Eating Disorders & Body Image Issues

I grew up in a society where looks are highly valued, from day one you have people judging your physique, even as a baby you are not excused from the pressure of having to look good, I have seen people try to massage their baby's nose so the baby doesn't have a big nose, I have seen people comment on how dark,light,skinny or fat the baby is. Now I don't remember how being a baby was for me but I do remember that as a kid I was always pushed to participate in pageants and competitions and being born in a family where almost everyone was athletic and played some sport, the pressure was always to be the best. I was motivated to compete, take the lead and be confident in every aspect of my life, I made friends wherever I went and did whatever I was told to do.

You must be thinking this all sounds like good stuff so why is this even here? but that's the thing while they were all good things they also had downsides. When you stand up on a stage, surrounded by people, being compared to all your friends, waiting to see if you won the cutest kid award, it messes with your values in life.

I was raised in a family where no one struggled with obesity instead most my family members were underweight, I was a very skinny kid myself. My family was abusive in many ways and it wasn't exactly a secret, everyone in my school knew, my teachers, my friends and their families, most the kids weren't allowed to hangout with me at my place so I would have to go over to their places. I felt like everyone pitied me and no one actually was a friend. The only friend I had, who was allowed to come over, I was jealous of, to this day I can't figure out why because she never gave me a reason to be jealous of her, but I felt I was always being compared to her by my own family and her family was happy and normal while mine was dramatically toxic and violent and on some level I envied her for it which is funny because she is still one of my closest friends to this day even though I haven't been the best to her in the past.

Growing up comparing myself to everyone around me, extremely competitive, abusive family and getting molested as a kid multiple times by multiple people completely destroyed my sense of self. Not being able to feel safe in your own home and not being able to complain because if you did, that would mean more assault to you and to the people you love, I distracted myself by hanging out at other people's houses most days and kept myself busy with extra curricular activities at school and in time it became a new normal. Until the day my Mom left, no that wasn't exactly something that made me sad, all I knew was that she would be safer and there would be less traumatic events for me and my sister to process. The pity party grew bigger, every where I went all I heard was "oh she doesn't have a mother, I feel bad, she is a girl" and so on, the mother figure I did have ( my grandmother) fell sick right after this as well and I was left to be raised by nannies.

My father wanted me to be a swimmer and I loved swimming, still do but our city didn't have an all girls pool at the time and I learned swimming at a pool where only men and kids were allowed, my body was of course now changing and I was 9 years old and one day I found out that I wasn't allowed at the swimming pool anymore cause I was now considered a girl. That crushed me, I loved swimming, it was MY SPORT! everyone in my family had one and the only good thing in my life had been taken away now! I started eating my feelings, I guess I already ate a lot but the swimming everyday balanced it out and the next thing I remember is being 220 lbs and 12 years old at my Dad's wedding. When I saw the photos I was horrified.

Everyone in school started calling me fat especially the guys, while all the other girls were getting confessions of love I was getting made fun of "KUNG FU PANDA" they probably thought it was a harmless joke which I now understand, the nickname wasn't to hurt me but all of that crushed my self esteem and I started hating everyone around me, luckily I had friends out of school at the charity club where my grandmother volunteered and had been taking me since I was a baby, that is also how I met my first boyfriend the first guy who gave me attention and of course I was smitten, he played soccer, was older and was very charismatic, he was my motivation to lose 90 lbs in less than a year ( I KNOW HOW LAME ) and when I started getting compliments, I got obsessed, I started starving myself but in that society you were always motivated to eat less and look skinny, at least at that time. Being thin became very important to me and every time I'd gain a pound there was someone pointing it out.

I restricted myself to the point where I would punish myself if I ate too much by working out too much or binge eat everytime there was a minor inconvenience. At the same time my relationship with men in my life was also becoming more and more complicated. I started believing that if a man loves you he will manipulate and control you and if he doesn't treat you like his possession he doesn't really care about you, he was always comparing me to other women, telling me I should try and look more like this chick or that chick. My friends were also always comparing themselves with each other seeing who has the longest hair. One time my ex boyfriend even told me how his sister had commented on my complexion ( she had said how my feet were darker than my face ) I tortured myself to meet their beauty standards, I literally soaked my feet in really hot water and told myself how much I hated my feet ( WTF ) negative self talk was becoming a very big part of my life. I looked for validation everywhere but never within myself, I even started cutting myself for attention, extremely insecure, all I wanted to do was fill this void inside me with food and "love" and when I would fail I wanted to numb myself by inflicting more pain.

Bulimia, binge eating and starving myself was so normal to me I didn't even see it as a problem and all for validation, to be deemed pretty in a toxic social dynamic and at what cost? my own sanity.

After moving to Canada I continued doing the same thing until I started noticing how people didn't really care what I looked like, they cared about how I was as a person but then when I started college and started hanging out with people from back home again, the same thing happened, I was once again in a very similiar social dynamic and I fell back into my eating disorders, once again I had people telling me "you would be so pretty if you lost some more weight" but before I could figure out what I was doing, some other events transpired and all the traumas I had been running away from caught up to me and I gave up on myself for a few years, I let myself stay stagnant, becoming unhealthy( I didn't want to be considered sexually attractive ) I even dropped out of college and walked out of my job one day. After taking two whole years off of my own life and cutting out any negative influences, I finally processed through it all and of course I had to unlearn all of these negative mindsets and to this day I have to work really hard to make sure they don't come back. I look back at all of this and I can't believe how horribly I treated myself, it makes me sad and guilty but also so grateful that at least now I forgive and understand myself. You have to be kind to yourself even when you feel like garbage.

My relationship with food is so much better now that I eat to feed myself and not to look a certain way, I treat myself whenever I feel like it and the only restriction I have when it comes to my diet is to feel healthy and happy with what I am putting in my body. I don't compare myself to others because everyone is beautiful and no one gets to decide your worth, not the society, not your family, not your partner, no one but you. All that really matters is if you are happy in YOUR body. By all means change it if you aren't happy or want to be fitter, eat good, workout, lose or gain weight but don't let other people's opinions and beauty standards influence your relationship with your vessel.