Anger is the easiest emotion to default to, just as defense is the first act of war.
In active ED behaviors, I have called people out for anything you could think of, and I’ve done it often. In recovery, I have, too. But the effort taken in calling people out, singling out their ignorance of my experience and the experiences of so many with eating disorders and other illnesses or marginalized experiences, only serves to distance them from understanding and distance me from living out recovery the way I know I need to.
I have, instead, taken to calling people in.
My first interaction with the idea of calling people in instead of calling them out is from writer Ngọc Loan Trần’s post on the subject. They speak on this with regard to race and social justice, and though it was written four years ago, its something that so many of us could use right now in the wake of what’s happening in Charlottesville.
One thing I have always maintained in my recovery is that sometimes, people don’t understand that they don’t understand. They don’t understand body dysmorphia, compensatory purging behaviors, or the effect that diet culture has on those who already struggle really hard to live inside their bodies every waking second of every day.
They don’t understand what their words mean.
This past week, someone on my Facebook friends list posted about cutting out carbs entirely and asked for advice on the subject of how to address a nutritional problem of eating too much bread and not drinking enough water. I let her know, based on my knowledge of the deficit mode our brains enter into when we cut out or restrict foods, that she could actually send her body into starvation mode so that it would only just hold onto whatever water she did intake. Healthy discussion, balance oriented, just like my recovery has been since I started really living it out.
But then someone from her family comments, “Love yourself as is!!! Its not like you’re obese or fat.”
Anger became my default emotion. I called her OUT.
This attitude of “at least you don’t look like THAT” is so pervasive in our culture and society, and it took me stepping waaaaaay back into my own understanding of how I still interact with my body from a perspective I learned to accept rather than formulating on my own.
Since this interaction, I have had to remember a few important things:
1. Weight gain can happen to just about anyone. The problem is that we have assigned meaning to it. And we have been trained by diet culture and the thin ideal to be scared sh*tless of this possibility. In a meditation class I co-taught this week, my colleague responded to someone’s question, “How do you not ever get angry?” (he is also a fellow Buddhist, and a more seasoned one than me) with:
“I have learned to practice not allowing the person to disrespect me. Because someone could curse the hell out of me and if I give it meaning, then I will become angry.
Again: weight gain can happen to just about anyone. But we have been conditioned to believe that weight gain or going up in size actually means something. We surrender our power to this idea, we live and breathe it, we exercise around it. Industries and idealizations create doubt that puts us in a position to worship the idea of never gaining weight.
2. Every time we hate ourselves, someone makes money. Literally. Fad diets, cosmetic products, weight loss commercials, the (pseudo)pharmaceutical industry, corporate executives and more–they all profit from our self-doubt, facilitate our self-hatred. But only for as long as we allow them.
3. When we are consumed with ourselves, we forget what’s going on in the world. And the big guys I mentioned in number two like it that way. We fill their pockets while they systemically marginalize entire communities. While wars are going on. Diet culture and obsession with weight, food and body distracts us from what’s important–calling each other in, healing, and helping the world do better.
Instead of fighting someone I didn’t know, had never met, who was probably suffering in some way from their own self-perception, too, I could have been educating folks about what’s happening, sharing and signing petitions to heal our broken justice system, or offering support and love and acknowledgement to people of color who are hurt directly every day by the systemic ideologies that create incidents of racial hatred and bias. This would have been a better use of my time.
In my recovery I have learned through exploration of faith and the practice of Buddhist ideas that I personally do not get to decide who deserves my compassion or kindness. Kindness withheld is the ego flourishing. I’m not saying that anger and compassion cannot coexist, they most certainly can. Desmond Tutu said it himself: we have every right to hate people and institutions that do hateful things. But I am no longer a subject of my own hatred, and neither are those who just don’t get it.
I am personally responsible for breaking down diet culture by teaching other people how to treat me, how to show people of size and shape and color and different ability that they are lovable RIGHT NOW, not -40 pounds from now, or lighter skin than now, or two more miles from now, but right now and always all the time. I am responsible for the people who don’t “get” what an eating disorder looks or feels or sounds or acts like, and I’m looking forward to educating them.
I used to get angry about it; I still get angry that people fat shame and are so adamant that people with different bodies, especially female bodies (thanks misogyny!) deserve more or less love, respect and overall consideration from the world until they “fix” something about themselves. It’s personal.
Calling in is also personal. It’s a big action. It requires setting aside the ego and seeing other people as human: capable of mistakes, flawed ideologies, fundamental brokenness, or straight up indoctrination. It invites them into our already really messy spaces to sometimes make even more of a mess. If we are willing to reckon with their missing pieces and fill them in with our stories, there is room for growth everywhere. This is the work of healing. This is calling each other in.
These are somebody’s expectations, and other people’s expectations are not our problem. But liberating people who are still struggling with the idea that they can’t love themselves now, is where the calling in comes in handy. Invite people to stop participating in their own body negativity, and they’ll start seeing you differently too. We’re all warriors; some of us just haven’t picked up the sword.
Connect with me! (I’m going on vacation and I’ll still be answering emails just maybe not as frequently but I still love you!!! Promise!!!!)
Instagram: @caitisrecovering
Twitter: @caitsrecovering
Email: caitisrecovering@gmail.com
Royally Incomplete 