ninety

his legs are skinnier than mine - a n d i n p a n t s

seeing my ‘smaller’ boyfriend then, i felt something break in my brain. like someone had just dropped a champagne flute and poof shattering glass everywhere. i could feel coolant flooding my veins and i wanted to disappear.

growing up, i was painfully skinny, so skinny that girls—and even adults—would accuse me of being anorexic or bulimic. ‘do you eat?’ ‘are you throwing up your food?’ these taunts would follow me all through high school. i hated it. all i wanted was body anonymity.

interestingly, around this same time i began modelling — really, by accident. i felt redeemed. my skinniness, which before would provoke complete strangers to tell me i was ugly became cool and aspirational. back in school, the girls who once bullied me now asked to see my comp card. it felt good to see them jealous.

I was special and they weren’t

my body dysmorphia was quiescent for a time until i discovered clean eating. my new healthy era included a raw vegan diet, routine colonics and a neat regimen of vitamins, supplements, and adatptogens. i had a found a new religion: my body.

-

summer, 2020

7:30am. i am stepping on the scale for my daily weigh-in. 87lbs. another day i remain below 90. ninety is a number i imbue with an almost ecclesial power. when the scale tips over, i freeze and leave my body. a shame so deep that it feels generational fills me to my edges.

you’re fat. you’re weak. you failed.

i do not consider myself a religious person, but i identify deeply with the reward/punish binary. anorexia was punishing, but I wanted it because somewhere deep down i believe i deserved it.

occasionally a tiny voice would break through and say *maybe* i’m taking this too far. no I’m fine, i look great, everyone is telling me so. ‘omg tell us your routine!’ ‘your abs!!!’ ‘you look so hot’. these online comments became fuel for an addiction that had gone off the rails. i was high off not eating. high off my skeletal body. high off disappearing myself with such efficiency and ease.

my breaking point came one morning in front of my mirror while taking selfies. i was at my lowest weight, light-headed and feeling porous, raw and desperate. i remember the warmth of the sun pouring into my living room, seeing my frail body reflected back to me and contemplating my will to live if i couldn’t be as skinny as i was in that moment.

_

Paris

plaisir, one of my favourite sounding words in french.

in paris, time slows down. sometimes it doesn’t seem to move at all. during the 2 years i spend here after that summer, i re-learn to live for more than just my eating disorder. starving myself so extremely had blunted everything in my life: joy, curiosity, pleasure.

paris taught me something i never would have come to on my own— that the way through something hard is softness.

_

Epilogue

it would be convenient to end this on a redemption arc, but it’d be dishonest, because i am not fully recovered. i don’t think anyone can ever fully recover from an eating disorder, unless they choose to. on most days i still find myself pinching my waist for softness, counting my calories and indulging in myriad of other ed habits. the difference between 2020 and now is that i can control it. i think.

i have a lot of sympathy for women who choose to remain brutally thin. it’s easy for someone who’s work does not depend on their appearance to say eat something! my skinniness has been a source of income, power, and acceptance since I was 15. to give that up would be unimaginable. i’ve come to terms with this; it’s not sad, it’s realistic.

although i have never returned to my lowest weight, i continue to restrict; albeit with more compassion. this can be seen as ‘wrong’ or perverse, but who gets to decide that? our culture is obsessed with fixing women, but has it ever considered that we don’t want to be fixed?

i often think about my 13 year old self, and ponder: would she be proud of me now? will all of this have been worth it?

Share nessyworld