July 14, 2013

• Quick Rant

  I had an encounter today that really pissed me off. And I’m about to rant about it.

  THIS RANT INVOLVES WEIGHT-RELATED ISSUES. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE EASILY TRIGGERED OR IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED BY WEIGHT-RELATED TOPICS. THIS HAS BEEN A DISCLAIMER. THANK YOU.

  So I have a friend who has a lot of personal problems. She is 3 years younger than me and we bonded in our early/mid teenage years because we were both bullied very badly and severely depressed. We both struggled with self harm, disordered eating behavior, and suicidal thoughts. The only difference between her and me is that she got caught and shipped out to wilderness in Utah for teens at risk. After wilderness, she was put into a boarding school in another state along the East coast for teenage girls with emotional issues. She thrived there and managed to mostly recover – but she also gained A LOT of weight (a mix of emotional eating, medication, and shedding her ED behaviors). She is now a perky, bubbly, exuberant (and sometimes obnoxiously immature) young adult who knows her limits and is learning to live a healthy and happy lifestyle. Meanwhile, I was left out of treatment and my problems, while fluctuating up and down over the years, have mostly only grown worse, especially in the last year. For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know that I’ve been struggling immensely. And while my weight has not dropped very much since I began working my butt off again to lose the weight, my weight has definitely rearranged itself some as I’ve gained muscle from running and light weight lifting. I’m not happy with how I look yet, and I am 100% aware that I have severe body dysmorphia, but I know that if I dress correctly I can look somewhat skinny now. In fact, today I fit into my sister’s size 3 denim shorts PERFECTLY. They weren’t even tight! But I digress.

  Today was incredibly hot but I was going into the city and I wanted to look cute, especially since I was meeting new people and I wanted to put off a good first impression. I wore a black cami with a green flow-y vest and I belted it with a wide elastic black belt at the smallest part of my waist. The flow-y-ness of the vest hid my little tummy while the belt accentuated the smallest part of me – I thought I looked pretty good, and considering my body dysmorphia and how hard it is for me to find anything I’m even remotely comfortable in, that’s saying something. On the way home from the city we stopped at Rita’s (water ice/italian ice place, for those of you who don’t live in areas with Rita’s). Walking from the car up to the ordering window, she commented to her friend who was with us (and who also is plus sized) that I was too skinny and “don’t you just hate her for being so skinny?” Luckily her friend said, and I quote verbatim, “I don’t hate people for what size they are. I just don’t hate people.” Then, waiting in line, I saw they had a sugar free chocolate mint water ice and I got super excited. My friend then proceeds to go on about how I should get real water ice and how unfair it is that I’m skinny. I went off on her, saying that I run 3-4 times a week, go on the elliptical when I don’t run, and go to the gym. I also watch every single bite of food that goes into my mouth. “I work my butt off to look like this,” I said. A woman near us in line, who was also thin, looked as though she nodded her head ever so slightly. My friend then went “psh well that’s too much work. I should just be skinny without the work.” The woman laughed. We went to order. I got a gelati – it’s water ice with ice cream custard. I got the sugar free water ice with light custard. My friend continues to give me a hard time about my choices and says that I should just splurge. I told her that I was splurging and gently reminded her that I had a cake pop at lunch already as well (sidenote: the only other thing I’ve eaten today is a tuna wrap and I don’t plan on eating anything else). Once we got back in the car she said that maybe she should start trying to lose weight (she is unhealthily overweight at this point) and I offered to go on walks with her. She said to call her when it got below 70 degrees outside again. Then I luckily changed the subject.

  Now, I have a few problems with what happened today. The first is that my FRIEND not only was critiquing my body, but that she was encouraging her friend to do the same. Yes, she may think its a compliment to say that she hates me for being skinny, and I know she was joking and actually doesn’t hate me, but it really upset me. I feel like, no matter if I’m big or small, if I’m at my UGW or my HW, people are judging me for my size. And that a FRIEND of mine would not only be openly judgy but also encourage one of her friends to be equally as judgy really bothers me. I was incredibly grateful when her friend said what she said. It was like a reprieve from the judgement. The second is that my friend was so flippant about how much work I put into my body. She kept insisting that she should be skinny without changing a thing in her lifestyle. Now, I know for a fact she was joking, but I still thought it was really rude. I work SO FREAKING HARD to lose weight and get in shape. I spend hours poking at my stomach and thighs and arms and everywhere else in the mirror. I actually had a mini melt down this morning when my mom and sister told me to change the shorts I was wearing even though I felt really great in them (I originally had on a completely different outfit and was wearing a different pair of my sister’s shorts) – I didn’t know what else to wear because its so hard for me to find things I’m comfortable in. Obviously I found another good outfit, but I slammed my door and cried for a few minutes before pulling myself back together. And for her to just dismiss all of the time and energy I put into looking this way really hurt me. The third thing that really bothered me today is that she KNOWS I have these problems. She knows I have body dysmorphia. She knows that I have struggled with my eating and that I’ve been really stressed and unhappy recently. And yet she didn’t even think about the words coming out of her mouth. And as someone who used to have the same problems, you would think she would be a little more sensitive to it. But nope.

  Well, while I was typing all that, I did confront her about it. I was very nice and just explained that it upset me when she made the comments because of X,Y, and Z and she apologized immediately, admitted that she should have thought about it before speaking and is now begging me to let her make it up to me. So yay for conflict resolution and being brave and talking to her about it. As immature and thoughtless as she can sometimes be, she really is a caring friend and she does understand (once you remind her). So I can breathe now, although the whole thing has fucked with me a bit.

  I still want to burn around 350 calories today (as per my workout chart), but I am way too tired to go hard on the elliptical and it is too hot and humid to do a real run without choking on the air. Maybe I can convince someone to go on a super long walk with me instead…

  • 6:58 pm
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