Bigger Than My Body

When I first created this blog, I promised to be vulnerable. 

However, when my life gets messy I have a tendency to shove all my dirty laundry under the bed. The trouble with this strategy is that dirty socks still stink when they’re out of sight. The only way for laundry to get clean is to wash and hang it up to dry in the sunlight. 

Truth be told, my pile of unclean laundry has become so horrendously neglected that I’ve run out of clothes and am presently doing life naked. 

I’ve been battling health problems that have made eating very painful. After years of working to establish a positive relationship with food, in my present situation, food equals pain. 

Some sick joke, huh?

What’s more, my present state has forced me to relinquish all physical activity for the time being. The body can change remarkably quickly over a short period of time. I was speaking with a friend about the impact of all this on body image and came upon the following epiphany. 

For a great deal of my life I’ve worked hard to have cut abs yet I can't recall anyone ever approaching me to lift up my shirt and exclaim, “You have a six pack? Remarkable! I'm gonna name my first born after you and establish an international holiday in your honor because your six pack makes you a pristine and down right impeccable human being worthy of grandiose celebration!”

On the contrary, I doubt many people know or care whether I have abs or a baby kangaroo under my shirt. Any compliment I’ve ever received that genuinely meant something has had to do with my character. 

I had a friend of mine’s mother ask me once, “Isn’t an eating disorder all about vanity? I mean, my daughter knew this girl in high school who starved herself because she wanted to look skinny.” 

I flat out laughed at her. I don’t fault her ignorance. Rather, I blame society for feeding her misinformation.

Let me be candid.

An eating disorder is a mental illness, meaning that the disordered habits and distorted relationship with food are a result of chemical imbalances in the brain. There are a million and one reasons why an eating disorder surfaces in an individual, but ultimately, having an eating disorder is as much a choice as having cancer. 

Vanity plays zero part in the matter. In fact, those of us who know ED live in crippling bondage to our own self-loathing. The physical aspects of an eating disorder are side effects of a problem rooted in the emotional and psychological. 

For instance, I have anorexia which means when life gets impossibly overwhelming my brain immediately decides that the starvation high I’ll get from restricting will protect me from the negative emotions I don’t want to feel. My life might be a maelstrom, but if I run six miles and eat less than a canary, I can achieve stability and worth.

Engaging in said habits over a period of time results in weight loss, and thus, thinness. My mind then creates a connection between the physical sensation of thin with the emotional and psychological feeling of safety and fulfillment. Being skinny does not make me these things, but my boney body is evidence that I’m successfully engaging in the habits that I’ve implemented to shield myself from the world. 

If this sounds crazy, that’s because it is. 

But this is my reality. Trust me, when tangled up in the disorder, these thoughts become disturbingly rational. 

Where am I going with this? I’m losing my abs and if I’m being honest, I’m scared. For years, my body has been to me as Linus’s blanket is to Linus. But as with any lesson in life, we must make sacrifices to gain wisdom. 

I am not my body. You aren’t your body either. 

Our bodies are purely vessels for our souls which hold infinitely more value. 

Our bodies do not determine our security, worth, or legacy.

How many eulogies have you heard that mention physical appearance? When our flesh and bones have returned to dust, our thumbprints will be found in the echoes of our words and the contributions we made to others.

I know I’m not the only one who feels they’re vessel is capsizing. Pain is the double-edged backbone of the human condition. Without it we could never fully appreciate health or joy. But amidst external turmoil, we must take care to safeguard our internal character. Because character is all we’re left with in the end. 

Show me an elderly person with washboard abs and I’ll give them my teeth.