Today I went to the YMCA in the hopes of going for my first swim since surgery. Here I was trying to "get out and do something." Now, please keep in mind what I just mentioned above about laziness. I walk in - ready to swim, got my goggles, swim suit-(circa High School swim team 2001), my...fuck, I did NOT bring a towel. I speed walked back to the car and searched for anything that could work: a roll of paper towels, wet nap, tee shirt. No dice. I asked politely at the desk if they had any towels. The girl responded, "Oh no sorry - you can try the lost and found!" For fear of catching ebola, athletes foot, hand and mouth or some other equally scary bacteria - I decided I would take my chances with the hand dryer and hope for the best.
I hopped in the pool, despite my stroke being wild, chaotic and flailing - I remembered why I loved swimming so much. The water was still, calm and quiet. There was no Facebook, tweeting, or Instagram. There was no reality TV or 5 o'clock news. There was no itunes or Pandora to distract me. It was me, my worn out speedo and the water. I was reminded of my first foray into swimming. Which reminded me of something else...
This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week.
Who cares? Why does that matter? And what does it have to do with pool bacteria and chlorine? Just keep reading...
E
Is for
ED
Let me start by saying that Ed is one nasty son of a bitch.
I first met Ed when I was 15, a sophomore in High School carefree, happy and,
naïve. I had tried out for my
first high school sport : swimming. I had heard of Ed before, but thought that
would never be me, only the stuff you read about in the self help section at
the bookstore or the Dear Abbey pages of the newspaper, not me, hell no,
actually hell fucking no.
Growing
up I was always taller, thinner, shorter hair ( thanks Mom) and generally more
awkward than the average girl. I refused to wear a bra until the 8th
grade. Even then it was a sports
bra, the kind that acted more like duct tape stretched tightly across your
chest. I was kind of the anti –girl, girl. Now, I wouldn’t go as far as calling me a
tom boy – for that would have you assuming that I might have been good at
sports and a 'guy’s girl', for which I was neither.
At age 15 I had been living in
Pennsylvania for about a year. I had adapted to my friends and new High School.
Things were exciting and fresh. In October I tried out for the swim team. Now, in most High School
girls’ minds this is horrifying. You are in a bathing suit - all year round - 5
days a week, so much for getting ready for bathing suit season. All of a sudden
I was thrust into this world where you were forced to look at your body,
realize it may be a tad more dimply than the other girls who were wearing their
Speedo’s with pride.
After I made the team, it was time to order our team
suits. This was the first time I was really made aware of size. All of a sudden
the ordering of suits became a competition for me. I was a less than stellar
swimmer, but dammit I was thin (er) or so I thought. The smallest suit was a
28, well that’s what I ordered. When the suite’s came, mine was tighter than
expected. I had no idea what a 28 meant, or how the hell I was going to fit
into it, but I would soon find out.
I
made a new friend, I’ll refer to her as ‘Girl’, during swim try outs and we
instantly bonded over our lack of “real” swimming ability and the cute boy that
swam in the lane next to us. Girl and I soon shared sleepovers, movies, and
soon enough clothes. All of a sudden I was learning what Small – P (petite) and
size 0 jeans meant. It meant that all of a sudden, size mattered, and it
mattered a lot.
My 5’7 frame was small, lanky and always
thin, but quickly that was no longer good enough. Girl showed me her middle
school yearbook picture where she considerably heavier with a bad perm. I
couldn’t imagine it, Girl was the picture of perfection. She was tall,
blonde, had perfect straight white teeth and thin! People took notice, people
meaning the boys. Girl attracted the hottest of hot boys at our school : the seniors. Boys that once had seemed untouchable, with a few skipped meals
plus our rigorous 5-day a week swim practice, started to notice us.
Here was
the answer to my years of awkwardness. I grew out my dutch boy hair, waxed my
eyebrows so I finally had two, started keeping OCD like tabs on my outfits and most
importantly; I started tracking calories.
Food, like weight, became numerical. A jelly doughnut became 400 calories and 15 grams of fat. After the initial external makeover the only thing left to “work on” was my inner self, in my eyes - the fat
self. Girl and I would go
shopping at the mall and try on size 1 jeans almost weekly. Our waists got smaller and the jeans got bigger -and subsequently, so did our
smiles.
During a time when victory should have meant winning the 50 meter
freestyle at a swim meet it meant dropping a pant size at the local Abercrombie
and Fitch. The first major relationship of my life was with Ed and it was one I
would become trapped in for close to the next decade of my life. Ed is not a
boy, it’s an Eating Disorder.
- Written by 23-year-old me
******************************
This morning I slowly found the rhythm between my arms and legs, as I breathed in and out. I felt the water glide over my fingers and the heat steaming up my goggles. In that moment I was instantly transported to swim practice. All of a sudden I was 15 years-old again. All of a sudden I thought to myself, does this suit make me look...FAT?
Eating Disorders are ugly. They are mean. They are cruel. They rob you of happiness and joy. Worst of all? They encourage you to hate yourself. Some 15 years later, I still hear it's mean voice. The voice is quieter now, more like a hushed whisper, but I still hear it. I spent nearly 10 years of my life consumed by Ed. I spent a long time not feeling worthy but rather - worthless.
Matt's parents recently bought me a painting by Amanda Blake. It is of a woman standing in the woods. She is standing, alone, in a long white dress with a blue stream behind her. At the bottom of the picture it says, "her bravery knew no end."
Why am I sharing this? Because it is a week of awareness, and people need to know. Because OUR bravery should know no end...
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