13
Jul

The Body Image Project – “chunky monkey”

Topic / The Body Image Project

July 13.

Even though I haven’t starved myself in a very long time, I am an anorexic at heart.  I loved being thin.  I loved being skinny.  I loved, loved, loved the ridges of my abs, the distinction of my ribs, and the way my hip bones jutted out past my womb.  I loved the way my body felt at the tail end of a five day fast.  I loved the way reality got blurry and fuzzy, the empty, hollow feeling inside my body, the fist of hunger that pushed into my guts all the way through to my lower back, the soporific effect of calorie deficit and the lucid, crazy, more-real-than-real-life dreams it produced.

I know I’m probably not supposed to say any of that here.  I’m POSITIVE there are people that will think less of me, call me a freak, say “you need mental help,” and stop reading my words.

Doesn’t matter.  I have to own my truth, and this is it.

Right or wrong, good or bad, beautiful or horribly ugly, this is it.

This is ME.

Turns out, so this this.

20150713_133245

Hi.  My name is Erin.  I am a recoverING anorexic bulimic body dysmorphic.  I have three kids, stretch marks, a herniated belly button from three, full term pregnancies,

and fat.

My name is Erin, and I have fat.Read More

11
Jul

The Body Image Project – “without even a blemish”

Topic / The Body Image Project

July 11.

This is my mole.

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It is big.  It is flappy and brown and pronounced.

It is so big, the purple strap of my shirt just there gets caught on it.  My necklace gets caught on it.  My hair gets caught on it.

Some people think it’s gross.

Most people who see it (and are ballsy enough to speak up) ask me “have you considered getting that removed?”  The kids I know (and other people who lack the need for tact) tell me “WILL YOU PLEASE GET THAT THING CUT OFF.”  The Mr. asks me, “Has it started talking to you yet?”  My three year old nephew spied it, stopped speaking mid-sentence, paused for a moment, and said “I think I need to get that.”

He spent the next two minutes fingering my mole, our conversation abandoned.

“GET IT OFF.  It won’t come off.”Read More

11
Jul

The Body Image Project – “face forward”

Topic / The Body Image Project

July 10.

I can honestly say, of all the photos and body parts examined during The Body Image Project, this post makes me the most nervous.

I don’t want to write it.

I REALLY don’t want to take the picture.

I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in the past 15 years my face changed shape.

It is now completely, 100% NOT symmetrical.

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As a perfectionist, THIS DRIVES ME INSANE.

As a woman, this makes me feel absolutely unattractive.

As a used-to-be-victim of serious, severe acne, this reinforces the conviction “don’t ever let anyone see your face ever again, HIDE THAT SHIT.”

I wish I could express to you the level of anxiety I feel when I look at that picture.  We’ve worked through skin and lips in The Body Image Project, so I’m (kind of, more every day) okay with those aspects of my face, but still.

I don’t just feel anxious, I feel FEAR.

Legitimate, deep-seated, borderline panic.Read More

10
Jul

The Body Image Project – “bees knees”

Topic / The Body Image Project

July 9.

When I was a kid, people called me “Chicken Legs.”

I get it, now, why they did that.  I have grown a child in my own image, and her knees are just as knobby and bumpy and walnutty as mine were at the same age.

This is Norah, age 9.

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Cute roundy little walnuts.  :)

In my head, my knees still look like that.  Or at least, I feel like they’re supposed to.  In my head, no matter how warped and messed up it makes me, my knees are supposed to look the same as my nine year old daughter’s.  They are supposed to look just like they did when I was 21 and 112 pounds.

They are supposed to look pre-pubescent, completely fat free, bony, and thin.

Skinny.

As an anorexic, there are a few places on your body where you can most easily judge your starvation progress.

Collar bones.  Elbows.  Wrists.  Hips, on the side, and pelvis in the front.  Pubic bone.  Ribs.  Cheekbones, jaw, chin.

And knees.Read More

08
Jul

The Body Image Project – “back up”

Topic / The Body Image Project

July 8.

“Boofers.”

My sister and I call them boofers.

Boofers, as defined by my sister and myself, is the wad of fat on both sides of the back, found just above the hip and waistband, along the back rim of the pelvis.  Most women over the age of puberty have them.  I do, for sure.  You probably do, too.

Here, I’ll show you.

20150708_154657

I’m not sure how or when we came up with the name, but I’ve always known what they are.

ALWAYS.Read More

06
Jul

The Body Image Project – “on the nose”

Topic / The Body Image Project

July 6.

So THESE are my siblings.  (That’s me in the purple hair.)  The other two lovelies are my brother and sister, both younger in age.

10509553_10100420010702373_7629034695922317262_n (1)

We are half Japanese, and between the three of us we actually fill almost every Japanese stereotype.

Wicked smart. (Sean.)
Artistically creative.  (All three of us.)
Exotic looking.  (Kari.)
Wide feet.  (ALL OF US OMG.)
Cutthroat business acumen.  (Kari and me.)
Alabaster skin.  (Me.  No, I am not wearing white pantyhose.)
Thighs like a speed skater.  (Kari, Sean.)
Good with all things electronic.  (Sean.  Wrote computer code before age 10.)
Forehead like Mt. Fuji.  (All three of us, and that actually is a compliment.)

AND

Tiny, dainty, button noses.

THOSE TWO.  NOT ME.Read More

27
Mar

How to Eat Healthy as an Anorexic Bulimic – 3 Tips for Eating Like a Normal Person

Topic / disordered eating

No, this is not a “how to” article on starving and binging.

[I can hear you now, with either a nervous or nonchalant laugh.  “Oh haha… yeah, I figured.”]

Except if you’re anything like me, you would have read the title of this article and said “OHMYGOODNESS REALLY?!  I CAN DO BOTH?!”

Yeah, no.  You can’t.

Believe me.  I’ve tried.

Until very (very very very) recently, I have always TRIED to do both.

Me Out Loud:  “I want to be healthy, and I want to eat healthy.”

Me In My Head and Guts Whisper Voice:  “…while starving and binge eating whenever I want.”

OH I TRIED SO HARD TO DO BOTH.  And it never worked, and I always ended up sad, frustrated, angry, and softer around the middle than when I started.

I have tried every diet.  Every program.  Every tracking system, every food journal portion method pie chart food scale perception shift food focus known to all the humans EVER, and I just couldn’t do it.  No matter what I did, I could not stick to anything.

I couldn’t remove the emotional pull of Ana and The Binge Monster from my every day food intake.  Read More

06
Mar

How to Love My Body, Without Fight or Flight

Topic / disordered eating

Today was shower day.

I hate shower day.

I have been an anorexic, bulimic, body dysmorphic for as long as I can remember.  I remember intentionally overeating at my seventh birthday.  I remember testing to see how long I could go without food when I was eight, faking a stomach ache to ensure I wouldn’t have to eat dinner.  I remember hating my body before I even knew what all my parts were for, feeling fat inside my still-from-the-little-girls-section jeans.

The sexual abuse started at age six.

The physical abuse started at age seven.

The scars and stains that you cannot see, the ones I’m JUST NOW starting to see myself, are still there.

I really, really, REALLY hate shower day.

On shower day, I have to get naked.  Despite every attempt to the contrary, I have to strip off all my clothes and spend a good ten minutes with my own skin.  I have to look at my body (all of it), I have to touch my body (ALL OF IT), and for that showery, shivery ten minutes I am unable to hide from what I know is there, but what I so very much do not want to see.

Ugly, fat, gross, hated, disgusting, stretched, flawed, dimpled, brokenness.
Read More

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