Ever since the development of my eating disorder, my perception of compliments and insults have been warped. When I first began to loose weight, many people commented on how I looked skinny and I became thirsty for more compliments. I was determined to loose more and more weight so that I would get more and more compliments. It was almost as if I fed off of them. I wanted people to NOTICE that I had lost weight and not just suspect that I might have.
But then when I became really skinny, when someone said that I looked really thin, they meant it in a bad way. But I continued to view it as a compliment because people were still noticing that I had lost weight. I didn't want the compliments and comments to end, so I strove to loose even more. Even when people outright told me that I looked too thin, I didn't care because my brain still warped that into a compliment.
It wasn't until one of my guy friends (who I thought was really hot) and one of my lesbian friends told me that I looked bad. My guy friend definitely only hinted at it. I told him that I was trying to gain some weight and he was so supportive about it, always asking how it was going (in a lighthearted way) and reccomending stuff. He'd make fun of my puny arms and legs. My lesbian friend told me one day that my body wasn't beautiful to her. She was definitely more eloquent then my guy friend (who would always yell "nice butt" to his girl friends), but I still got the picture. When both a guy and a girl told me that I wasn't attractive, that's when I finally became ok with gaining some weight (and I did). But can you imagine how difficult it is to have to completely change your mindset about weight and beauty? From always thinking that if you see decreasing numbers on the scale then you're getting hotter and doing a good job, to seeing increasing numbers as becoming hotter?
That was when I started struggeling with the compliments. If a comment was coming from one of those two, I'd take it as a compliment and be encouraged to continue to gain weight. But, if my parents, tennis coach or therapist told me that I was looking better, that just translated to "you look big." It has been so rough having to smile and say thanks whenever someone says something like that to me. One of my best friends came over today after being away at college and abroad ever since winter break (when I weighed 101 pounds). When she was leaving she told me that I looked so much better and happier then when she last saw me. Now I'm crying as I'm typing this because all I heard was you look like your old self, aka big. I WANT to be known and associated with as the skinny girl. Obviously I want to be attractive (I've started getting a lot of numbers at the restaurant I waitress at recently), but I also want people to think "damn, she's thin" when they see me. So every time someone makes a comment, I am so conflicted with trying to decide if it's a compliment or insult that I just get overwhelmed. Yet I'll never tell anyone this (like my parents, therapist or doctor) because I want them to think I'm getting better and leave me the hell alone.
I DON'T WANT TO GET RID OF MY EATING DISORDER. I just want to be light again but this time for everyone to see me as attractive as I see myself as. I'm tired of this compliment vs. insult battle.
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