Vomiting For Perfection
Minutes after this photo, I was throwing up my dinner in the toilet.
All my life, I've felt like the ugly duckling. And a big part of the reason behind that was being curvier than the other girls. In my mind, curvy meant chubby, and chubby was the opposite of sexy and beautiful. So I did everything possible to try to change the size and shape of my body, including some things I'm now horrified to admit I ever did. Like binging and purging.
I love food. I love how food can bring people together and for someone that's felt incredibly lonely all their life, food became not only a vital social activity, but eventually a mistaken form of comfort. It got to the point where I'd eat when I was sad, angry, celebrating, commiserating, for any reason whatsoever. The weight piled on along with the depression. I had to do something, drastic. Rather than taking away my comfort, I continued to eat, but I'd literally eat myself to the point of feeling sick.
The first time I made myself throw up, I felt powerful. I felt like I had some semblance of control over my life, which I never really had felt before. I felt like when I was purging the food, I was purging the pain as well. All the times that I felt unworthy and unwanted, they were going down the toilet with the excessive amount of food I was consuming. I never really saw it as bulimia because I'd only do it once a day at most. I knew what I was doing wasn't necessarily a good thing, but a voice inside my head had managed to convince me that it was the best thing.
Eventually I started to get paranoid about people catching me in the act of throwing up and forcing me to stop, so I started to throw up in the shower too. It became a bit of a routine; shampoo my hair, throw up, condition my hair, brush my teeth and wash my body. I never really became skinny from it, but it meant I could overindulge with my comfort eating without getting any bigger. I kept this up for a good decade. Until the last time I threw up; the night of this photo, and with the vomit, there was blood. And lots of it. What a wakeup call.
That was a year ago now. I still struggle with binge eating, especially when I'm going through a rough patch, but I've only thrown up less than a handful of times, and never intentionally. The vomit reflex is a little automatic after so many years of making myself do it. I've never told anyone about my eating disorder until now and I've never really admitted that it was an eating disorder to myself until now either. But I can finally see it for what it was and even though I'm incredibly ashamed of what I did, I'm also incredibly proud to have found the strength to overcome it. If I had found a sense of self worth sooner, I doubt it would have gone on for so long. Only in finding myself and my value, have I been able to make the positive changes that I desperately needed to make in my life.
Beauty isn't how big your body is, it's how big your heart is. And part of being loving, is learning to love yourself, every single part of yourself. We need to stop judging our worth using such a transient and shaky scale such as weight or looks. Let's try to make a world where the future generations don't need to resort to self harm and damaging disorders to feel powerful or worthy or beautiful. Raise your kids to appreciate beyond the superficial and end the reign of fake.
Until next time,
Ruby xx
All my life, I've felt like the ugly duckling. And a big part of the reason behind that was being curvier than the other girls. In my mind, curvy meant chubby, and chubby was the opposite of sexy and beautiful. So I did everything possible to try to change the size and shape of my body, including some things I'm now horrified to admit I ever did. Like binging and purging.
I love food. I love how food can bring people together and for someone that's felt incredibly lonely all their life, food became not only a vital social activity, but eventually a mistaken form of comfort. It got to the point where I'd eat when I was sad, angry, celebrating, commiserating, for any reason whatsoever. The weight piled on along with the depression. I had to do something, drastic. Rather than taking away my comfort, I continued to eat, but I'd literally eat myself to the point of feeling sick.
The first time I made myself throw up, I felt powerful. I felt like I had some semblance of control over my life, which I never really had felt before. I felt like when I was purging the food, I was purging the pain as well. All the times that I felt unworthy and unwanted, they were going down the toilet with the excessive amount of food I was consuming. I never really saw it as bulimia because I'd only do it once a day at most. I knew what I was doing wasn't necessarily a good thing, but a voice inside my head had managed to convince me that it was the best thing.
Eventually I started to get paranoid about people catching me in the act of throwing up and forcing me to stop, so I started to throw up in the shower too. It became a bit of a routine; shampoo my hair, throw up, condition my hair, brush my teeth and wash my body. I never really became skinny from it, but it meant I could overindulge with my comfort eating without getting any bigger. I kept this up for a good decade. Until the last time I threw up; the night of this photo, and with the vomit, there was blood. And lots of it. What a wakeup call.
That was a year ago now. I still struggle with binge eating, especially when I'm going through a rough patch, but I've only thrown up less than a handful of times, and never intentionally. The vomit reflex is a little automatic after so many years of making myself do it. I've never told anyone about my eating disorder until now and I've never really admitted that it was an eating disorder to myself until now either. But I can finally see it for what it was and even though I'm incredibly ashamed of what I did, I'm also incredibly proud to have found the strength to overcome it. If I had found a sense of self worth sooner, I doubt it would have gone on for so long. Only in finding myself and my value, have I been able to make the positive changes that I desperately needed to make in my life.
Beauty isn't how big your body is, it's how big your heart is. And part of being loving, is learning to love yourself, every single part of yourself. We need to stop judging our worth using such a transient and shaky scale such as weight or looks. Let's try to make a world where the future generations don't need to resort to self harm and damaging disorders to feel powerful or worthy or beautiful. Raise your kids to appreciate beyond the superficial and end the reign of fake.
Until next time,
Ruby xx
Comments
Post a Comment