Part Six: Compliments

Feb 3

If you appear to people as one thing, and they associate that one thing with you, like ice cream being cold or the beach being sandy. When that one thing they tie to you is missing, people are confused, disappointed, shocked. The beach with no sand? But there's always been sand here? Last time I came there was sand. I love the sand at the beach its my favourite part.

Do you get my point?

I had to keep being this pretty skinny thing because that's what people expected of me. We can just drop the pretty at this point because in my mind the only pretty thing about me was that I was skinny.

Pretty was synonymous with skinny.

I was the skinny one of my friend group, it was my signifier, my calling card, how I stood out, why I mattered. It was something I tied to my identity and without it I was unsure of who I was or what my purpose was. I thought I existed merely to be thin. To let people wrap their fingers around my wrist and remark at how small it was or answer questions about diets and workouts. Which was an interesting thing to me.

People would ask me, beg me, to tell them my secret on how I stayed so thin. Wanted to know exactly what I ate and how many calories I consumed. Was I doing HIIT, Tabata, cardio? Crossfit? Was I taking a supplement? Drinking some miraculous tea? I would give a vague answer about my extracurriculars keeping me busy. I couldn't tell these people who thought my ribs poking out and collar bones slicing through my skin were the new beauty standard that the reason I looked the way I did was because I was scared of who I’d be if I wasn't skinny.

People thought I was healthy, but I was borderline dying.

The comments that were made about my body at such a young age that carried on into my pre-adolescence life, could have been a death sentence for me. Eating disorders are one of the deadliest mental illnesses. It's true, look it up. Am I saying that being called thin and pretty as a child CAUSED my eating disorders? Absolutely not. Because it's not that simple. If you've read this blog you know the plethora of other issues that come into play when looking at the “cause” of my eating disorders. The lack of feeling in control in my home life, pressure from my peers, the obsession we have as a society with diets and bodies, the list goes on.

What I'm saying is these comments about my body, though some would call them compliments, had a huge impact on the way I viewed myself. I remember being at my sickest, lowest point, and people would tell me I looked great! I remember not eating for so long to the point I’d see spots when I stood up and people would commend me on my fitness.

It's funny how what looks like being fit can feel like dying.

My hair was falling out in clumps. I was shivering in 20 degree weather. My teeth were stained from being constantly coated in stomach bile. I was looking in the mirror and hating every single thing about myself. Because it still wasn't enough. I was obsessed with people calling me skinny, I thrived on it. It encouraged Ana.

“See its working, people are noticing. Skip lunch, you can have some coffee instead. Shove your fingers down your throat, you can always just adopt.”

Nobody knew I was struggling. How could they, I hid it so well? I think that's the point I want you to take from this. That you can never possibly know who's struggling. You can never know how your comment about someone's body is affecting them, if it's keeping them up at night doing sit ups till their spines are bruised, or sending them into an endless binge of everything in sight. You’ll never know how these “compliments” will make someone feel.

So don't make them.