As I move through recovery in fits and starts, I find my body doesn't fit me anymore! My jeans are too tight. My jeans are too baggy. My underwear rides up or sags down. My sweaters either make me itch, choke me or squeeze me. If I could, I would wear a loose toga, draping my body in soft cotton comforts as I go through the process of adding weight to my skinny little body.
Maybe there should be specially made clothes for those recovering from eating disorders. Loose, comfortable clothes that don't cause one a major anxiety attack when the number goes up (or down), one that doesn't cause choking breathes when the waistband pinches. In other words, one that doesn't remind us we are in recovery; clothes that don't point - I have an eating disorder I'm desperately trying to beat.
This body of mine feels foreign - I look in the mirror and it's either too thin (arms spindly, chest caved in, breasts soft, clavicle showing, butt nonexistant) or too fat (oh my God, those thighs spread to Europe! that stomach looks like it either has a baby or 10 pounds of gas in it!) Where is the smooth curve of my concave stomach? I can still see my ribs and the bony knobs along my spine - but look! are they being enveloped in, I can't believe it, something resembling roundness!
I miss the body anorexia gave me; and I mourn it's loss. I miss loose fitting size 0 jeans and T-shirts. I miss putting on anything, knowing it wouldn't - gasp! - feel too tight. I miss gliding through life, knowing I was small and light and airy. I long for the empty feeling inside, that cool, clear and light feeling; it was safe, even as it was deadly.
I avert my eyes, walk upstairs and go through the long process of trying to clothe this foreign beast of a body. I long to live in Tahiti or the Bahamas, anywhere I can drape a loose fitting summer dress and feel more fluid, more like me.
The anxiety of this new, and hated, body gets to be too much. I can only escape its confines when I sleep.
2 comments:
Dear Angela, i am finally discovering the blogging world of recovery and personal stories. I am finding more and more i can identify with.
As for the clothes - perhaps this is the reason i live in tracksuit/jogging bottoms! Only problem is i look not quite scruffy but certainly "relaxed/casual" constantly. Perhaps we should design a range of smart jogging bottoms, what do you think?
best of luck on your continuing journey.
xx
I'm with you on the clothes issue, and I am psyching myself up to move up onto my tentatively final clothes size. still underweight but if i think up one size from that my brain may explode and leak out of my ear.
When I outgrew my last size jeans, the morning I outgrew them I took them far away from my house and threw them away. It's the only way to deal with it. Otherwise there is always that temptation to get back into them again.
I'm currently very aware of the lower part of my body and am discovering that moving with hips is quite difficult to do if one is not used to them. Cue lots of bruises where I keep under estimating my size. On the plus side, I have an arse to put in my jeans now, which I have to say, I quite like. It's handy for sitting on, who knew?
Lola x
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