It's been ten years since I was diagnosed with anorexia. Having had only a brief flirtation with this illness--although it didn't feel very brief at the time--I can easily make the distinction between a "past life," something that hardly feels connected to me anymore, and who I am at age twenty-two. However, despite being technically free of anorexia for eight years, I still battle with disordered thinking--something that, no matter how irrational it may seem, will never completely go away. Not a day goes by when I don't think about my weight, or compare my body to those around me. While I rarely act on it, I have consistently wished I was twenty pounds thinner, regardless of my weight at the time.
It's exhausting. It's infuriating. And for those of us who aren't on the brink of death, it's seemingly ignored.
While there's a lot more awareness about how we can actively combat anorexia, we seem to forget about the long-term recovery process. I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by supportive friends, family, and cake, which has helped me become as fully recovered as possible (especially the cake). But I've noticed, that on any given day, there are multiple trigger warnings for anyone with disordered thinking/body image issues.
It's easy enough to pinpoint the sickly skinny models, the weight loss commercials, the "pro-ana" websites. Those, while deeply concerning, have been covered to death. I'm talking about more personal trigger warnings, something that friends and families of recovering anorexics should be aware of and make an effort to stop.
I live in an apartment of four girls. At this point, it's almost expected of us to make generally negative comments about our bodies. One of the first things we bought for our apartment was a bathroom scale. And when one of us makes a disparaging comment about her body, the rest of us infer, "well, if she hates her body, I must be a disgusting, horrifying creature." And then we throw out all our cupcakes, which is just sad, since cupcakes make everything better. But there are days when we seem to engage in "who can hate her body the most" competitions, with weight almost always being the winning argument.
I'm not saying we can feasibly live in a world where we stop talking about our weight or bodies in general. That's unrealistic, especially in good old 'Murica. But there's a difference between working towards health and obsessively measuring. And while everyone's experience is different, I've noticed that when others begin obsessively comparing/measuring, I think I'm at fault for not doing the same thing.
One of the least helpful things you can do around a former anorexic is count calories. Especially when you go out to eat. I just want to eat my burrito in peace. The caloric content in a given food does not connote its nutritional value. If I had to point out one thing that perpetuates obsessive disordered thinking, it would be calorie counting.
Barring the point that it's exceedingly boring to hear someone else's food intake of the day, it's also exceedingly risky. Again, it perpetuates unhealthy comparisons. Among girls, the "oh my gosh, I ate so much," complaint is oftentimes a humble brag about how little food they can survive on. When I hear a friend complain about being full from smelling a pancake, I can only conclude that I am the scum of the earth for needing three complete meals a day (ice cream not included).
If you do not want to hear my stomach imitate what can only be described as the mating call of a killer whale, don't talk to me about how you "ate so much."
I know these triggers aren't malicious, and nobody wants someone they love to suffer through an eating disorder. These comments, in most cases, go unnoticed, but it affects us more than you may think.
(Also, I'm aware that somewhere in the middle of this post, I went full-on sarcastic on you guys. My apologies for the change in tone. Apparently I'm not able to cover serious topics without throwing in a burrito reference or five. Let's chat about my sarcasm problem over a burrito).
Namaste.
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