Meet Susan, my Eating Disorder.

No one cares about your diet, Susan.

CW: ED

I named my ED Susan because I don’t give a fuck about her diet.

I’ve mentioned my ED on social media. It’s no surprise that I’m vocal about my anti-diet stance, and I’m a huge body positive advocate having preached self-love from the rooftops for years; however, I’ve never peeled back the layers and shown y’all how all this started, my gritty struggle to health, and what I pray others learn before it’s too late. But with the holidays around the corner, and more diet ads popping up, it is my purest desire for people to realize their self-worth off of the scale, and maybe my story can help. So here it is, in all it’s vulnerability. Please, be kind.

I stared my first diet in third grade after the neighborhood boys decided I was fat. I say “decided” because when I look back at pictures, I see an adorable little kid with a round soft belly that’s perfectly normal for a child. But they pointed at me, that one day at the community pool, and called me fat, and that’s all it took. I ran to my mom and asked if my belly was too big. Her reply, “Don’t worry. Just suck in your stomach. All women do it.”

I don’t blame her. I don’t even blame those boys. We are programmed from childhood to believe a certain body is beautiful, healthy, worthy, ect. My mom truly thought she was given me a good tip, and considering that she’d spent most of her life on diets, what else could she offer?

So, I started eating the same foods she did which was dry grilled chicken and lettuce with fat-free Italian dressing, and the foundation of a lifetime of disordered eating and eventually an ED was set. (Again, I feel it’s important to note that my mom wasn’t at fault. She was just as much a victim of diet culture as the rest of us.)

My first diet didn’t last long. I loved McDonald’s too much. Instead, I gave up breakfast. I wasn’t a big fan of eating in the morning, so this wasn’t hard, and soon, I reduced lunch to a few cookies and maybe a bite of ham. Not a ham sandwich, just ham, which I would pack in a zip lock bag and stuff in my lunch bag with carrots that I threw away and, of course, cookies. I loved and still love sweets, so I wasn’t giving those up. Not yet.

Things only got worse. More boys decided I was fat and picked on me. The popular girls chimed in. It became a scene out of a typical coming-of-age teen movie, but rather than fade in the background wearing bagging sweatshirts, I got angry. I didn’t know then, but that anger would serve me later in life and save me from a life of diet culture. Back then, it gave me an edge, and when those asshole bullies came at me, I dished it back. It’s not something I’m proud of. I wasn’t particularly kind to those kids, but at the time, I felt justified since they were making my life hell.

There was a lot going on in the background that I won’t talk about, but food became my comfort, specifically fast food and desserts. Because I wasn’t eating breakfast or lunch, I was starving during dinner. My mom tried every diet under the sun but our dinners were usually the same dry chicken breast and salad with fat free Italian dressing I mentioned before. This time, I refused to eat it. If I was going to only eat one meal a day, it was going to be a meal I loved, and since we lived close to a fast food place, it was easy for me to get my way.

And that’s how I ate while living at home. One meal of fast food. When I learned to drive, I’d go to the grocery store and get candy, eat it in the car, and drop the trash in one of the sidewalk cans. Or, I’d hide it in my bedroom and eat late at night when everyone went to sleep.

I’d also exercise when people went to bed. I’d wait until the house was dark and silent, get up, lock my door, and do sit-ups, or march in place being careful to keep my steps as quiet as possible. I’d go over what I ate in my head, count up the calories (counting calories was something I’d become good at over the years), and then try to figure out how much exercise I needed to do to burn it off.

That was just my secret exercises. During the day, I did Cindy Crawford’s exercise VHS or go for a run or walk the dog or all of the above over and over.

During this time, I was still being called fat by my peers, still being made to feel ugly, lazy, disgusting. Still believing that no one would love me or even like me because of my weight. And I was still angry, still defending myself, still pissed at them and myself for “allowing” myself to gain weight, for being too stupid to figure out the magic cure to fatness, still believing that my worth was measured on the scale, which I had in my bathroom and used multiple times a day.

There were still things going on behind the scenes.

And then, I went to college.

This was the moment I’d been waiting for because I couldn’t wait to get out of the house where my mom was always dieting and finally be able to control my own food all the time. I planned on binging, and that’s exactly what I did. My poor body had been starved for so long that it didn’t know what to do with all the new food options. I remember one day in the lunch hall where I piled my tray with options. Literally, a pile of food, and a friend looked at me and said, “Holy hell, are you going to eat all of that?” The disgust on her face was clear, and it soon made me feel disgusting as well. So, I did the only thing I knew how to do. I went on a diet.

For the next ten years, I would go on every diet imaginable, but at the end of the day, it was the same pattern. Starving myself (sometimes I would eat nothing more than a handful of food each day for multiple days before a binge) and then eating literally anything I could get my hands on, only to feel gross and start restricting again. Over and over I did this. I spent so much money on weight loss programs, diet food, diet pills…I cringe thinking about it.

All this time, I was exercising intensely, sometimes multiple times a day, seven days a week, sometimes with an injury. I weighed myself at least twice a day, but often more, especially if I ate a large meal. I didn’t need to count calories or assign a number value to food (Weight watchers) because that information was now engrained into my brain. I didn’t even have to think. The information just popped into me head. (It still does sometimes.)

As my body was being abused by myself, my weight was going crazy. Sometimes, I was slender (of course, it was never good enough. Just five more pounds…), other times, I was overweight, and then fat. When I say I started the week in one size of jeans and ended it in the next size up, I’m not exaggerating. My clothing size fluctuated quickly, so my closet was packed with multiple sizes. I hid food, and I binged in secret. I ate food with flies on it and out of the trash can.

Why did I do all of this?

To be thin. To be beautiful. To be “healthy.” So people would think I’m active and not lazy. So people would respect me. So people would like me, or love me, or or or….And, when I was slender, I was getting compliments. “Wow, you look great.” “Did you lose weight? You look fantastic!” But when I was fat, all that went away, and I’d get silence, or worse, I’d get “concerned” talks about my “health.”

But here’s what people don’t mention when it come to dieting and weight loss and especially ED…It’s never enough, and a point comes when you realize this, and you have a decision to make. When the diets aren’t giving you want you need (what you REALLY need), what do you do?

Do you turn to alcohol? Drugs? Sex? Do you start cutting yourself?

I experimented with one of these, and I knew there was no going back. I knew that I had crossed some sort of invisible barrier and that I would never be able to go back without help.

During this time, I would crumple to the floor in a pile of tears on a regular basis. I hated myself. Truly, utterly, hated myself. That’s what dieting had done to me. It stripped me of every good thought I had about myself and replaced it with hate and ugliness. I was a nightmare to be around. My moods shifted from “fake happy” to “hangry” to depressed to sad to self-loathing to anger to sorrow…I can’t believe my husband stuck around, but I’m thankful he did because it wasn’t me who finally called the ED treatment center and made my first appointment. He did it.

I hated my first day at that place. It was an outpatient program, designed to last eight weeks, and it was intense. There were so many rules and I have an inherent dislike of authority. At this point, I was in my early thirties and the idea of having so many restrictions pissed me off. We couldn’t even go to the bathrooms without a buddy who had to stand outside the stall while we went. It was a way to keep us from throwing up or flushing food.

I left that first day, drove to a grocery store, bought all my favorite desserts, and binged in the parking lot. Then, I vowed never to return to that terrible place. I waited until the center closed, then called them up and left a message on their machine saying I wouldn’t be back. I got a return call in less than five minutes from a very polite counselor who convinced me to give it another chance.

So, I went back, and day after day, things got a little better. I loved that I wasn’t alone, and the others in the program made me feel supported. I left after two weeks and decided to do private therapy with a therapist who was a former counselor at the center. The center had super strict rules about not missing a session, no exceptions. I needed an exception, and when it wasn’t granted, I left, but those two weeks were life changing, and I have no doubt that the skills I learned from my private therapist were the same things I would have learned quicker if I had stayed the full eight weeks.

So, remember my anger? Well, it came out in full force during therapy. We talked about all my secrets, we examined my eating and the reasons for it, we took a magnifying class to our society and culture and how it treats fat people, we went deep into my relationships with others and how I handle negative feelings. We talked about everything going on in the background, but most importantly, my therapist gave me a big box of tools that I now carry with me through life that keeps me on the right track.

The best thing about being in recovery from an ED is the mental health benefits. I’m free in a way I never imagined possible. I’ve unlearned a lifetime of “truths” and healed not only my body but my mentality and self-esteem.

I went to graduate school and now have a MFA in Writing. I’m published in both short stories, poetry, and novels. I’m so much happier in general, and that shows in my relationships. I don’t get angry as quickly or as much as the past. I don’t care what other people think. I wear what I want and wear my hair how I want, and this has translated into also living my life how I want without worrying about meeting other people’s idea for success. I don’t think about food or diets or my body, which means my brain is free to think of more important things like deconstructing diet culture and dismantling the patriarchy and my career aspirations in horror writing.

I eat whatever I want, when I want, and I stop when I’m full. (I fully acknowledge the racism and ableism that is associated with intuitive eating. That’s a subject for another time.) I don’t count calories, and I took a hammer to my scale and smashed it to bits.

So, for those wondering, what is my weight and does my body fluctuate? I have no idea what I weigh (See above about my scale), but in the three years I’ve been on this journey, my weight stabilized early on and hasn’t changed. My closet is one size, and has been this whole healing journey.

I know everyone wants to talk about health with weight loss or gain, but I hope people can see that’s what I’ve just done. I hope people can see that diets aren’t health, and that slender doesn’t automatically equate to healthy, and that fat doesn’t mean someone is lazy. Fat people deserve love, respect, equality, and kindness, just like anyone else. Body positivity isn’t about loving one’s curves. It’s about everything in this article, about fighting a system that’s designed to make us fail and hate ourselves. It’s activism and being an ally.

I never imagined I’d be where I am today, but if I can do it, anyone can. Please, reach out to an ED specialist to get the help needed and to take that first step. You’re worth it!