Boundaries in Healing: Choosing Me Over We
GROWING UP
It’s hard to trace exactly a time or age when I first realized I was “big,” but one of my first memories of someone telling me that I was much larger than other girls my age – particularly my other female cousins – was around age 7. From that point on, I was forever aware of my size.
I grew up in a mixed-ethnicity household, and a lot of elements of my physical appearance brought me confusion and, ultimately, disdain. Both of my parents represented the ideal beauty standards of their respective ethnicities – my African American father was tall, muscular, athletic, broad-shouldered, and had “good hair”; and my white mother was naturally thin and athletic, had hazel eyes, fair skin, and light blonde hair. I, on the other hand, seemed to be no one’s ideal. I was very tall for a little girl (5’5” by fourth grade), had course curly hair, dark eyes, large gapped teeth, and was chubby.
By the time I was in middle school, in a relatively affluent and predominantly white Southern California suburb, I had been told by countless peers and family members that my body was unattractive. So, I decided that I would try anything and everything to change this.
When my white classmates refuted the burden of learning my name, my misnomers became “Black girl” or “fat girl.” I wished I could change both.
As if puberty, schoolyard social stratification, and racism were not enough, my desperate need for emotional support at home was also not met. Like many eating disorder survivors, the lack of control in my life heavily fueled my toxic relationship with food. I decided that if I couldn’t control anything else, I could at least control what I did or didn’t eat. And so, starting around age 12, I began restricting. And restricting. And restricting.
As many survivors know, and eating disorder counselors will often reiterate, eating disorders thrive in secrecy. Mine definitely did. For over a decade, it was my most precious secret. Disaffected and hurt by various life experiences, pains, and abuses, feeling like so many things had been and could be taken from me, the one thing that felt like mine was my relationship with food. I insisted to myself that I had it under control, believing that I wasn’t like other people and knew how to do it smartly. As if there’s such a thing.
ROMANCE
Towards the end of that decade of secrecy, I was finishing college and finally beginning to feel more secure in myself and my merit outside of my appearance. So, I finally began dating. This initially felt like a minefield. Every time I met up with someone for dinner, what I wished could just be a casual conversation over a meal became a mental obstacle course – would they notice how weird I was around food? It was exhausting. I would plead to myself, “Can you please just act like a normal person in this restaurant?!” At the same time that I was noticing how uncomfortable and unsustainable this was, my little brother was admitted for eating disorder treatment. I knew I had to break the cycle. So, I came out to my parents about my illness and made a vow to myself to never keep it secret again.
Three years later, I was a few weeks into dating my last partner when I told him I struggled with disordered eating. I’d realized it was better to just tell people I would be in close relationship with early on, rather than feed the disease by keeping it hidden. But at the same time that I decided to share this with him, he informed me he was going on (what sounded to me like a crash) diet because he was “getting a belly.” I thought this was odd because he was lean, tall, active, and generally very healthy. However, he framed it to me as though it would take significant time and sacrifice to get himself to the body he wanted.
I did not want to judge him for this sudden development but couldn’t ignore the internal alarm bells that immediately went off. But I chose to suppress my urge to redirect him and went with it. This was the beginning of what soon became a binge/restrict cycle for him.
As I continued to observe my partner’s new disordered eating pattern, my eating disorder understandably became very triggered. I decided the best path forward would be to double down on my truth, being as open as possible. So, I told him about my upbringing – the blended social and cultural norms around food and body size in my family, and my lifelong experiences with fatphobia. I shared that my own disordered eating began when I was 12 years old and tried to get him to start talking by asking him questions about how body size and eating were discussed in his family and community growing up. My partner was East Asian, and he shared with me how normalized fat-shaming was. He told me that everyone was fair game when it came to criticizing bodies, so it was better to bully yourself first before others could get to you. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but the behaviors I’d been witnessing made so much more sense.
COHABITATING WITH A PARTNER
For many years, I had dreaded the idea of living with a partner. I had mastered hiding my habits from my family, but disordered eating is hard to pull off when you live with a romantic partner. I never expected that when the day actually came for me to live with a significant other, they would also struggle with disordered eating and I would be the one to actively affirm body-positive speech and safe eating habits.
My awareness of the issues at hand made me hesitant, but I chose to proceed as the relationship naturally progressed toward cohabitation. Despite my most desperate efforts and internal wishes, my partner wanted not only to maintain his disordered eating habits, but to regulate my relationship with food to match his. This pressure created a level of cognitive strain that almost made me revert years of mental and physical healing I had done to overcome my eating disorder. Over and over I’d reinforce to myself, “I can’t do that. I can’t go back.”
It felt as though the universe were offering me the ultimate test in my healing journey – I was hearing out loud from my partner the things I used to say to/about myself in my head.
PROTECTING MY BODY AND MIND
It didn’t take long before I knew I had to end the relationship. I had been in a better place mentally for a few years but felt like disordered eating would always be with me. I knew that I had to protect myself and reinforce habits and environments that protect my ongoing healing journey.
I’ve discovered that when I am experiencing particularly high stress in life, the thoughts of restricting become the most overwhelming. My eating disorder was a long-reinforced coping mechanism. But with time and care, allowing myself to learn a diversity of healthier habits and beliefs, I’ve seen that I can remain true to my well-being even in the most challenging situations.
It has taken a long time for me to acknowledge my relationship with my eating disorder. But it gets easier every time I open up and share my truth. I still fear losing control and that it will change people's perceptions of me so I sometimes want to continue to hide, but the praxis of sharing – in my relationships, and even this essay – is part of my treatment. Thank you for helping me heal.
