How and Why I Quit Therapy

Therapy is magical.

Seeing a therapist has been part of my life and my story since I was eight years old. I started in a small office in an old, two-story Victorian style house a few towns away when my parents got divorced. We’d get Wendy’s on the way there right after school. Mostly, my therapist Barbara and I played board games and drew about my feelings. I wrote poems. I talked about not feeling like I belonged at the Catholic school I went to, and the confusion of all of it happening to me at once.

In fourth and fifth grade, we had a group at school called “Banana Splits” where we met weekly or monthly during my lunch time and ate together and talked. It was a group of kids whose parents were going through a divorce or who were already divorced, and I actually found a lot of peace there. I don’t know the logistics of how I was enrolled, but I just remember it being safe and helpful to me at a time when I was so, so lost in a new elementary school and still maladapting to my parents’ being apart. 

I found a therapist in middle school who I saw up until my high school graduation. She got me through episodes of depression, anxiety, bullying, self-harm, (then) undiagnosed, eating disordered behavior, coming out to myself, ending my relationship with my biological father, and recovering from what I knew at the time to be an addiction to self-harm and self-imposed destruction.

I saw her through my diagnoses of depression and anxiety at age 17, and there were so many instances in which I can say she saved my life. She’s passed on now and someone else lives in her house (which also used to be her office); but I am so grateful to her for how much she helped me in the seven years I sat in her office baring my broken soul all that time.

Throughout college I had a few episodes of suicidality, in which I was recommended on mandate to the University Health Center Psych Services. Their intake crisis counselor became my therapist outside of school, and she would get me through four years of college and phone sessions until a year after that. She was like the mom I needed, the one who didn’t nitpick my outfits or police my food–she nurtured me.

Doc M saw me through unhealthy coping mechanisms and even unhealthier codependent relationships, coming out to my family, navigating college with anxiety. After a major breakup and a year of graduate school, I was managing okay. It was mutually understood that I was ready to move on.

In December 2018, I sought therapy again for the first time in a few years, immediately following a relapse. The first thing I did was look up “eating disorder specialists” on my insurance website, as well as on Psychology Today.

 

I found a therapist with Friday appointments, who took my insurance, close to my house. I had also at this point started drinking again (which most of you know, I don’t do) so I knew this was yet another bottom I’d need picking up from, with more than just an app and a text to the crisis line acting as a de facto “treatment team.” 

This person’s profile also contained the usual client-focused questions that tell a person seeking their help virtually nothing about their experience with specific issues. The video I linked above is a really good comprehensive primer about how to find a therapist who will do a better job for you by asking the right questions and demanding the right level of care for yourself through a series of “what to look for.” (Note that it’s pretty new-agey/weird Portland OR specific; maybe I should make one for the Long Island area).

This therapist, according to my insurance website, listed eating disorders as a specialty.

This was not the case. 

I will say, this therapist often gave a lot of really good feedback and didn’t let me stew in my own sh*t longer than I needed to. I got a lot of what I needed, not wanted, to hear, and was always tasked a lot of reflecting to do. But I’d never experienced a therapy session in which 90 percent of the talking was done by someone who wasn’t me for an entire hour, where specific issues that I had been clear about addressing were forgotten about in favor of talking about this person’s politics, and where conversations that just mentioned my LGBTQ (particularly transgender) friends were taken as a challenge and a debate in which I was asked to educate this person about those issues. They also frequently made jokes about scheduling appointments not too far apart so they could get paid, and then inserted “for continuity of care” as an afterthought. It was…weird. In hindsight, it was probably a huge red ethics flag. 

Most significantly, I never really got the help that I needed, and asked for, for my eating disordered behaviors. Those continued. And in their office were books about the keto diet, gluten free fad literature, and other triggering and unhelpful things that signaled to me that this person was indeed not the therapist who could or would help treat my eating disorder, despite their best intention and the fact that my own insurance company said they were qualified to help.

I saw them continuously for about nine months before ghosting them entirely. Since then, I rely mostly on my brilliant and amazing psychiatrist for therapy. I’ve been seeing him for three years this spring, and there has literally never been a session I haven’t left with a smile on my face. He even told me to give that therapist a shot and not “break up” with them…but I’m actually faring really well with just my psychiatrist’s help for the time being.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s really difficult to maintain executive functioning sometimes without a weekly and frequent therapist. But that’s why I’m so grateful for all the skills and ideas I have learned in therapy up to this point, in the past 17 years since I started in and out of a therapist’s office. I also am so grateful for different apps like Sanvello, Recovery Record (which, admittedly, I need to use more often!) and the cultivation of a spiritual practice that involves regular ritual, community, and openness to learning.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Breaking up with a therapist is never easy–heck, I ghosted mine. I guess I did this for a few reasons a) saying outright “you’re really transphobic and I want to recover and this isn’t helping me do that” is a mouthful of awkward, and b) I didn’t really feel like I owed this person that explanation or any at all. I felt like “do no harm” was not happening for me, no matter how well-meaning this professional was; which solidified my need to survive first and cut ties with this person without much communication.

I haven’t been back since September, and I’m okay with that. Has my journey with ED been bumpy at times? Absolutely, especially now at a time when health stressors are high for our entire culture and I’m navigating a potential chronic digestive illness.

But I’m managing, and actually, this time away from my work has allowed me more time to self-care and make time for the things that I don’t get to do ritually for my mental health. So I’m feeling grateful, despite not having a formal “treatment team” or never really having been to treatment despite likely needing it.

Self Advocacy is EVERYTHING.

Especially when it comes to eating disorder recovery and other specific diagnoses within the mental health field, you have to know what to ask for. I am no longer afraid to ask potential therapists what their experience is in eating disordered behavior and treatment, and whether or not their approach involves HAES.

A list of questions (that you are absolutely entitled) to ask a potential therapist for your ED:

• What is your training in eating disorders?
• How do you understand eating disorder recovery?
• Would you give the same mental health advice to a thin/fat person?
• What do you know about HAES, and do you align with the philosophy and science that supports it?
• What is the efficacy or effectiveness of Overeaters Anonymous? Do you recommend this program to everyone who you believe has an ED?
• How do you treat the twofold illness of disordered eating and body dysmorphia?
• Can I count on you to avoid weight talk or weight bias?
• What is your approach to treating anorexia?
• What is your approach to treating bulimia (conventional or exercise bulimia?)
• What is your approach to treating binge eating disorder? (if their answer is weight loss as a primary treatment, get a second opinion)
• What is your approach to treating orthorexia?
• Do you believe that a person can fully recover from an eating disorder?
• What resources are you connected to in case I may need a higher level of care? Will you support me in accessing that higher level of care if necessary?

(A note to therapists: involving diet culture, weight loss or other fatphobic approaches when treating folks with ED will NOT help them recover–promise).

I think it’s important to look FAR beyond what the insurance company website says a person specializes in, and straight up email/ask them yourself. If they spent a weekend doing a seminar or crash course at a Renfrew, that’s not eating disorder specialized. If they diet regularly and subscribe to the culture that renders some bodies more deserving of help than others, that’s not eating disorder specialized–that’s food/disorder fixated.

Find a therapist who spent time doing LONG rotations at ED clinics, reading up on and taking continuing education courses in the specific manifestations of disorder you are looking for treatment in, someone who knows the harm that diet culture does and is at least able to recognize the HAES framework. And don’t stop asking questions about what they have done to prepare to treat and empathically understand the FULL scope of your illness in the here and now. The only boundary I would say is off limits is outright asking them about their personal experience with eating disorders–that’s not your story to hear; it is only their story to tell, just like yours is your own.

Wondering out loud here for you, my LI/NY followers–would we like a video similar to the one I shared above, for New York based treatment options for those of us with ED? Let me know. 

Stay safe and healthy out there, everyone!

A Shout-Out to My Gastroenterologist

I recently went to my gastroenterologist for a consulting visit before my scheduled procedure in April and I was so honestly happy with the outcomes.

When I began the process of seeking out treatment for my stomach issues (which are related directly to my anxiety, have been persisting for years, and likely were made more difficult due to my ED behaviors), I was really nervous and didn’t know what to expect. A family history of GI-related illnesses (Crohn’s, celiac disease) runs in my family, and I had been experiencing symptoms for the past few months that were indicative of something needing to be done.

At my first appointment, the standard thing went on–conversation about symptoms, family history with the help of my mom who came with me to the appointment, but a minimal discussion of my mental health conditions and my history of an eating disorder. I got a few tests spread out over those next few months–an MRI that came back normal, despite not feeling normal and often having nausea and other issues.

So I scheduled an appointment to meet with my doctor during a week off and I went alone to discuss the unaddressed issues of my eating disordered behavior in a more complete way.

She didn’t take my weight at all, validated my mental health symptoms as a likely cause of my gastrointestinal issues, and gave me a recommendation for medical food that would help.

We discussed Overeaters Anonymous and the fact that it’s unnecessary and unhelpful for me (something that doctors, in my experience, never feel, especially when fat patients are sitting in front of them), discussed my family’s relationship with my disordered behavior and my lack of ED treatment (due to weight stigma and denial that what I had was an eating disorder at all in the first place), and she reviewed my previous tests and came to the conclusion that my ED has had no long-term adverse affects on my body.

It is likely that I do have IBS, and she noted that I may benefit from biofeedback so that I can get better at aligning my hunger and fullness signals with my executive functioning.

Because after a few years of binge-purge cycles, I learned how to recover, but my anxiety is a persistent issue. I still struggle with executive functioning, and sometimes will get so busy or bad at time management or just be too anxious to eat, and my hunger signals will go ignored and eventually shut off until they are no longer in my awareness.

It sometimes would result in me skipping meals for hours, and bingeing once I can no longer ignore the ghrelin entering my stomach and telling me to eat, causing me to double or triple up on food, as a way of answering for my missed meals.

I left this appointment having articulated all of this to my doctor, and feeling heard and validated in that understanding of my behavior as it relates to my GI function. And none of it was attributed to my fatness, I was not asked to answer for my weight or reduce it, and I am so grateful for that.

This comprehensive understanding and being able to talk to a doctor about my eating disorder history and be understood and not stigmatized for my weight all at once was probably the best experience I’ve ever had with a medical professional since realizing that I needed to recover from BED/OSFED.

It is difficult enough to be a fat patient in any medical office, but when that doctor visit has to do directly with your eating behavior and the potential for weight stigma is higher than normal, bracing yourself for both subtle and not-so-subtle fatphobia is stressful and traumatic.

I didn’t think finding a doctor who was understanding of my history of eating disorders across the spectrum WHILE also actively not being fatphobic would happen for me. These small things add up for us folks who deal with weight bias from virtually all other corners of life in this world. Thank you so much, Dr. S!

A Discussion About Rule 62

An open letter to men in recovery: stop using “Rule 62” to dismiss women, comorbidity and intersectionality.

To ring in 2020, I spent New Year’s Eve with my friends who are sober–most if not all of whom are qualifying members of Alcoholics Anonymous (I am not; however, I understand the fellowship and framework quite well).

I was discussing sobriety with a man I had just met upon walking in the door to my good friends’ house on the water on the south shore of Long Island–the designated gathering place for 50+ sober people at any given time on a holiday such as July 4th, MDW, and this year, NYE.

I mentioned the unfortunate lack of consideration for folks with eating disorders like myself in the program of AA–especially considering that so many women (approximately 50%) experience comorbid symptoms of eating disorders and substance abuse including alcoholism.

The man in question simply said, “Rule 62,” and looked at me blankly.

Rule 62. 

Don’t take yourself so damn seriously. 

Rule 62, for those unfamiliar, is a rule that has found its way into recovery circles as unspoken tradition.

The backstory, from what I understand, has to do with tradition four (“Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A./E.D.A/whateverA as a whole.”) in anonymous programs, which discusses the  idea that individual meeting groups can operate on their own volition without involving or compromising the integrity of the fellowship as a whole.

When AA was expanding, a group attempted to be “all things to all people”–they resolved to take care of meetings, residential treatment, and other facets of recovery life all under one roof–and realized that their goal was way bigger than they could manage in the context of the AA program.

This group came up with 61 rules and sent them to AA as a manifesto or proclamation for beginning their ambitious program. Then, they realized just how daunting a task it would be to take care of every single person’s needs in the realm of addiction treatment–and before scrapping the idea, they came up with rule 62. 

So, what about it? 

Last week, I read a really powerful and thought-provoking opinion piece in the New York Times about the patriarchal foundations and history of AA as an organization. We all know the names Bill W. and Dr. Bob, two men who were alive during the first world war and became alcoholics due to a perceived spiritual malady that they believed had to do with an inflated ego and sense of self, as well as a lack of presence of a higher power in their lives. They were their own higher power for the duration of their relationship with alcohol and drinking–which, as the NYT article suggests, is the essence of white male privilege. 

They sought to recover from this sense of ego, but did it also heal their harmfully separatist sense of rigid gender roles and toxic masculinity?

Alcoholics Anonymous itself has, seemingly ironically tried to be all things to all people; opening itself to women, people of color, people with doctorates, average folks, and everyone in-between, but how can it do that if it still holds itself in the principles, practices and ideas of a world that was designed by and for white men? How can a fellowship with such a marginal number of women attending compared to men even say that “anyone can do it” if they have the capacity to be honest? 

The problem is, this claim is dishonest in and of itself.

Rule 62 was meant to be an ego-check on a group of alcoholics who thought (mistakenly) that their individual group’s program could be a one-stop shop for recovery. When they failed, they wrote this rule as a way of softening the ways that their ambitious and admirable mission had not gone to plan. Well intentioned? Maybe.

In this conversation in my friend’s kitchen, Rule 62 was used to dismiss my very real concern about the harm still being done to people like me in the rooms who are not having their eating disorders addressed–a problem backed by statistics, as I shared before.

I know, I know. If AA were to take on eating disorders too, they wouldn’t really be AA anymore. But this is 2020; and we really need to start accounting for the more than half of the fellowship that needs access to a safe place to express the comorbidity of their alcoholism with other issues like disordered eating and, in the case of my region, opioid abuse. By not being sensitive to issues that clearly and empirically intersect with the problem of alcoholism, there is an imminent danger of making full recovery inaccessible to so many members and potential members.

“At least you’re not drinking” (I hear this one a lot, too!) isn’t good enough anymore. Eating disorders have an unbelievably high mortality rate, especially anorexia nervosa. And I’d venture to say that MOST eating disordered alcoholics can relate to the feeling that alcohol sets off their ED, and vice versa. This is serious.

Food is available at tons of AA meetings without supporting the people for whom food might be a trigger. With over 50 percent of addicts and alcoholics also having an ED–it seems a little insensitive not to address this, and to tell those who are authentically worried about it “not to take themselves so damn seriously.” 

It’s not really a coincidence or an accident that this “rule” is probably most often bestowed upon women, as it was done unto me.

Having an ego and unwarrantedly flaunting your ability to quote a book that is, dare I say, just as fallible and subjective as we all are is…confusing, and honestly, a form of gaslighting imo.

Women don’t need to be powerless, and we don’t need to be told not to take ourselves so seriously. The world outside of those church basements and sober gatherings already does that to and for us. 

Now, I know that this individual’s use and interpretation of Rule 62–like the fallible interpretations of a lot of things in AA and other anonymous groups–speak to the person, not to the fellowship as a whole, hence, the fourth tradition. Hell, Rule 62 was created so that a bunch of people who created a plan and failed, like any human might do, could laugh at themselves and not be bummed that they hadn’t succeeded. We all need a little of that in our lives, certainly.

But I wonder how many times this rule has also been used to drive women into silence about the things that bother them about the world that they live in; things happening inside and outside the rooms. Because the fact is, we absolutely need more power in the world at large and in the daily context of our lives, not less.

And that’s not going to come to us when we are told that the realities of the things we face–pay gaps, the motherhood tax, harassment, assault, violence, dismissal, diet culture, body shame, objectification, legislation made against and about our bodies, repeated interpersonal abuse and marginalization–aren’t serious, problematic or important enough for the men who claim to be united in recovery with us (while, might I add, segregating themselves OFTEN) to take seriously.

I’m a member of a recovery fellowship that isn’t AA, but since AA laid that foundation, I’m addressing it directly, I guess. Any if not all of my closest friends are members of AA. Some of them may cheer me on for saying this, and some might not. That’s okay. However, if anonymous recovery groups, and recovery as a whole, isn’t the same boys club that it says it “used” to be, I’m going to need some of the recovering men I see, know, and love, to start proving that. In fact, I demand it, because (gasp!) I take myself seriously. Out of nothing more than self-respect.

 

So, I joined a gym: Week 1

During and after college, I used to be an avid attendee at my local Planet Fitness. Then exercise bulimia got in the way.

I would often go to the gym twice a day, especially after bingeing on dining hall food to the point where I would make myself sick. Exercise became a punishment, a compensation, a labor.

I took this behavior home with me after graduating from college, too, even when I started to recognize my eating disorder for what it really was–a disorder. I was obsessed with my body and food and unwilling to compromise with myself. I slowly began to resent the gym and movement pretty much altogether, and was restricting enough so that the gym wasn’t necessary for compensation anymore. This led me down a dangerous path.

I was also a track and XC kid from 7th to 10th grade, when my knees wouldn’t let me run distance anymore and I had to give up the sport. I used this, as you can probably guess, to my full advantage when creating my elaborate eating schemes and compensation behaviors. I ran and ran and calculated each mile ran or walked down to the 1/10th of a mile. I did crazy sprint drills on the bleachers at my high school (when I was home for the summer) and strength exercises like the football players do in movies.

 

Until one day just before my college graduation, after a really memorable experience of feeling so disgusted with myself on an elliptical that I couldn’t keep going after fifteen minutes, I swore off exercise machines for life.

What I didn’t realize then was that it wasn’t the gym’s fault that I had this attitude; it was my intention and (over)use of the gym itself that created an association with disorder, misery and self-consciousness in my own head.

Now, I was born with a displacement in my hips; one is a few degrees higher than the other, and it makes my right knee joint work harder to reach the ground (knee pain), AND, to top that off, I have flat feet.

So basically, from the waist down, I’m pretty prone to a lot of clicking and pain in my hip joints. I feel like one of the Golden Girls and I’m only 25 (if I were a GG I’d absolutely be Dorothy btw).

Recently, I re-joined a gym for the first time in about three years. I’m back at the same Planet Fitness I used to belong to in college and would visit frequently on my breaks from school and weekends home. Except I signed up with a new goal in mind–health and strength first.

My hip pain motivated me to go get stronger, and I’ve since been doing that. Often times, fat folks get diagnosed as fat when they’re in pain–and it’s not always incorrect, because there are certain joints in our bodies that bear weight (load-bearing joints); and to stress them out creates mobility compromises for some folks. But for me, my knees have always been jacked up, fat or not–hips too.

But just as often as fat people get told to lose weight to improve their health, thin people don’t. Thin people with the same joint problems I likely have will be told to stretch more, strengthen and work out more–but I guess when it comes to fat folks, it is assumed that we can’t, won’t, or aren’t already doing those things for our health or to maintain strength in the areas that cause us pain.

So I went to the gym telling myself “I’m going to make my left hip pain less frequent and severe,” and that’s just what I did.

So far, I’ve been there twice since signing up, and I did two weight circuits, a stretching sesh, and some specific leg training stuff like lunges. I even made time for the stair climbing machine of death that I used to be terrified of because I fell off once. I went on for only five minutes because it was like reaaaaaaaallllly hard, but I took what I could and didn’t do it past my threshold of enjoyment. That’s what exercise is all about, I’m slowly learning–our intention and the ways we plan to connect with and interact with our bodies while we move them.

To extend this bada** gympowerment thing even further, I told my mom not to comment on my appearance or physical activity and especially not to connect it to weight loss since that’s not what I’m there for–and so far, those boundaries have been maintained which is so tremendously huge for me. There is nothing better than to be seen and heard and respected all while getting to improve my health in a way that has nothing to do with weight loss, and to receive the recognition that there is worth–and health–beyond my weight.

Stay tuned for more updates from the gym!

‘Callout culture’ isn’t necessarily ‘toxic,’ it just asks us to be uncomfortable

Have you ever messed up?

Let’s begin with a story. A few months ago, I was part of a HAES group on Facebook that centered fat bodies. I was SUPER excited about my new yoga wheel, which would make doing a bunch of different poses more accessible to me and my size 18-20 self.

I posted a picture of me in shoulder stand on my wheel with the caption of “my fat a** doing yoga” and honestly, I realize it was–not my finest moment as an ally.

There was a mixture of messages; people equally glad for me to be able to do yoga accessibly, something that is not often seen because yoga has been co-opted by thin white bodies that make an effort to push out and not represent fat folks.

But more quickly and more frequently, I got messages and comments from people larger than me, giving me critical feedback about why yoga wheels aren’t always accessible for people who live with butts even bigger than mine; or why seeing the word “fat a**” (which I now fully recognize as a slur that sometimes reminds people of being bullied) triggered them. It wasn’t necessarily mine to reclaim from the beginning. And in my post, and in all my excitement, I managed to center myself while marginalizing other folks.

 

Your missteps and mistakes aren’t about you

No one was saying my body was not or is not important–but I failed to note that my body, despite its not-thinness, queerness, and not fully-ableness, is the most represented one in the “body positive” and even in the fat positive community. I failed to see that even if and when you are a fat person, you can still benefit from thin privilege without being thin. You can still be affirmed as a “good fat” by the society we live in; the very same one that preaches that thin is healthy, thin is virtuous and good, thin is best. Because smaller fat people are closer to being thin than people who are, say, “infinifat”; and they are given more social currency because they “fit.” And I don’t mean to say “they,” like I’m not one of them. I am.

Neglecting to put a TW or a CW (trigger or content warning) stirred up a lot of feelings for a lot of people–put me in contact with the moderators–and left me feeling defensive. I did not want to have to mark and label my own body as “triggering”, especially after fighting with it for almost two decades through binge eating, restricting, dieting and exercise abuse. 

I fought and fought and fought with people for my own worth and validity–had over 400 comments directed at me, my message, and some even at my body. These were hurtful and painful and did a really, REALLY huge number on my mental health for a few weeks. I had to grapple with the fact that I had hurt people, no matter how unintentionally, and not try to level the playing field with hurting them again even if they were hurting me back.

Comments like “someone the size of one of my legs pretending they have the same experiences as me is laughable” — objectifying me and sticking into my head over and over again, awakening my eating disorder for the first time in what would have been months.

Then came the supporters, who I didn’t ask for–less nuanced in the social justice aspect of fat politics–who would post and then dip out of the group in ‘solidarity’ with me; and I began to feel like these people were giving me a representation that wasn’t true to who I am. They were supportive, and well-meaning; but misguided in some areas of this language and this work. This is where it got even more stressful.

The “all lives matter” rhetoric coming from those who share equal marginalization with me as a 2X/3X sized person was really disappointing–I didn’t and do not stand by it and it was uncomfortable that it even went to that space.

I had to shut it off for a while after so many conversations with the moderators about reparations, my errors, and my own feelings of being disrespected. I was SO uncomfortable and scared and wounded — and sitting in my own place of reference waiting for someone to patch me up and dust me off and tell me I was 100% right and demanding emotional labor from others — something I have learned better than to do, honestly.

It would have been so easy to frame this in the narrative that ‘callout culture is toxic,’ but that waives my accountability and my need to center and repair my relationships with those who experience a lot more difficulty in their life from a psychosocial space than I do.

I am a tremendous believer in the idea that impact ALWAYS outweighs the intention of our actions. We can mean well, but if we harm people, we are ultimately responsible for that. I drafted an accountability post a few weeks after this happened, in an effort to repair the emotional viscerality of the situation, but my mental health and consulting with the admins kept me from posting it to the group.

 

This doesn’t necessarily accurately represent ALL bodies, but it is helpful in understanding where to put yourself–especially when understanding that there are bodies that experience varying degrees of size discrimination in accessibility, fashion, social situations, etc.

“Small fat” privilege definitely makes up a lot of the voiced experience in many of the movements that body positive or body neutral people have access to, and this itself is not ideal. I want to do my best to be a better ally and simultaneously voice my experiences as an “in-between fat” person (because the current “measure” doesn’t really describe me well), and hopefully somewhere along the way, others can identify with holding space for their in-betweenness–at the same time, I want to stand out of the way so that bodies that don’t look like mine can speak, move and do the work that they need to do to free themselves without sizeism, healthism, or fatphobia. Centering less normative voices is an action–one of many–that can counter the “white and slim thick is normal, nothing else” that goes on on the internet. Nobody is free until we all are. Education on how to do this is not owed to me, but I am absolutely willing and ready and eager to be told where to position myself in this process.

The amount of gratitude there is to express for dialogue; past, present, and future, is boundless. My deepest apologies for harm done and for all that I have neglected to do in this learning process.

That being said…

One thing that I refuse to do is to drown out the voices that hold me accountable with toxic positivity. In the past, I’ve justified and made excuses, but toxic positivity is something that seems to be replacing ‘callout culture’ and it isn’t for the better. I see this mostly among able-bodied, small fat, white, cis/heteronormative writers and influencers–and it’s far more toxic than ‘callout culture’ itself.

Toxic positivity is a term that comes from the mental health realm, in addressing stigma associated with mental illness. It looks like those well-meaning messages and words of good intention that come from people who don’t share your experience or have no idea what they’re talking about. They offer suggestions like “have you tried going outside”, tell you about how kale or pilates saved them from depression or start a lot of sentences with “should.” Know the type? The friends and family who are just trying to make you feel better about being anxious or depressed, but are really just adding to the stigma, incompetence, self-doubt, frustration or stress you feel if you experience symptoms of a mental illness.

Toxic Positivity in Accountability Culture is Similar

What I mean by “toxic positivity” when it comes to responding to your audience is responding to accurate, valid or critical thought and criticism/feedback with “you’re being negative,” or “positive vibes only!” and other such language. What this does is ultimately silence and dismiss the person who might be trying to help us learn and grow as an influencer and an ally. Toxic positivity demands only affirming or validating responses from those in its circle, and sometimes literally blocks out the rest and dismisses them as “haters.”

But our ‘haters’ can often teach us about what we need to do to be better, and they don’t owe it to us to be kind or gentle about it–especially if our actions are harmful to them. You might come out of a mistake a little (ego) bruised. But. you grow through what you go through. 

 

 

Being called out, confronted, or asked to pass the mic is uncomfortable and immediately launches people into the defensive–I know that from my own experiences of screwing up, and not just in the time I mentioned; it has often been uncomfortable for me. At the same time, it has also shaped me. This goes for my interactions about race (because I have a blind spot as a white person), gender identity (because I have a blind spot as a cis person), and disability (because I have a blind spot as an able-bodied person. It’s no one’s job to hold my hand and educate me, but it is my job once I have been told how a certain view, voice or amount of space I am taking up on other peoples’ behalf or at their expense is harmful to them–to educate myself and not demand anything from anybody until I know how to act right.

I have no reason to apologize for my body, but I do have to apologize and make right on it if I force people to hear what I think, see what triggers them, or listen to words that are harmful to them without their consent. I don’t just get to tell people to “stop following me” if something I do or say triggers them–because it’s my responsibility as a justice-oriented person, activist and feminist not to perpetuate the same messages that do harm to marginalized people whether they follow me or not. 

It is, first and foremost, a privilege to be able to say any of the above toxic positivity responses–because it means likely not having had to think about the person who’s experience one is responding to. That is the essence of privilege–not having to think about it. And calling folks out isn’t necessarily toxic–individuals who call out can become toxic when they start attacking others’ humanity and forgetting that there’s a person on the other end of the listening session, but the act of calling someone out for being less than mindful is, imo, perfectly acceptable in a world or in a learning community that prioritizes justice and representation. The only thing that will make that justice restorative is time, and a whole lot of listening. And that’s what these ‘conversations’ (which can sometimes look and sound and feel confrontational or tense) should look like–listening sessions, where the privileged listen and the marginalized speak about harm done and reparations to be made.

 

 

 

Demi Lovato’s Invisible Illness

So I know I just wrote a really important post like…four days ago. But churning out stuff on this blog has become my default coping mechanism lately.

I have seen and taken in a lot of information today. This past weekend, I watched a documentary on the life of Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, who died of a heroin-induced heart attack at age 27. 

This morning, I was listening to his posthumously released spoken-word album An American Prayer, to the track “Curses, Invocations” — he ends the poem with the verse, “I will always be a word man…it’s better than a bird man.”

Words are healers for so many of us.

But I digress. This is all somewhat connected, I promise. I was walking through NYC this morning and afternoon, listening to people on the train, finding myself in resentments toward people I didn’t know, and frustrated at how rude people can be, especially on mass transit. Sweating, trying to get to an interview on time, and noticing people struggling and thinking about all the assumptions we make about others dawned on me a lot as I walked through Manhattan trying to find where I needed to be.

When I got home, my brother called me and told me to Google Demi Lovato’s name, and that she had been hospitalized for a heroin overdose just hours ago.

Like I said, I know it’s only hours-old news, and I was already in your feeds just days ago. But writing about this, news that shook me really hard, is the way I’m going to process it all right now. Bare with me, please. 

The first thing I did when I read the article about Demi’s overdose was text my friend Lexie to ask if she’d heard. A conversation ensued.

A while ago, we’d both shared our frustrations over a Twitter storm she was involved in about pulling a ‘prank’ on her bodyguard that involved being touched nonconsensually. 

I pretty much at that moment decided that Demi, in my eyes, was cancelled. I was really upset that a person who was such a fundamental part of my recovery would do something like that and shrug it off so thoughtlessly.

I didn’t take the time to think about the invisible struggles that people are often going through when they lack self-awareness the most. I judged a person who, in all honesty, I didn’t know and couldn’t have known was making errs in judgment like she did, probably because of shame.

And worse, I wanted her to feel shame because I’d like to think, that as someone who is deeply invested in justice and love and compassion, that anyone I chose as a role model would do better. But I realize as I am shaken by what is happening in her life, that she is human. A human who is sick and suffering, just like so many of us.

Most people know somewhat about Demi’s eating disorder relapse last year after breaking up with Wilmer Valderrama, and the recent release of her song “Sober”, in which she bravely admits to relapsing in the area of substance abuse, had a lot of people in her corner encouraging her to find recovery again.

Even in the recording of this song, it sounds nothing like Demi’s voice. I gave it a first listen today and the first thing I thought to myself was, she sounds so scared, so ashamed, and so broken. 

During this conversation with my friend, a fellow person in recovery from ED and other mental health issues, we both shared the possibility that maybe Demi hasn’t been truly okay for a long time. 

And that’s more than okay.

I don’t know Demi Lovato personally, but I would be kidding myself if I failed to admit that she has been an integral part of my recovery and my own resilience. Her strangely appropriative relationship with the LGBTQ+ community hasn’t always sat well with me, but she has also done something that a lot of people can’t or won’t–shown up for herself and for millions of others in the face of the darkest struggles a person can go through.

Demi Lovato embodies vulnerability and courage.

She has successfully been the representative of “its okay not to be okay” for a really long time. Even after her relapse was reported last year, that was the message that I think we all got–that it’s okay to falter and keep working on ourselves. There is so much power in being honest, but it’s imperative to always be following up on that with the people who need it. Because these attitudes and behaviors aren’t always visible to the entire world at all hours of the day. 

Some of us may not think the person doing best needs check-ups; but I can assure you, connection is the very thing that keeps recovery alive. 

Like Demi herself has said in the past: “Recovery doesn’t get a day off.”

None of us, despite whether we are one of the 65 million people who follow her on Twitter, knows Demi’s life day in and out. Since she has shown up as the face of recovery for this generation–a person who has seemingly overcome self harm, self hate, drug abuse, childhood trauma, bipolar disorder, alcoholism and an eating disorder–so many people have looked to her for inspiration and found it; myself included.

 

 

I remember seeing her at IZOD Center in 2014 and sobbing uncontrollably as she sat at the piano and sang “Warrior”. I cry every time I do a cover of the song myself, because so much of it is my truth. 

I, too, have had to recover from depression, crippling anxiety, abuse, codependency and an eating disorder simultaneously. I know that it often doesn’t happen all at once, and that the parts of your behaviors that aren’t “as severe” can seem like an okay thing to cling to because that’s the trade off your brain makes.

Once you are in recovery from one thing, your brain tries to sort the rest out, prioritizing your vices by which one will kill you last until they’re all no longer useful.

I liken it to playing something I call “symptomatic wack-a-mole,” because it can seem like just as you’ve got one symptom of your mental illness cared for and patched up, another one rears its ugly head.

And it’s not always as easy as “I’ve got this.” In fact, most people who can confidently say “I’ve got this” all by themselves, don’t really “got this.” Macklemore is a really good example–and one of my favorite recovery advocates to produce raw, unfiltered art on the realness of recovery.

 

At that concert four years ago, I had no way of knowing whether or not, at that exact moment, Demi was okay. Even Nick Jonas, who performed right beside her, has told media sources that sometimes he glances at her wrists when they see each other just to make sure she’s “okay.” Even then, that’s only a snapshot, a relative piece of wellbeing that makes up a recovering person’s ‘okay.’ Just like most of my family or friends and especially not strangers on the internet or even sitting around me at the concert that night had no way of knowing whether or not I was truly okay.

The best way to find out if someone is okay is to ask them. When you’re finished asking, listen. 

When you are held up and expected to represent an entire community of struggling, sometimes even broken people, self-care can be so hard. And the shame of falling from that image is even more tough to cope with. And when people depend on your success, your voice, and your triumphs to make a living, the burden only gets larger. And pretending, inauthenticity, and half-truthful recovery can only propel a person so far until those old vices start to get in line and fight for first. 

 

The one thing I was really floored by is that Demi is now (at least according to the reports) using opioids/heroin. A lot of people believe that heroin use is a dark, scary, last resort, unheard of ‘point of no return’ type of drug problem. But it’s way more common than we try to convince ourselves it is. I live on a literal island where the opioid epidemic is at its worst in our entire country. And it is grueling and scary and heartbreaking all the time.

As someone who shares a lot of struggles with Demi Lovato, I said to myself when I read this that she probably feels so powerless right now. Lexie pointed out that she felt that Demi still, to this day, despite recovery, probably feels this unstoppable desire to be perfect.

Being given the assignment of poster child for mental wellbeing is emotionally exhausting a lot of the time, and sometimes–I know from experience–this work can be counterproductive to our wellness in a lot of ways. Perfection was and likely still is the first thing I was addicted to. So many of us with eating disorders live this truth to its fullest extent.

 

I hope that with this instance of relapse, despite how public it is becoming, we can have conversations with each other about the invisibility of illnesses like addiction and mental health (which undoubtedly go hand in hand). Awareness is great, but often not enough. We must move from awareness into action.

We cannot treat brokenness, addiction, or shame without compassion and vulnerability. I have seen some really, really awful things in the comments of the articles I’ve surveyed about Demi’s overdose in the past few hours (Looking at you, TMZ). 

This may be an opportunity for Demi to get real and even more raw with her art. Thus far, her sobriety has been a public event, so much a part of her label-created image as an ex-Disney starlet. Her powerlessness as a celebrity, and as a celebrity in recovery, is so much bigger than herself, and the stakes are high. I think the pedestal on which she has been placed is holding her back more than anything, and I hope that she can find peace and freedom on her own terms as soon as possible.

Until then, it’s on us to let her heal, check in with ourselves and our loved ones as we cope with the realities of things like addiction and disease of the mind. Demi Lovato’s words, her image, her humility and her courage have all taught me first and foremost that no matter what we believe in, we must first believe in our own worthiness. 

Get better soon, Demi. Cheering for you. xoxox

-inbetweenqueen ❤

My Big Fat Insatiable Rant

 

Today in our culture is a fatphobic mess: I’m sure you’ve seen the trash that is Insatiable all over the internet today.

For those of you who are new to the fatphobic, absolutely disrespectful and diet-culture laden series trailer premiere, welcome.

I’m not going to post the trailer itself here for people to view. You can look it up on your own if you want to see the word “fat” weaponized back into its pejorative form, stereotypes about binge eating perpetuated, and bullying toward a fat person (who isn’t actually a fat person) normalized and used as a feature plot for “revenge.” 

Yep, it’s everything terrible you thought it would and could be.

Basically the main character, Patty (chosen because it rhymes with “fatty”…how original)…who is actually just Debby Ryan in a fat suit (which I don’t even have to tell you is insulting), is being bullied for her weight constantly. At one point in the trailer, she is assaulted via being punched in the face, causing her to have to have her jaw wired shut for an entire summer. During this time, she loses a bunch of weight (apparently) and becomes thin and “hot”, (two words not synonymous by default) and uses her new appearance to get revenge on the people who hurt her emotionally and physically throughout her teenage years.

I’m not going to use the rest of this post to take my anger out on Debby Ryan (I already did that on twitter for most of today), especially after she defended her role in the show for the purpose of “spreading awareness about binge eating disorder” … which we all know is a bunch of absolute BS considering that the show’s literal premise is that now that Patty is thin after restricting for a full two months, she has infinite possibilities to be “a brain, an athlete, or a princess” (none of which her fat was stopping her from doing in the first place).

I found the entire show’s poor excuse for a plot line even less disturbing than the advertisements for it, laden with stereotypes about fat people, loaded fatphobic language, and outright justification for the show’s existence.

Ryan Seacrest even had the audacity to use the term “binge-watch” to encourage people to view a show that does nothing but validate the mistreatment of fat people until they are thinner. I guess binge watching is more okay than binge eating because you don’t get *gasp* fat from watching too many terribly written TV shows. Maybe the thin privilege reeking from this series will enter my life by osmosis!

It makes it seem a lot like the whole “inside every fat girl there’s a thin girl dying to come out” trope pushed on us to be not just a point worth making, but one that fat girls should be expected to hear and take seriously. Not just that–it propagates the myth that once we find ourselves under all that fat, we will somehow be more deserving of respect than we were before. 

Let’s address some realities of binge eating disorder, from someone who has more than 10 years experience with the behaviors that come with it–and then some.

Debby Ryan did get one thing right when she was trying to justify her role in this atrocious Netflix Original. Binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder on the spectrum. This is according to both NEDA, BEDA, and even the DSM. But despite this, BED wasn’t even recognized as a disorder until 2013–so for a long time, people with BED have gone largely misrepresented or underrepresented altogether. And it’s not okay.

The creator of the show, Lauren Gussis, even revealed her own struggle with an eating disorder in adolescence. But anyone who has survived an ED, who lives in a fat body (which she doesn’t), should know that content like this is irresponsible and dangerous. 

It’s also worth noting that #insatiable is netflix’s second offense on the ED population. This is “To The Bone” for fat people. Fat voices, scream and make a mess about this. Thin people in recovery, stand by in solidarity as best as you’re able #NotYourBefore #EatingDisorders

— theinbetweenqueen (@inbetweenqueen_) July 20, 2018

People who have had my disorder haven’t been represented because BED is something that people think can be fixed by sheer willpower alone. I tried to mitigate this behavior through exercise bulimia from age 12 forward. I would binge and then exercise excessively to “get rid of it”, and lived in a “normal sized” body for most of my life.

Binge eating disorder stole my happiness, my ability to enjoy exercise for literally twelve years, some/a lot of my friendships, my self-worth, my ability to form romantic relationships that were healthy, my intimacy, my self-assuredness, my self-respect, and my perception of beautiful. I didn’t have trouble getting into relationships because of my body, I had trouble with healthy relationships because of how I saw my body. It was a personal hell that I would do anything to never have to live through again. I’m 24 today, and I’ve literally been in and out of binge/emotional eating/purge/restrict/severe dysmorphic cycles since before I was ten years old.

I was able to fly under the radar despite my behaviors, hours a day working out in my basement or in a gym or running, and avoid appearing “sick enough” to need treatment. My behavior was normalized. Binge-exercise cycles are normalized as “diet and exercise” or “wellness” in our entire social structure. Strangely enough, it wasn’t until my recovery, when I gained weight, that concerns were expressed about my “health”.

At 17, my assessment for an eating disorder went as follows: “Stand up, take off your jacket” ([male] doctor glanced at my body), said “Okay, if I prescribe you __________ it should make you lose weight or stop eating as much.”

I was given medicine. Not behavior intervention, not nutrition referrals, which are standard for ED treatment.

I continued to binge despite this, for all four years of college thereafter. My senior year when I came home, I tried OA, and let me tell you how much it didn’t work. I spent four months restricting, made myself 26 pounds smaller, and gained all the weight back plus about 50% more, just like diet results statistics predicted I would. I was less emotionally healthy than I had been when I started. OA is a narrative that has been present in representation of fat characters like Mike & Molly, a show that lasted six seasons starring Melissa McCarthy.

I like to think it’s not on anymore because people are really tired of seeing fat people only take up space in weight loss narratives. These roles literally shrink us down to nothing on so many levels, and hold up the myths about binge eating disorder as a widely diagnosed but incredibly misunderstood disease.

This show perpetuates everything about fat people (who don’t always have binge eating disorder, by the way) that isn’t always the truth. We are ALL not worthless, lazy, disgusting, self-hating eating machines. We are not all sitting at home “stuffing our holes” (a REAL classy line from the Insatiable trailer itself) while thin people are out having intimate lives that we somehow, as directly implied by Debby Ryan’s voiceover, don’t deserve because of our body size.

If we are here to tie BED and fatness, fat shaming, and fat hate and all that comes with that together, let me tell you: they need better excuses, because not all people with BED are fat. And not all fat people have BED. For like, 8 years of my disorder, I wasn’t.

And to address the title directly,  I was not insatiable; because it was never about the food.

Hey @DebbyRyan I had binge eating disorder for upwards of 14 years and let me tell you, being punched in the face and having my jaw wired shut wasn’t how I recovered. Don’t you DARE justify fatphobic content you’re complicit in to equate your work to my history. #insatiable

— theinbetweenqueen (@inbetweenqueen_) July 20, 2018

In fact, this word is loaded with really negative emotions for me specifically.

When I was seven years old, my parents were divorcing and I was just NOT coping well (understandably). My life was all over the place, and being in second grade and having both parents be first-responders in 9/11 who were gone a lot was already really hard. Emotional eating became a big part of my life, and I wasn’t really super conscious of that because at seven years old, self-awareness only runs so deep, you know?

Until an after school program teacher said, to my seven year old face as I asked for more Saltines for snack:

“It’s like your hobby is eating. You never stop!”

This is literally, the defining characteristic of insatiable.

I was not insatiable, however. I ate when I wasn’t hungry more times than I could ever account for for like, almost fifteen more years after those words were said to me. I ate past the point of fullness just so I could become less and less myself. Because I didn’t like myself, and the society in which we live helped make that concrete. Enough was something I never knew existed, because I never felt like enough.

I ate past my full signals more times than I can ever account for. I ate more calories to get away from myself and burned them hours later for the same reason. 

I exercised for more hours than I will ever be able to get back, purely out of self-hate.

I was not insatiable. I was destroying my body from within, and nobody thought to stop me because we live in a world where the very act of self-mutilation by restriction is ACCEPTABLE. 

I have never known what “enough” was, until I found recovery. And guess what? I’m bigger than I’ve ever been, but I’m also happier than I’ve ever been, no matter what anyone has to say about it.

This show is about teaching thin people how to hate fat people, including the fat girl/former fat girl herself. It’s more fuel for the fires of thinspiration, thin privilege, weight stigma, and size discrimination all at once. I will not be erased or silenced by sizeism, and I won’t let anyone else be, either. And trust me…the pushback that this show is receiving is giving me a lot of hope, despite being sooooooo tired of having to tell people why it’s okay for girls/guys/folk like me to exist as we are. 

Looks like I’ll be watching Dietland in a puddle of my own happy/sad mad cleanse tears this weekend.

Big Bodies are NOT a Big Problem

…But thin privilege is.

Why are we talking about this? 

I was recently at an eating disorder support group where I expressed ‘fat’ as a term that resonates as part of my identity. It has been paramount to my recovery in recent months, especially with all the noticeable changes/stretching my body has done since last summer.

I was told that my use of the word ‘fat’ (even though I was using it in a manner that is strictly self-referencing, not as a slur or to denigrate anyone) is “triggering, negative or may be harmful.” 

“Fat” has the connotation of being morally equivalent to bad, undisciplined, lazy, out of control, and so many other harmful narratives that I have experienced in my own lifetime. It is a catch-22 of “I’m not fat yet, but I could be, and that would be terrible” (for thin-bodied people) and “I’m already fat, so therefore I’m worthless, undeserving, lesser than”. It has always been as if fat was the worst thing that could or would ever happen to me. 

Fatness is viewed as nothing to aspire to, celebrate, or be okay with, much less reclaim. It is not thought possible that people in larger bodies could have eating disorders, and if we do, it’s because we have absolutely no willpower.

These notions remind me of one of my favorite poems, “When the Fat Girl Gets Skinny” by Blythe Baird. She says:

“When you have an eating disorder and you are thin to begin with, you go to the hospital. When you have an eating disorder and you are not thin to begin with, you are a success story.” 

 

How else would fat people suddenly “look great” and lose a whole bunch of weight? There is no magic to the behind-the-scenes obsessive weighing, restriction, working out to the point of injury or bodily stress and exhaustion. When people lose weight rapidly, it’s probably because they’re sick. Eating disorders are a valid, but often overlooked, form of ‘sick.’

 

Fat people are often associated/stereotyped with binge eating disorder, when the truth is that many fat people have used dietary restriction (myself included) as an eating disordered behavior. There is also evidence that dietary restriction is actually directly correlated to fatness, or higher set-point weight. In other words: the more you “diet”, the larger your body will be over time; because you are increasing your body’s threshold for fat preservation by frequently forcing it into deprivation/survival mode. 

The reality of the matter is that when someone in a thin body is discovered to be eating disordered, treatment is the first thought of those around them. When someone in a larger body is noticeably engaging in ED behaviors, the first thought is “Just lose some weight!”

Actual “suggestions” from people who noticed me bingeing, but didn’t acknowledge it was bingeing/that there might be an issue to further explore than just my “lack of discipline”:

• “Take human bites!”
• “Haven’t you had enough?”
• “Save some for everyone else.”
• Do you want to go to _(insert exercise plan the speaker claims to swear by)_ with me?”
• “If you want to lose weight, you need to portion control.” (I did not want to lose weight, nor did I indicate that I did)

Fat people get unsolicited advice in the interest of their “health” all the time; but no one ever stops to think about the effect that this has on their mental health. It takes away from the things that fat people can and are doing like getting up every day and taking care of themselves, going to school, finding cures for really crazy diseases, teaching someone else’s children, or volunteering to help bring food security to low-income families. We are not seen for what we are, for who we are, all because physically, we are “kind of hard to miss.” So why are our other attributes so easy to dismiss?

 

The answer is simple: there is a blatant prejudice that exists against larger bodied people thanks to the media, the medical industry, the diet industry (which, by the way, grosses $60B annually). We are not given a solution other than an unending list of “If you would just”s. 

We are instructed to aspire to thinness or “normal” weight, and used as an example of what not to become. We are invisible because the society at large is afraid that if people see us, they will think that (gasp!) you can be happy while you are also not thin. Thin people fear us because they desperately do not want to look like we do.

 

 

But wouldn’t that be glorifying obesity? Ah. No. I am not walking around telling everyone they NEED to be fat, they need to live in a larger body, that they MUST subject themselves to the everyday size discrimination and ridicule and invalidation that fat folks experience!

If anything, our society is doing the opposite; going to any lengths to glorify thinness–thin people are visible everywhere, and “fight the fat” ads troll local strip malls with exercise studios where I live in the suburbs. There’s a very strategic, discriminatory reason that there are advertisements for Weight Watchers, South Beach, YourWeigh, Nutrisystem and a gazillion other corporate diet garbage being projected into our consciousness. This is not the same as fat people asking for representation of their reality; the presence of fat people doesn’t immediately suggest that they are “pushing their lifestyle on the world.” They are simply asking to be seen and heard without being asked to change anything about themselves. Diet culture doesn’t ask–it demands–that we change everything about ourselves. I live in a society that tells big girls that the only way to exist is to be small–and eternally is reminding us that we aren’t doing it right.

There is no natural way for a fat person to keep up with “normal” weight standards without dietary restriction, invasive/ineffective surgery, or laxative abuse; shouldn’t that tell us that maybe the answer is to altogether stop trying to manipulate our weight? 

 

 

To tell someone who lives in, identified with, and accepts their larger body in an eating disordered community that they cannot refer to themselves as fat takes away their identity, cuts off access to their own reality and renders it a ‘problem.’ It is nearly as harmful as “You’re not fat, you’re beautiful!”…as if they cannot be both all at once. Fat is not a bad word, it is not a blemish or a curse. It is just as much a part of me as being white, female, queer, or a teacher or a graduate student.

But to dismiss it altogether privileges recovery of thin-bodied people in a way that says they deserve compassion while suggesting that fat people aren’t “really” eating disordered. It keeps the word “fat” in negative terms, further other-ing fat people in the eating disordered community specifically. Taking other peoples’ fatness away from them minimizes their experiences, and perpetuates the fear mongering around a larger state of existence that our society can no longer afford. 

It also doesn’t take into account that maybe a person’s large body and acceptance of the fact of their body can be a way of liberating themselves from their eating disorder–their decision to not engage in behaviors like obsessive weighing, portion measurements down to the gram–and just acknowledge that their weight will fluctuate the way it needs to based on stress levels, water intake, hormone reactions, and other body chemistry related factors. 

I took back the word fat as a self-referencing term because as was said by Audre Lorde: “Nothing which I know about myself can be used against me to diminish me.” For a lot of my life, in school and at home in my basement where I used to work out for hours, in the pages of the journals I used to tally up the amount of calories I burned just standing, I was preoccupied with never letting fat “happen” to me. Even when it was hurled at me in the hallways of my middle school or brought to my attention by a teacher, I internalized my otherness to mean something dysfunctional about me.

Now, it is a reality that I have come face to face with and not only just accepted but made complete and total peace with. It makes getting through brain-induced dysmorphia days a lot easier. It makes freedom a lot easier. Freedom from the venom of the word “fat” has been my entry into freedom from fear; and I’m never going to stop saying it. 

 

 

A lot of folks are triggered by the word ‘fat’ for a lot of different reasons. Maybe it was used to invoke violence on their psyche on the playground growing up. Maybe it was a value that permeated the walls of their household before, after and during meals. Maybe it’s the thing that people aspire never to become.

And I encourage those who resonate with the latter to understand that this fear of fat is rooted in nothing more than fat phobia. Maybe you didn’t intend for that to happen. You probably didn’t. Society sucks, like I’ve already mentioned–it sucks for thin people and fat people and people of color and trans people and LGBTQ+ people and disabled people and indigenous people and all marginalized people. But if ‘fat’ invokes fear in you, it’s time to fight back against the current that perpetuates this myth that fat means something bad.

Because if fat phobia continues to exist in spaces where people are trying to heal, recovery becomes less accessible to all of us. 

---

 

I’m walking in this year’s NEDA Walk on Long Island! Please donate! Any little bit helps in the fight for eating disorder recovery. Love & Light ❤

 

The good, the bad, the beautiful

What. A. Week.

Good things, and bad things and weird things and so many things!!!!! (warning: this post is probably erratic as heck but it’s representative of my emotions so buckle up, babes!)

I hit a depression this past week and a half that kept me in a really uncertain head space. Despite my anxiety, I’ve been working really hard at body love. I feel almost like I HULK smashed!!!!! my way out of an episode. Or maybe I’m swinging back into just being really excited or maybe I’m just happy to be un-sad. Emotion is weird and human. I am weird and human (most of the time).

This weekend was the delivery back into a lot of positive behaviors, and a full week without any negative or disordered ones! It still feels really weird to say that I have a week back from consistent, persistent bingeing–but I’ve learned that it’s less about the day count and more about making the days count. 

A few months ago, I bought myself a single VIP ticket to see/meet & greet with Mary Lambert, the queen of everything/my favorite human of all time/the most beautiful fat queer babe to ever enter our plane of existence.

I was really apprehensive about going because I wasn’t sure what the food/drink situation was going to be, I was going completely alone, would have to ride the train to Manhattan alone, take the subway alone. I knew I would make friends at the show, because that’s just how Mary Lambert shows are–we cry together, we queer together, we sing together, we check each other’s lipstick that was drawn on in the reflection of a produce truck together. 

When I walked up to Mary and met her for the third time since this fandom began, I didn’t know what to say (as usual). I showed her my “Body Love” tattoo that she signed for me three years ago, and how it’s been stretched over and out and modified to include her autograph — an addition I made in 2015 after the last show I met her at.

I let her know just how much that specific poem changed my life, how much I needed it then when I lived in that body, and how much I didn’t even know I needed it now in my post-relapse, undeniably fat body. She let me talk at her, while saving her voice, I gave her a letter and a zine I made and we took pictures!!!!

The rest of the night was magic. Rachel McKibbens, one of my new favorite poets, read some pieces from her new book. I fell in love with Mal Blum, and I told them so via a really obvious Instagram post. I screamed internally at their codependency poem because I related SO HARD.

I laughed out loud. Seriously. Check them out. They are a babe (Everybody is a Babe Tour is such a fitting name for any tour Mal Blum and Mary Lambert are ever on, esp. together).

Of course I cried when Mary came on stage, and cried harder when she played “Body Love”, and when she shook her butt at me while I sat first row and she played “Secrets”. I learned about loving myself again. I learned about what my identity means to me, and what my body and my life and my health and wellness are worth. I learned that I am not done taking up space, but that I am done apologizing for it.

We have a hug picture, but both of us look awesome in this one and we look matchy so 

I also sat there in a room full of queer women and nonbinary people, fat and thin and in-between, and just felt so at home again. I have been restless in my identity for a while, viscerally, spiritually, intimately and personally. But my existence is radical and fluid and I’m so okay and safe and valid in spaces like this, so much so that I really believe that on Friday night I was brought back to life.

There was so much I needed about this concert, and I made it a point to be so present even though I was scared and alone and speed-ate a Moe’s burrito while walking three blocks to the venue off the subway.

 

And last night, I did two things that scare me–I hosted an event for International Suicide Survivor Day. I was the person who introduced all the speakers, listed statistics about mental health, and supported a space in which people could honor and memorialize lost loved ones and learn about how mental illness becomes fatal.

 

Me being a very official event host

We had so many intersectional experiences surrounding the issue of suicide come together to create a narrative with undertones of hope and resilience that I was so blessed to be a part of. THEN, as if I couldn’t be anymore out of my comfort zone, I sang! in! front! of! people! and! actually! sounded! amazing! 

After the event and all the crazy goodness that was my weekend, I topped it off with a catch-up diner trip with one of my best friends and favorite people in the entire world (like definitely as important but probably more important than Mary Lambert kind of favorite). My friend Kait showed up for me at this event, spoke her heart out, and got onion rings with me all on her one year anniversary in recovery. 

 

I love you soooooo stupid much

 

Being around women like Kait, who have struggled with disordered eating and so many more burdens of self-destruction in this life, is what anchors my soul. We shared a meal together and talked about treatment, struggle, body size perception, and our process.  She is my voice of reason, the person who holds up a huge mirror to all my experiences and just an overall unbelievably beautiful friend and person. I told her then and I’ll tell her now, right here, in this post–I am so proud of her and so beyond honored to call her my friend. 

We also incidentally spent today together, at a group I run, being the only two who showed up, and we made anxiety crafts while we talked more stuff out. It was something I didn’t know I needed. I also explored my fear foods today–a sugary drink, a really thick slice of pizza. And I didn’t freak out! I have been really hanging out in this fat body and paying attention to it. I let it experience hunger without deprivation, satisfaction without discomfort, and love without shame. 

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Not Knowing What to Say, But Saying it Anyhow

This week’s post:

• Having to write my relapse post
• Answering the question “What can I do?”
• Fear, resentment and acceptance 
• What now? 

 

CW: Food GIFS.*****

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Writing this post is like writing a breakup text, or something. It’s really hard.

What’s even harder is having to admit that this is something that’s been coming for about a month. I’ve made decisions out of denial, shame, fear, and anger–leaving very little room for prayer, acceptance, tolerance, gentleness, self-compassion and love. 

 

 

For the past month, I’ve been floating around in a sea of self-doubt, shame, uncertainty, unresolved trauma, and ultimately, fear. I’ve refused to be alone with myself, lost myself to so much service and self-sacrifice, and along the way, forgot to self-care and self-love. I worked too quickly, rushed my process, said yes to things I wasn’t ready to commit to. Believe it or not, there is such thing as being selfless to your own detriment. It’s a sort of pattern I have, and it always catches up with me.

In working through some really tough trauma experiences, I experimented with my own boundaries in a way that proved fatal to my own wellbeing. And as much as I want to resent the rest of the world for that, that decision began with me and ends with me. The real emotional blank spot came when I realized that I didn’t at all truly believe I deserved love; true, authentic and unconditional love–because I am  far from “normal”, because I am broken, but most of all, because I live in a fat body.

 

 

I didn’t realize the stigma that came with living in a fat body until I lived in one myself. This sounds so unbelievably ignorant, especially because I can account for a working understanding of other oppressions–sexism, homophobia, and mental health stigma to name a few. But fatness is something I have been taught to fear the most, because in the dynamic that I come from, fat is seen as the worst thing that can happen to a person. 

However, as I’ve come to define and understand privilege, it is essentially the idea of not having to think about existing as a marginalized person. There are micro aggressions I don’t have to think about with regard to my race, gender identity, or straight-passing; But the fear of becoming and of being a fat person is a fear that I have been taught to see as the biggest threat to my own existence. I think this is true for all of us; fatness is a thing that can happen to anyone; so as a collective society, we vehemently reject it and try to situate ourselves as far from it as possible. These types of attitudes call me to declare war on myself, and it creates a sense of lingering self-hatred I don’t know what to do with. The kind of attitude that leads to extended periods of body dysmorphia, and ultimately, to relapse. 

At present, I have a lot more clothes that don’t fit me than clothes that do (triggering), I live and work with the food and exercise police (really triggering).

 

Fat phobia is real and it is pervasive and it is unacceptable. Truthfully, when I was restricting (netting 700 calories per day) between ages 12-15, I was never, not even once, regarded as sick. But now that I am “fat,” I am viewed as someone who has simply just “stopped caring” about her appearance, stopped trying. In “existing while fat”, I am not entitled to an “eating disorder”; I am merely regarded by diet culture as lazy, insecure, unhealthy, and lacking self-esteem.

And in a sense, this outsider appraisal of my appearance with respect to my behavior is somewhat spot on.

I have stopped caring about diet culture, stopped caring what the scale says, stopped measuring, counting, obsessing, stopped prioritizing thinness over compassion. I have given up on spending 95% of my time trying to manipulate my own body to look like someone else’s. This is recovery, right? 

 

 

I’d like to say yes–because those are steps in the unlearning process that I have taken in full stride. For instance, I no longer exercise for exercise, but for movement. I no longer count calories and I eat what I want to when I want/need to. But as I have done so, I have changed my body shape; but having always been a “normal weight” even in my most disordered behavior patterns, I’ve never had to contend with the thin ideal from a body that opposes the thin ideal in every way imaginable. 

I’ve ditched the diet sh*t, but not the internalized fat phobic body shaming self-hatred that comes with existing in a society that values and privileges thinness above all body types. This, for me, has created more dysmorphia than I ever remember experiencing, even when I was restricting or bingeing the most. I still struggle with exercise aversion, eating in front of my family, hiding food, and saying no to food just because it’s there. This relapse has been one big emotional bottom, with all those behaviors occurring intermittently between.

 

 

In seventeen months in recovery up to this point, I didn’t fully unlearn or overcome the perfectionism that I used to protect myself from the world for such a long time. From behind these walls, I came to believe that everyone deserved love and credit and compassion–everyone except me. 

But now I’m trying really hard to learn to be gentler with myself, to take care of my basic needs and first things first. This is going to come with being more thorough and honest than I’ve been since these patterns presented themselves, since I deemed them acceptable. They are no longer acceptable, and are creating so much unmanageability in my life that I cannot see my own worth, cannot access balance. And I’ve been healing through life long enough to know that that’s not living. 

The one thing I can’t seem to straighten out is that when I make the admission of relapse and people ask me “What can I do?” “What can I do to support you?” I don’t have an answer for them straight away. I have so much love in my life right now that got harder to see when I was struggling. I just know now that I want to get unstuck, and learn different. I want to do better. And that begins with taking responsibility for myself because nobody else can. 

I just want to say thank you to all the people who have been there for me so far for this past week, for these past few months, and for all the support coming to me. I know I can do this, and that I will. I appreciate and love every single person who reads what I have to say, and lets me share my journey with the world. It’s all part of the process. 

Much love,

Cait

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Link for Loved ones:

“Slips, Lapses, and Relapses” (NEDA). https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/slips-lapses-and-relapses