Weight

I was just about ready to have some breakfast, but was writing to someone about weight and (I think) I’d like to share on that. The underlying problems of the bulimic/anorexic are not about weight. I remember wanting to be skinny and weightless, because that was childlike, and I missed being a child. Life seemed so much easier then — looking back, at least. And yet, weight is a major issue, besides learning to love, trust, forgive, mourn, …. and live. Feel free to insert your own issues. Those were my major ones.

I hadn’t really thought about it for a long time, but like I said, I just did. I generally avoid numbers and weights, knowing that we are all so competitive, but I will dare to give some hard numbers. Before I do that, though, I will confess that I am still slim and still concerned about my appearance. In fact, I am practically vain, and don’t think I could stand to be overweight. Recovery doesn’t mean you don’t care about your appearance. You just care differently. For me, it just means accepting my normal weight — which I didn’t get to pick as ideal. My body settled at that all by itself.

So, now to the numbers. I won’t actually give the weight, just comparisons. During my last major relapse-trying-to-recover phase, I weighed around 15 pounds more than at my worst skin-and-bones phase. At that time, I considered it to be the ideal weight, and hoped to recover and keep that weight. It wasn’t enough and I was still starving, so the inevitable binges kept happening. I also couldn’t sleep (ketosis?). Now, get a load of this, I weigh nearly 20 pounds more than that ideal weight. And I am still skinny!!! (But not in an unhealthy way.) These numbers simply knock me over!

I don’t want to brag about weighing so much more than I once did, but I want to state it as a fact of necessity. How many times I actually wished I could magically weigh this much again, because I just couldn’t bear the reality of having to gain the weight back. It was awful. Gaining weight is about giving up control, and I needed to have things under control. Yet, back then when I looked in the mirror, I would gain ten pounds just by looking. At first glance, I would think, “Oh, I’m slim.” Then I’d look closer, and “realize” that I was horribly fat. I never left out an opportunity to look in a mirror, or at my reflection in a store window. I kept hoping to see how I “really” looked, but I wasn’t able to find myself. Not until I looked within and let myself come out.

I think I’d been concerned about looking good, because I felt that what was inside of me was so ugly and deformed, that no one could possibly stand it. So I tried to make up for it by being thin. I know, that’s a strange logic, but it’s how I thought.

It wasn’t until I absolutely surrendered and decided to eat, to do what it takes, and to give up control, that I was able to gain the weight back. Whatever my body settled on, I would accept. I guess the switch was that I really wanted to live, so my body became the vehicle to enable that rather than being my definition. I like my body now. I look in the mirror and I like what I see. I like how I feel, too. It’s all part of me, and feels just right. And now I am finally going to go have my breakfast!

Oh, one more thing. This past summer I had the feeling of going back 30 years and picking up where I left off in my emotional development. (Yes, there are still some issues to be dealt with!) I felt a strong urge to buy the two Supertramp CDs that I had listened to as records back then (Even in the Quietest Moments and Crime of the Century). Many songs I still know by heart. They got me through some of my darkest hours. You might want to check them out.