TW for ED talk and body image

This blog-post is in many ways a reminder to myself more than simply a string of thoughts, and I wanted to make it because, as someone who lost weight to a critical level with anorexia, I find myself often struggling to accept my healthy weight and body. Right now, my weight is just about what it was pre-ED. That would have scared me if I had been told that mid-disorder - and, admittedly, it sometimes still does. I consider myself recovered, for I am able to eat freely and without too much consideration over calories, with no fear foods and no misperceptions on the human body. The only thing I still struggle with is this nagging thought that I am too large, and I know that is something that is a struggle for many of us, whether we contend with an ED or not.

I always try to rationalise it with myself, the different things a healthy weight can mean as opposed to a lower weight. Particularly for the people on AFF, many of us idolise the bodies of our idols - idols who, if their weight is taken into consideration, are actually sometimes seriously underweight, to the extent that it will impact dramatically on their health. Of course, for female and male idols, it is often seen as part of their job to maintain a slim physique - and they will do it, through strict diet management and exercise, but their bodies aren't necessarily healthy. I used to idolise those bodies, and when I became extremely thin I actually saw some of them as over-weight (a thought that shocks me now). It's easy to get lost in thinking these idols have the perfect figures - pictures and videos seem to make them look perfect, ethereal, at times, and push that underweight physique onto a pedestal that we feel pressure to strive for.

In truth, if encountering those idols, you could be shocked by how skinny they truly are. When my own weight resembled that of idols, people were already calling me out for being "too skinny." You could argue it was different cultures, different ideals - but, the truth is, being so heavily underweight is healthy in no culture, and is terribly skinny wherever you go. What's more, my weight meant my hair would fall out and my limbs would ache and I would wake up with bruises covering me, and soon I would pass out everywhere and I could barely stand and all my bones stuck out and I couldn't sit on chairs and- yeah, not nice. Many idols may not deal with these issues, for they will try maintain their low weights as "healthily" as possible (which seems a contradiction, of course) - however, in the long run, it's still going to damage their bodies, big time.

This, though, is seemingly what we idolise, what I used to idolise. Then, we are a double-standard; if our idol becomes "too skinny", we begin to worry for their health. If they are bordering on a healthy weight, we think they've "lost control." Our attitude only perpetuates this unreachable standard, this impossible goal. Having been at such a low weight, and lower, I know how difficult it can be to live life, particularly in comparison to being a healthy weight. Everything just vanishes - I was an avid writer who could no longer write because I lacked the concentration, I was constantly fatigued, irritable, with no attractions to anyone, no drive to live. All of that is scientific product of a lower weight - and, yet, this is what we idolise. Risks such as osteoporosis, infertility - this is what we idolise.

I no longer idolise that thinness, I truly don't. It scares me sometimes. There are days I wish I had it, but I try reason with myself; sometimes, I think I am unattractive if I am not skinny - yet, I have been attracted to men and women alike of all different shapes, all different sizes. What's more, at a lower weight, I was depressed, empty, soulless, with no personality and no ambition. I thought clothes would look better on me when they actually looked worse, and I found myself unable to find fitting clothes, shopping in the children's aisles because only age 8 or 9 would do. As a 17 year old, it was therefore hard to get something age-appropriate. People feared for me at that weight, and every night I would go to sleep scared I may pass away, with my chest in incredible pain, pulse in the 20s. It's not attractive, it's not what we should aim for or support. We should barely be focussing on each other's bodies. Yes, they can be an indication of attraction - but, what's larger is personality, understanding, intelligence, all these qualities not based on the physical appearance. Besides, I prove to myself that people can be attracted to someone at any weight, any size.

This issue means a lot to me, and it's something I wish I could change. I am so scared of this culture that idolises thinness, the way it never seems to die; the quality of life I led on that drive for a percieved perfection was horrendous, and it almost killed me. Even if I had stopped on a higher weight, I would have been obsessed with calories, foods and maintenance, trying to make myself into something I wasn't. 

Sometimes, I imagine I was a mother, or I put myself in my own mum's shoes. The thought of my child striving for such thinness terrifies me, because from that outer perspective I can see how unhealthy and unnatural it is. We aren't meant to be nothing but skin and bone, we truly aren't. We're meant to be healthy - and that is a different weight and size for everyone. I wish we could, as a society, begin to appreciate beauty above this thin-depiction; we can appreciate bodies that are healthy, full of energy and life, people whose eyes speak of something more than low weight. 

Please, please, please be happy with your body when it is properly healthy - if not for you, for everyone else. It seems odd, but the more we support this culture of thinness being the ultimate, the more we damage our generation and the future generations to come. Support your own beauty and health, go deeper than the outer appearance, know that you are valued and strong inside and out, and know that your weight does not define you.

Thank you for reading,

-Emma