Disappear

So, on the weekends I get really lazy about eating. Also about leaving my room, showering, and putting clothes on. Unless I'm expecting to see people, it doesn't really matter, and I mean, I guess most of that is fine, except for the eating thing.

And it's not even that I'm intentionally not eating, I just get distracted by other things and then think "shit I should do homework" and only when my stomach is like "swegan, food" am I like "oh shit right" and head into the kitchen to make a bowl of oatmeal and today that is what happened but then I went down for dinner. I ate a good amount, wanted to eat more, and suddenly I just felt ill. Like, if I took another bite, I was going to gag. Which usually happens when the texture of food is off, but this was beef stew, and it was really fucking good, and I wanted to eat more but at the same time my brain was just not having any of it. So I ate what was left of my rice, debated dessert before hearing my parents' voices in my head saying "If you're hungry enough for dessert, you're hungry enough to keep eating" and realized I didn't want dessert either because the thought of eating any food at all just made me feel nauseous. So I quit and came back upstairs.

But like,the sick thing is, I know I don't eat a lot, but there's still some fucked up logic in my brain of "this keeps you skinny." Like, whenever I see a body positivity thing, I'm like hell yeah good for you and see all these women loving their bodies, whether they are fat or chubby or whatever, and I am proud of them and happy for them but still on some level, glad I am not them, and afraid of becoming them. Which is really, really unfair to everybody, those women and myself.

It's almost like... I'm happy about body positivity, but glad it doesn't have to apply to me? Like oh thank god I don't have to struggle. But then there's a little voice in the back of my head saying yeah, but if you eat a certain way, you might. People might make mean comments about you in public or look at you in a judgy way if you dare to do something as shocking as eat in public. And don't forget the criticism about how you let yourself go. You were so skinny once. What happened?

It's this paranoia, this fear, that's always at the back of my mind. I worry sometimes it drives more of my decisions than it should. And I buy candy a lot (not recently since I've been so busy), but whenever I do I have to tell myself so much that it's ok, and I still feel guilty about it. Like, first of all, this isn't healthy for you, second of all, it's going to lead to this condition you are afraid of. For no good reason. It's not like if I wasn't this skinny I'd be any less smart or kind or loved or capable, but I'm still afraid of it.

And it makes me so jealous of boys. Do they even get this shit? Maybe now they do, I don't know, but when I'm around boys and men they just seem to... eat. And like, not make comments about what they're eating. I watch the girls in my building and notice how they often comment on their food, or their general eating habits, even when they generally like to eat a bunch of food. The girls are all aware of how they interact with food: how much they eat, when they tend to want to eat, whether they're always hungry or always full. Boys don't comment on that nearly as much as the girls do. And I feel like some part of that is just because they're not really aware, they don't really think about it too much.

And then even with my boyfriend, we have a class together around lunch three times a week, and his lunches look good but I know there's no nutritional value in a lot of them and so even though I want to make myself lunches like that, I can't let myself. And he always just says "food is important" and eats and I'm left there trying to make myself feel not-guilty because hey, there's vegetables in my soup, and those are good for you.

I know some of this must be from getting raised by a mother who was once a dietitian, but it's hard to draw the line between where I'm concerned about the nutritional requirements of my diet and where I'm just concerned about how much food there is at all. Like there shouldn't be guilt associated with eating, should there? I've never wanted to be one of those women who says "oh, I'm so naughty, I had a whole piece of cake at lunch!" or who just orders a salad with dressing on the side or who won't order dessert unless someone splits it with her or who will refuse cake at a party or who says things like "I've been so good today that I deserve to eat this cookie/bag of chips/piece of cake/other kind of junk food" but like that attitude is so tempting when it is surrounded in the language of "oh, but it's about health- I still eat, I just eat healthy" except now the guilt is about making unhealthy choices rather than just making choices. Which I guess is better because it means people are eating, but... it still sounds so fucked up that people should feel guilty for eating something. And then that last comment gets into vegetarianism/veganism which is not the issue here.

All I know is that I wish I could just exist without devoting so much brainpower to worrying about what goes in my body. I mean, maybe there is an advantage to that- I will feel better if I try to eat better- but I wish you could have that mindset without the guilt. And I wish I wasn't so afraid of becoming fat, even a little bit.

Which is the most fucked up thing of all, because on these weekends when I don't eat, some part of me says that's better, because it's better for me to lose weight than to gain it. Like that me losing any weight at all is a good thing because it's always better to be smaller, if possible. Like how little I eat is something I get to brag about, how small I am is something that is just how life works for me, aren't I so lucky. It's better for me to be tiny, tinier than I am now, than it is for me to dare get any bigger. And that is the part that worries me. I don't even really know what a healthy weight is anymore. Does my BMI even matter? How is it that at the size I'm at, my BMI is closer to overweight than it is to underweight? Why am I so hyperaware of this? Why do I care?

I don't really have any answers. I just know that I have to keep eating to live and function properly. So I will, and I'll try not to beat myself up about it. And try to work through all my fears that are so unfair, but that I don't really think are my fault.

yer pal,
swegan