Full Circle: How Motherhood Helped Me Heal
"It looks like a butt!" She was right, it did.
We were 5 years old. She was a gymnast and very lean. I was just a girl barely becoming aware of how my body presented to others. We were kneeling on her bedroom floor, playing with her dog. Suddenly she laughed and pointed to the inside knee area of my legs where the backs of my thighs pressed against the flesh of my calves and did indeed create a butt shape. At first I assumed that's what happens to everyone's legs when kneeling, but I looked at her skinny legs and hers didn't. That was the first moment I recall feeling uncomfortable with the size of my body.
I was the only girl in a family of 5, and I identified with my mother since we were the only females. My father was very controlling and authoritarian, and he frequently belittled my mother’s body and the fact that she never went to college. Because I identified so closely with her, I took his ridicule personally. I figured that if my own father couldn't love my mother because of those things, he wouldn't love me either unless I was thin and academically accomplished. And since my dad was my first and primary example of a man, I figured no man would ever love me unless I was perfect in those ways. I am my mother's flesh and blood; what would stop me from turning out just like her unless I took drastic action?
My family followed a religion that promoted perfectionism in everything. Strict expectations pressured me to conform. I had to look, act, even think and believe a certain way. It felt like I had little control over my own life.
At puberty I started gaining weight as my breasts developed and my hips filled out. I was still straight-sized, but I'd already been feeling self conscious and these changes made me feel even more uncomfortable and out of control. The anxiety became too much and I decided to take action to try to make sure that I would be smart enough and thin enough to be loved.
I was 13 when I developed anorexia, but I had never even heard of eating disorders. I began severely restricting my food intake and exercising obsessively. I was extremely hungry, but I trained myself to experience hunger as a reminder of my strength. I quickly lost a significant amount of weight (though I want to acknowledge that eating disorders do not have to involve weight loss to be serious and dangerous). I was always cold and exhausted, but I no longer felt hunger because I was so used to ignoring it. Family and friends noticed my weight loss and complimented me for it, but as I became more extreme and isolated, friends fell away and my mother became very concerned. I remember her crying after giving me a hug because she felt my body, my malnourishment, and my hurt, despite my baggy clothes. She said my dieting was out of control, I was too thin, and needed help. That upset me because it felt like she wanted to take away the thing that finally allowed me to feel some autonomy. My parents and the church determined everything else in my life, but they could not make me eat. I calculated calories in and calories out, so I believed that I could precisely control my weight and rate of loss, and initially my calculations seemed accurate. I intended to keep losing weight until I felt "perfect." But, my weight eventually dropped below what I'd ever intended and I realized I couldn't control it anymore.
My eating disorder was never really about food or my body; it was about trying to be "perfect" so I could feel loved and accepted by my parents. I also wanted to someday meet a man who'd love me and create a family of my own. I began to realize that my need to be thin was threatening my even stronger desire to be a mother. My breasts had shrunk and my periods had long since stopped. How was I going to have a family if I didn't get mentally and physically healthy?
The fear of never having a family was even bigger than my fear of weight gain and that gave me the courage to begin recovery.
I told my mom she was right, I needed help. But my dad controlled the money and he refused to let me go to a doctor or therapist because he was cheap and "no daughter of mine is going to see a shrink." So I went to the library and got every book I could find about anorexia to better understand what I was dealing with and nutrition so I could learn how to gain weight healthfully.
It took a lot of discipline and mental processing to act in spite of my fear. To keep myself on track, I had to constantly remind myself of what I wanted more than being thin. I was surprised to find that when I reached my goal weight, I felt much more comfortable in my body than I did when I was thinner, or even than when I was that same weight before. I believe it was because I was healthier so I could think more clearly. I still struggled emotionally with negative thoughts and triggers, but I no longer engaged in any eating disordered behaviors. My periods eventually returned after two years, but I understood that it was still possible I had damaged my body beyond the ability to have a baby and that I wouldn't know for years until I was ready to try.
When I went to college, I was determined to be balanced so my experience there would be better than high school. But a pendulum that has been pulled tight in one direction doesn't just go to the middle and stop; it swings right past middle and up to the other extreme, before eventually slowing down and finding the middle. I'd gone to one extreme and couldn't just all of a sudden be balanced. Relaxing my self control with food and my body was something I couldn't manage and I slipped into bulimia. I had to use the same mental processing and my dream of a family in order to get myself back on track.
I married when I was 22. My husband knew my history and triggers, although no one may think that I had had an eating disorder based on my physical appearance. I became pregnant at 24, and I was overjoyed to know that I hadn't ruined my reproductive system. Even though I was not excited to gain weight, I was in awe of my body for what it was doing.
I was no longer just me, I was someone's mother and I had a responsibility to protect my baby's mother. Any time I would get bothered by my growing body and the number on the scale, I would remind myself that my body was doing what it was meant to do and didn't need me to micromanage. I had to trust the process.
The day my daughter was born was the happiest day of my life. It felt magical, redeeming, transforming. She was perfectly healthy and absolutely beautiful and I had a newfound respect for my body. How could I have ever hated something that could create something so precious?! I not only loved my baby more than myself, I loved myself because I loved her. My body gave me her. My self image changed forever.
My daughter is now a teenager. She is loved, healthy, and confident, all the things I was not. I've shared my story with her and tried to be an example of health and balance. I'm relieved she hasn't fallen into the same self image traps. Maybe I went through it so she wouldn't have to. I have maintained a healthy weight and lifestyle but even this many years later, I still sometimes experience triggers and negative thoughts. I see them for what they are — just old, worn out lies. I'm so used to them that they've become just nonsense background noise in my head. I can't force them to go away and at this point I don't think they ever will, but they are not tempting or distressing. I simply acknowledge them and say to myself, "Yeah, yeah, been there, done that. Not going there again." They hold no power over me.
I remember when my little girl was 5 and we were kneeling and playing on the floor. She laughed and pointed at the flesh of my leg, pressed together in the infamous "butt" shape. "Momma, it looks like a butt!" I smiled and said, "You're right, it does!" We giggled and went back to playing as my heart swelled with joy at having come completely full circle.
