it's not the media, it's me.

Don't worry I'm not going to subject you to every single day of my childhood, or even every day of my disorder.  I mean, who has that kind of time?  But for now I'm still going to write about when I was young.

People constantly blame the media for eating disorders, or at least for giving children the impression that they have to look thin or like the actors/models.  It wasn't that way for me.  I didn't read fashion magazines  though  I did watch TV and movies.  Or course I noticed that the women were thin (and I liked how they looked)  I truly don't think that was a driving force.   Clothing designers on the other hand,  they screwed me up. That's probably not fair either- but nothing fit me!  

I remember shopping at the 5-7-9 store, which at the time I thought was a store for people who didn't fit into regular sizes.  It's certainly not that now, but someone told me that back then.  Now I guess it's just a store for juniors and that's why the sizes are odd numbers... Anyway, as long as they had it in black,  I was excited that I could fit into something  at that store (in a size 0 or 1) but often I couldn't.  I couldn't because pants were not made for people with my shape.   No matter how thin I was, I always had thighs and a butt that weren't in proportion to the clothing. The thighs and butt were too tight and the waist was too large.   So no matter how large the waist was I never saw myself as a good shape, or a small enough shape because of my "HUGE" thighs.   Now it's supposedly a good thing to have a shapely bottom half, and they make clothing that fits me sometimes, but you would still be surprised at the amount of things that don't.    

For example as I mentioned in my last post, I've lost some weight.  Just recently, I went to buy a t-shirt I liked very much, and I thought hey, I might be a small or a medium.  Sadly, the only size that fit was an extra large.  WHAT?  How can that possibly be good for people in general, let alone people like me?

I could rant on about this forever, and cite so many examples that I personally have experienced, but that won't change anything out there.  I suppose that I/we just have to try to ignore sizes/numbers if at all possible- but, it's hard.  Much harder than looking at impossibly skinny women (many probably suffering from disorders themselves) in magazines. 

Yesterday I tried not to weigh myself, today I'm going to try not to try on every item of clothing in my closet to see how they fit.

realizing when it begins, or began

I've just lost 23 lbs.  I fact I'm very proud of- too proud of.  It's all I think about.  I only want to lose 5 more- really.   I'm 41 years old and this is a very familiar feeling.  I had been healthy for many years, but I think it's back- or maybe it never left.

I'm writing this blog mostly selfishly- because I'm depressed and I want to be happy, I want to live longer! I'm hoping that telling my story will help me examine the problem and possibly help me heal.   But, I also hope that someone else out there that might be thinking a) I'm too smart to have an eating disorder or b) I'm to old to have an eating disorder or worst of all c) I don't have an eating disorder- will perhaps see this blog themselves or be shown it and seek help or help themselves.  It's a hard way to live.

I'll start at where I think the beginning is- but for all I know it could be wrong. Oh, before I get going, mom if you happen to be reading this even if I talk about you, I don't blame you at all, it's not what you said or did but how I chose to react to it.

I was about 10, maybe a little bit older, maybe a little bit younger but I was young, and I was a very difficult child (turns out).  I decided to become a vegetarian.  This was unheard of in Buffalo NY, and for sure in my family.   I just stopped eating meat.  No one could make me, and I wasn't going to.  In retrospect I can see (and have been told) that I was seeking to control something, anything in my life.  I didn't know that then, then I just didn't want ANYTHING my mother was feeding me. Least of all did I want to become fat like other people in my family. I didn't know the two were related, but now I see (and maybe you will in subsequent posts) that possibly they were.

Fat was a dirty word at my house, it's pretty much all my mother and I had in common then, and almost all we talk about to this day.  Back then she would say "don't eat that- you'll look like____"  or "you've gained a little tummy".  But mostly she would talk about how much SHE ate and how fat she was.  She wasn't.  She was beautiful and slim, even skinny.  All I could think when she said that was if SHE is fat, what am I?  Even today we joke about how when we went out to eat, she wouldn't order anything (a fact that embarrassed me to no end) because I never finished anything I ordered.

On the other hand, somewhere deep down (and this is the confusing part to this day) I knew I wasn't fat, I knew I was wearing a size zero, I saw others that were much larger than I was but i still felt wrong.  I didn't and don't see myself as thin, and maybe never will.

I'm going to stop for today and try not to go weigh myself, but I can't promise.  Talk to you tomorrow.