Calm Down, We Can ALL Be Eating Disordered

Edit: The commenter apologized in the previous post, so you can go read her response there. I think I'll keep the post up, because it's so symptomatic of how people respond to fat people with eating disorders, but there's no ongoing fight or grudge going on here. We all lash out sometimes.

"Anonymous said...
wow you must've looked hilarious buying four chocolate bars. disgusting. Four is so unnecessary. and bullSHIT you have an eating disorder, unless its binge eating. You insult me, and others, who actually fear calories and would be suicidal at a third your size."

This is a comment I got to my previous post, where I discussed throwing out the scale and buying lots of food so I can eat what I want. I did this as a gesture of healing from what I call an eating disorder, although I don't have a diagnosis or more precise name for it. I just feel miserable and guilty about my eating habits, think about my weight all the time, weigh myself too often, get anxiety attacks over fat hate, etc. etc. My friend Robyn, who has suffered from anorexia, was the one to tell me I need to kill it dead. So today, obviously another anorexic tells me I insult her by thinking I have a problem.

I could have deleted it as a flame, but I kept it and responded. It's obviously meant to be both humiliating and insulting - drawing attention to my size, exaggerating it (a third my size? Bwah), using bully tactics, denying my right to name my problem. This tells me the person felt very mad and threatened when she read my post.

As I mentioned, I don't have a diagnosis. That means I'm not taking anyone's bed or place in therapy. I'm naming my problem and fighting against it, with the help of my boyfriend and closest friends. If I saw a doctor and told them everything I told Robyn, they may diagnose me, or they may just conclude that I need to eat less. Even if a doctor gave me a diagnosis, I probably couldn't expect for a lot of sympathy or support in healing; a lot of people would question the diagnosis and whether it's "a real eating disorder". Atypical eating disorders - or even binge eating disorder/compulsive eating - are very little known and there's very little help available. And OK, let's say I technically don't have an eating disorder (yet); it's still a serious problem that I have these thought patterns and guilt feelings. I need to ease my pressure or it will really depress me. In fact, I'm already on antidepressants.

Here's the big question: Why should it INSULT someone if I think I have an eating disorder? It helps me conceptualize the problem and be determined to change it. If I need to see the problem as a separate creature that I need to destroy, what's it to you?

I've thought of it a lot and here's my conclusion: the commenter is angry because she does not want to be lumped together with a fatty. If a fat person can have an eating disorder, then the concept of eating disorders is tarnished with fat and gluttony, and it makes her anorexia look like a joke. This is sad, but it's just the eating disorder speaking. My disorder is different in nature, but it has similar thought patterns. For instance, I was pretty angry at first when I read about HAES and fat people who exercise. "They're bringing the slim world's antics into the fat world! It will be tainted!" It's really just the same thing turned around.

The sad part is, this would pretty much be my parents' reaction, without the whole "you insult me because I have a REAL problem". I had bulimia symptoms at ages 15 and 18; both times, my mother told me I do not have an eating disorder and I need to stop dramatizing. "We all binge," she said, as if our family sits around eating until we throw up. This is pretty much how our culture deals with a fat girl who feels she has a problem. In a way, fat people are seen as unhealthy; in another way, we're seen as "healthy", as in "you look healthy". If you look healthy, how can you be sick inside?

Of course, I share this problem with all the normalweight people with eating disorders. If you're not critically skinny, people will usually not see you as sick. Normalweight is the ideal, so how could someone at that size be sick? As an added bonus, a fat person is expected to think and behave in eating disordered ways. We should be counting the calories of every bite. We should be overexercising. We should hate our bodies and consider them unattractive. It's understandable if we sit around thinking about the weight all the time; that just means we have a problem and have to do something about it.

It's sad that sometimes, people who could understand and support each other are unable to do so, because the disorder does just that. Robyn isn't controlled by her disorder anymore, so she can see we're not that different. In this comment above, I just see the disorder creature spitting and growling at me. I recognize its hideous face. That's why it's hard to be mad at the commenter, even if her words did hurt; I'm still vulnerable and ashamed of myself. But it helps to know where it's coming from.

These are complex issues and it's always hard to talk about such a topic without someone else's pain crashing into your own. I hope everyone struggling with eating disorders, diagnosed or unrecognized, will get help and support from someone.