Childhood pictures have a story to tell
Seeing my 11-year-old self put my eating disorder in perspective
Childhood pictures have a story to tell
Recently, I looked through years and years of old family photographs. I’d seen these pictures before, but this time was different.
I didn’t begin looking at them with my eating disorder in mind, but as I watched myself grow from an infant to a toddler to a schoolgirl to a young adult, I was able to see the exact age where the ED swooped in and settled down for a very long time. I remember this without the photos, but seeing my 11-year-old self, made it all the more real.
No one else looking at these photos would see what is typically thought of as someone with anorexia nervosa. I was never skeletal, never “that sick.” In each stage of my life, however, I could recall which phase of restriction (aka dieting) I was in and how dissatisfied I was with my body. This saddens me because the girl in the photos was so much more than her size or weight.
Those were the years of budding dreams and possibilities, and underneath it all was the growing preoccupation with things that should not have mattered. I know that I am not alone in this. I’d venture to say that most women feel this way at various points throughout their lives. We’re taught by society and diet culture to be dissatisfied with our bodies instead of being dissatisfied with misogyny and oppression and the effects those have on the quality of our lives.
One of the things I find remarkable about these photos is seeing myself at ages where I had no concept of my body being anything other than something in which to live–to play, to sleep, to eat. I find it deeply moving to look at that little girl in her innocence and joy before society got hold of her. If only she could have stayed that way; if only everyone could! What would the world be like if that were true?
My therapist once asked what I thought would happen if I allowed myself to be happy at that very moment, exactly as I was. I was at a point in my recovery journey where I had restored weight and was feeling healthy. I remember the question being somewhat provocative because it was something I barely dared to think about.
Who did I think I was to actually be content or happy as I was? Wasn’t that just tempting fate? It was then that I realised that I had never, probably since the age of 11, been content with my body. Never.
To be content felt like I would be giving up my tenuous grasp on the illusion of control.
It was an exhilarating and terrifying question.
Little did I know that by trying so hard to conform all those years, I was giving up other valuable things: the freedom to be who I was naturally meant to be, my hopes and dreams. Eating disorders love this type of giving up. They want you to give up everything but your allegiance to them. They trick you into thinking you are in control when that is exactly the opposite. The ED is happy to control every thought and action, no matter how much damage it does.
In the 1970s, when I was a teenager, there was a television commercial for margarine with the slogan,”It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!” That is precisely what diet culture and eating disorders are trying to promote–fooling Mother Nature. As proven by climate change and all that it brings, nature is a force that cannot be controlled. We often forget that we, as humans, are part of nature and that there are aspects of us that cannot be controlled either. We can try, of course, but when we don’t achieve the desired results, we blame it on weak character rather than on the strength of nature.
In my office, I have a picture of myself at around the age of two. There are three different poses within the frame, and in all three of them, there is a twinkle in my eyes and a smile on my innocent little face. There is also a picture of my mother, my sister and me when I was probably 10 years old. In that photo, my mother and sister are smiling at my father, who was holding the camera, and I am looking up at my mother.
It is impossible to know what I was thinking at that moment in time, but I wonder if I was beginning my endless search for approval. A year later, the ED would begin to plant its seeds as I entered puberty. I look at these pictures often, to remind myself what had been and what was lost, and to strengthen my resolve to never lose myself again.
Another thing that is recalled in relation to this is the multitude of ads for the new weight loss drugs that have flooded the media. In one of them, a woman says that she ‘feels like herself again.’ That phrase makes me pause and think because it is difficult to remember who I was before the ED entered my life.
I am fascinated by the fact that I have been myself ever since I was born, as we all have. The core of who I am is still there, but has been shaped by various events in my life in addition to the influence of society.
In snapshots taken when I was very young, there are more glimpses of myself, and it seems as though I was a bit of a goofball, frequently hamming it up for the camera.
As the years went by, however, that part of me became more subdued and the spark along with it. Was it the result of becoming socialised, life events, or the ED? It was probably some of each.
Some events are huge–the stillbirth of my first child, a marriage ending in divorce. Others are considered less significant, but just as impactful, such as the body-shaming comments of a strange boy when I was 11 years old, as well as the constant, subliminal messages sent through the media.
While the stillbirth and divorce were traumatic and deeply affected my self-confidence for a time, the “less significant” events possibly did more damage because they were ongoing and relentless. And they started at a very young age.
Had I not recovered from my ED, it is possible I would never have given any of this a second thought, which is a tragedy in itself. Eating disorders work to carve out hopes and dreams, leaving behind a fragile shell, but they can never capture the true essence of a person, and that gives me hope.
That is where the joy is found in recovery, when one can say, ‘I feel like myself again’ or discover oneself for the first time in a very long time.