The Picture of Anorexia

By an anonymous writer

he picture of anorexia has become more complex than ever before. Social and political factors can not be ignored when looking at the moldings of anorexia they are not the only factors that allow anorexia to manifest. The problems of anorexia lie deep within the individual; anyone who denies this does not understand the disease. This account is based solely on personal experience.

My senior year in high school, I was on the honor society, a valuable member of the track team, well-liked by all my friends, I lived in a comfortable middle-class home, and seemed to have had a pleasantly normal childhood. Regardless of all the comfort one would think I possessed as a result of my upbringing, I was uncomfortable in my own body. I hated myself. I thought I was fat and as a result I had very low self esteem. I just had this idea that all anorexics have which is, everything will be fine if I'm thinner. It wasn't something I planned but that year in high school I became anorexic. I started skipping meals and counting calories. Everywhere I went I would do a mental count of all the calories I had consumed that day. If it was too many I wouldn't eat the next day. Food became a constant obsession of mine. I would plan my meals for the whole week, making sure I was eating just enough to get by. When I went to sleep at night the obsession over food would continue. I would dream about all the foods I used to enjoy and now could not bare to look at.

There was no time during this sickness that my mind and body were at ease, instead they were competing with each other. My brain trying to tell my body that it was starving to death and my body not allowing the food to enter. Food became my enemy not because I hated it so much but because I loved it and I was not allowing myself to enjoy it. At one point I was popping about six laxatives a day to ensure that what little food I was consuming would come right back out. My weight plummeted quickly and I was pleased.

I had become a shell of what I used to be. I was void of feeling or argument, thoughts would slip away from me; I had become the living dead. I found pleasure in counting my ribs like a war hero would do with his medals. My period stopped, my hair fell out, my face became wan and swollen, yet people would approach me and say, "you're so lucky that you are so thin." My mother was probably the most impressed with my weight loss. Ever since I can remember she has always been on a diet. Denying herself the pleasure of food with a simple, "I couldn't possibly," even though she probably hadn't eaten a thing that day. From her I learned that this is what it must mean to be a women. If you are thin and beautiful then you are happy, and if you are fat and unattractive then you will not survive. I wanted to be happy like I thought she was. I also wanted her acceptance, her approval, and most of all her love. In order for me to get all these securities from my mother I had to be what she adored: beauty. I had inherited my mother's need for perfection. She had taught me how important it was to be in control, to be strong, to be beautiful, and to be thin. This meant being in control of your food.

I remember the first time I felt like I was accepted by my mother. One of her best friends had come over our house for tea and my mother made it a point to express to her friend that I was finally getting over my awkward stage and that the dress I had on was flattering to my figure. I was probably five feet and six inches at this point and only 95 pounds. The normal weight for some one my age and height was 130 pounds. I had finally won mother's respect and approval. I was now her trophy, her model, her reflection. It brought her great pleasure to show me off to her friends. I had become what she wanted me to be, her perfect little girl. This meant everything to me. I felt that the only way to maintain this attention was not by getting straight A's, or by winning a race, or writing a great article for the school newspaper, but by remaining thin. The fat on my body was what was preventing me from getting close to her and so I knew I would have to shed off every last bit of it. My controlled eating was a way for me to put the brakes on in my life so that I would always remain my mother's little girl and never have to go off to college, get married, and have children. Maybe I was unhappy at school because I was growing up. I couldn't take my body developing. I wasn't happy unless I could see my hip bones sticking out a mile away. Yet with the fear of fat came the fear of failure. I had never failed at anything before in my life and if I failed at this that would be worse than death. I remember the times I would look at other people and wonder what it would be like to have a life that wasn't controlled by food.

I had entered a continuously destructive cycle that I wasn't allowed to break out of. I lost interest in boys. I felt ill at the idea of getting close enough to anyone that they would want to see and touch my body since that was the part of me that I disassociated myself with. Even though I was very thin I didn't want to be judged by them. To have them say that my body did not make the cut, that it wasn't good enough. I hid my sexuality under baggy clothes that would hide my female body, hoping that no one would notice I was a girl. It was the only choice that really looked like one: By refusing to put on a women's body and receive a rating, I chose not to have all my future choices confined to little things, and not to have the choices made for me, on the basis of something meaningless to me, in the larger things. But at the same time, my choice grew smaller and smaller.

I finally hit rock bottom. I remember blacking out in school and having to be sent to the hospital. I remember waking up there with all of these alien tubes in my body and my mother on the right-hand side of me crying and softly saying I'm sorry. After that I ended up getting counseling from a psychiatrist who helped me accept my body for what it is, fat or thin, and learn to let myself grow up because that was a process that everyone had to go through. I finally got better over time but it was really hard to adjust my mind to a different way of thinking and seeing my body.

When I think about my weight now, which I prefer not to do, but often find myself doing obsessively, I have to recognize that it fluctuates. The range is not excessive, but I think it indicates that I am still waging some sort of war with my own body. The fluctuations are rapid and geared to my psychological state, while influencing it at the same time. My usual and, to me, ideal weight is slightly below normal for a woman of my age and height, but I have great difficulty in maintaining it- in either direction. I still feel that if I give in and eat like other people, I shall quickly reach an 'unacceptable' weight. After which my weight will shoot up and up, quite beyond my control. Of course no such thing has ever happened but when I do find myself approaching my 'unacceptable' weight, I become depressed and alarmed. I know by now that my approach is inappropriate, especially since the weight seems repulsive to no one but myself, and so over the years I have learned to modify it. However my initial reaction is always the same: horror. I have had to ask myself why it is that I still loathe the idea of fatness. My answer has been that when I am fat (as I conceive of it) I simply do not feel like myself. I associate fatness in myself, though not in others. I feel that my heaviness which includes both body and mind slows me up, makes me less conscious, less self-confidant and, above all, less able to think for myself. At the same time I know that whatever the nature of these associations, they are based on a false premise. I know that outside factors contribute as much, if not more, than does my body weight to my perception of myself.

The pressures pushing me towards this attitude of fatness are not the immediate social ones from advertising, the media, and manufacturers which connect slimness with sexual attractiveness. On the contrary, I find the emphasis on slimness at best irritating, and at worst insulting to women in general. These social pressures from advertising and the media tell us that we are only bodies and this is precisely what an anorexic can not accept. For me, the pressures against fatness comes within myself, and arises out of the circumstances of my past life. To be fat is to retreat, not only into my past life but that of my immediate family and friends. If I am fat (by my own standards) I run the risk of being devoured by other people or by the society in which I live in. If I am devoured, I shall lose myself. If I lose myself, I shall not be able to function. The reasoning behind this argument may seem incredibly hard to understand, but it makes its own peculiar sense, and can be traced directly to the adolescent conflicts in which I was part of at the onset of my anorexia.

Similarly my attitude to thinness has not changed fundamentally, although it has considerably been modified. Fat is still ugly but thin is no longer necessarily beautiful.

When I am attempting to lose weight rapidly, it is always without making any conscious attempt to do so. Nevertheless, I tend to feel pleased with myself rather than alarmed. At once I feel happier, more self confident, and more independent. Unfortunately once I start losing weight, I tend to go on losing weight, until I stop eating altogether for up to three days. During such periods I find myself lapsing back into some of my old anorexic attitudes. I become acutely aware of other people's shapes and sizes and I feel faintly annoyed if I meet someone thinner than myself. Hyperactivity, especially in relation to trivial domestic matters sets in and I find myself talking incessantly or dreaming about food.

Fortunately two or three days of starvation are usually enough to make me realize what is happening to me. Nowadays I can admit to myself that I am hurting myself and so I force myself to eat- preferably something fattening like ice cream or chocolate, which I would otherwise avoid at all costs. Between these two extremes other anorexia-based traits remain. I can't eat large amounts of food at any one time, although I can happily eat small amounts of food throughout the day, even if I am only slightly hungry. I don't like people who have no knowledge of my anorexic background to watch me eat and remark on how little I eat.

According to G.I. Szmukler's article called "Anorexia Nervosa: A Clinical View", the first criteria of recovery from anorexia- that of weight gain or stabilization- I should probably now be classified as a "cured" anorexic, though it would be more accurate to describe myself as a controlled anorexic. Of course weight gain has to be the primary criteria for improvement or recovery, but my experience leads me to wonder how many patients included in various surveys and who have gained weight are in fact maintaining eating patterns similar to mine, despite an appearance of normality. A.H Crisp's book, "The long-term Prognosis in Anorexia Nervosa," "claims for a complete cure must demonstrate relief of the distressing symptoms of disturbed moods, sexual feelings, and the experiences around eating, as well as the return of body weight and menstruation." This also reinforces the theory that weight loss in itself is only a small part of the problem.

If pictures of thin models and over-bearing mothers aren't factors that cause anorexia, what are? There are certain identifiable factors involved in creating anorexics. Factors that reflect what is the attitude of others- primarily parents and other adults, then society which states that a girl's weight and general physical appearance are important. Factors that affect and concern a girl's early and continuing experience within the family and within a anorexics. As Peter Dally puts it, in his book "Anorexia Nervosa," "it is apparent that many patients are repeating, in anorexia nervosa, a similar pattern of behavior which developed during childhood in response to parental pressures. The reaction of patient and parent during these earlier 'rehearsals' will sometimes indicate the likely outcome, and suggest ways in which the patient may be helped." The identification of certain factors is important in determining both treatment and prognosis for the individual anorexic. In short, anorexia should be seen as evolving from a concentration of circumstances, both past and present, rather than appearing suddenly and for no sufficiently good reason, as a particular response to particular stimuli.

People have developed different approaches to understand anorexia. However, one can not claim that anorexia results from any one theory like the feminist or capitalist theory. To describe anorexia solely as the result of a capitalist or male-dominated societal plot is as unhelpful as to describe it solely as the result of traumas experienced in early childhood, or solely as a medical problem. The complexity of the factors involved in the development of the disease do not allow for a simplistic approach to its alleviation. In order to change extreme conditions drastic measures are required. As in all psychosomatic disorders, the success of those measures will depend largely on the sympathy and understanding of those prepared to undertake them. It may seem excessive to add that the anorexic should at all times be treated as an individual and independent human being.