What Fat Represents (To me)

I touched on this topic a bit in the the rant I have posted under "A blog for likeminded people"...  but part of the ED mind is to twist body image into a physical representation of something that you hate about yourself, or something that you feel insecure about.

If I am fat, I have no self control...
If I am fat, I am worthless.
If I am fat, I am wasteful, and thus a waste.
If I am fat, I feel I are too much of a burden on the world.
If I am fat, I am greedy.
If I am fat, I am a failure...


It's best summed up by the 'motivational' quote "An imperfect body reflects and imperfect person." 

I've mentioned before, but I am a member on a forum filled with EDed individuals... and we had a whole thread about this. Nearly 20 members listed off what they meant when they said they felt fat...

Anyway, since I've decided to start this journal up again, I thought I would kinda "back post" some of the things I was writing in my safer journal - the one on those boards... because I want to give a clear, real image of what goes on in at least my head. Only writing about the losses, and the highs of this roller coaster is misrepresentative... and perhaps dangerous for others.


For me... fat represents a lot of things. It's complicated, but in a nutshell... it represents a pollutant to my soul/mind/self. If I'm fat, whatever good qualities I *do* have will be un-recognizable. To be thin is to be pure... To be free of these failures and shortcomings that have held me back. And well, obviously it isn't really true, but it makes a shit-ton of sense to me... And, well, it will be better explained in something I am going to copy/paste from an old journal on those forums...

Context first though. Last year, in August I was really pushing to be <128 before a specific date. The first 13 days of the month were a master cleanse... the last 10 I was eating <500c (normal for me at the time, and now really...) and taking 2 ECA stacks every day... and it was really messing with my mind and stability and of course my body too.  Also, before I've said that I live with roommates... but actually my roommates are my remaining family members... I am going to grad school starting fall, and moved back here about 2 years ago to save while I studied to be admitted... This is the sort of detail I generally try to keep out of this journal for plausible deniability's sake but well, it kinda needs to be said for any of this to make sense.

The trigger that started this restriction was me moving back home I think. I haven't lived with my family since High School. Anyway, I had tried to get admitted to the university I want to go to through a government sponsored grant that summer, and didn't even make it to the interview. My GPA from uni (largely b/c of health issues) wasn't good enough to even warrant that much. It just made things so much worse.

One day, on the way back from a 4 mile walk, I started balling in the middle of the road. I had felt pretty weak a couple times on the walk, I think I had a few heart palpitation attacks, and what triggered the crying was a very strange sensation in my lower left abdomen... it felt like my organs were flopping around inside of me,  and I basically had the image of a dying fish on the beach or something... except that it was my insides that were dying (it was probably just gas since I wasn't getting enough food to have regular BMs at all... but it scared the fuck out of me). So... I balled the rest of the way back home. This isn't normal at all for me. I don't cry often... the ED is a way to stay numb for me, so not even once a year generally. I don't cry at deaths (father, grandfather, younger friend with CF)... at anything really except frustration, and that's more anger than anything else.

But, my mother had been making lots of comments on my food/exercise etc... and I felt so guilty. So so guilty. I was going to die before she did... She was going to have to bury me, and that is something no parent should ever have to do. In fact, my only health related goal... the only thing I think that will help me not slip too far in over the next 20-30 years, is that I outlive her. Anyway... I felt that I should write something... a letter, that explained everything should I die before her. I never did, but the rest of my walk, I thought about what it would say. I ended up writing an 'excerpt' from it, and posting it in my journal entry about that day (which has more details than this, but nothing I can post while hoping to stay anonymous should someone I know ever stumble across this journal). Here it is...

I just... I feel like such a failure. I'm about to be 29, and here I am living at home again... in limbo because I am too afraid to do what I need to to take the next step towards getting into grad-school. Doing it the way I am supposed to be trying for now... that was supposed to be my backup plan, and now it's my only plan... and if it falls through, I'll be lost. I'll have no future. It will literally tear me apart if I fail at this,and I feel so out of control of my life and I was *for YEARS* so out of control of my eating and I think that that parallel is what makes what I'm doing to myself make sense to me...  

I think I blame my "Plan A's" failure on my weight... or what caused it to skyrocket... I mean, I didn't get the interview for the grant because of the two bad semesters I had in undergrad... I had two bad semesters because my back was shit... my back was shit because I had stopped doing anything to keep myself strong and had become really really overweight... because when I was 14 I had a sports injury and didn't take proper care of it... All of these things caused me emotional distress and I ATE my emotions... which only made each problem worse.... and these are all things I can do NOTHING to change.  

I can't erase them... I can't go back in time and undo them... and I can't really even do anything to over-shadow them now until I actually get into a graduate program and am able to show them that I'm actually worth something... but how could someone so polluted by her own wastefulness... her own weakness - be worth even taking a second look at? Be admitted to a program? 

It is like... I don't know... like, say you have an ounce of gold and 2 ounces of 50% nickle 50% gold. Either way, you have 1 ounce of gold... but the one that is mixed with nickle is harder to see... harder to gauge it's worth. Distill the impurities out... and then suddenly you have an ounce of pure gold... you can see it's worth.  

I have to distill myself... I know this means nothing to ANYONE else, that it CHANGES nothing on my transcript... but it FEELS like each pound I lose is a past failure leaving me... it's one less unit of shame that others can see. If I can just get to 1/2 my highest weight... the "raw material" or "real-estate" or whatever metaphore you want to use for me will be worth so much more... I'll be me, distilled... pure, visible... worth giving a chance to. I won't be hidden by years of failure and shame and waste... I won't be waste... 

Reading this doesn't make me want to cry or anything, b/c like I said... I don't do that generally. but it does pull my heart strings. I still think this way, 100%... the thing is, 1/2 won't be enough... nothing ever will. The disappearing fat doesn't really make the past failures I am so fixated on go away, it just makes them easier for me to hide (I think, i know it isn't the case rationally). Like I said in the letter... it's one less unit of shame others can see. Because well, a girl who is overweight and who has the transcript I do... well, that wouldn't look as incongruous as it does on a girl who is perfectly in control of everything in her current life, including her BODY which is a representation of her SOUL. Being skinny means when people see my history, they will see that the fluke was the 1 year of poor grades, not the 17 years of straight As... (How pathetic... to be so wrapped up in past academic success/failure at nearly 30 years old...)

The latest binging etc... the reason I've ballooned back up to the weight I am at now (I was almost back to being overweight BMI a month ago...) I think is b/c I was accepted, and didn't know what to think or how to react... Anyway, I can't start this new program fat, so here I am, restricting again. So that my classmates and professors won't change their mind about me... won't think that I'm unworthy of the program. So that I won't lose my place, or scholarship... so that I won't fail... because obsessive exercise and lack of concentration due to malnutrition won't jeopardize my place as much as having a BMI and body fat percentage over 20 (*sarcasm*).

In the short term I do 'just' want to get back (well... ish. I was .6 away) to 1/2 my HW (19 BMI - 125lbs) but I've already slated myself to be underweight before new years (<122)... and if I'm honest, the real number I have stuck in my head is 110... 16.7 BMI (50kg... how beautiful a number). And I am insanely jealous of the shorter women who go into double digits... so who knows how far this will go (Hah, as if a fatass like me could ever successfully restrict even as far as I've listed... Hah!)

Anyway. This is a long post... I'm rambling because it is hard for me to publish, because I do think it would make me recognizable to certain people... but, well. Like I said, if I am going to continue journaling in the public forum, where anyone can read... it ought to be representative of what my experiences are like. There may be a few other posts I dredge up from those older journals... not sure yet.

Let me know what you think girls (and guys?) This is me baring my soul... I'm sorry for being so needy, but a comment or two would be nice because I feel pretty exposed right now and want to know it was worth it...