).  But I’m making progress.  I so appreciate that friend’s help and the help of everyone who listens to, reads about, or discusses my experiences with me.