God Is Dead And Hell Is Here

and like. do we have to keep gently phrasing things to protect naturally-thin people's feelings. in my life it has never been fashionable to be fat. "fat" is still a bad word. there has never been institutional power pushing people to gain weight; no trillion-dollar industry to "fix" skinny people. a larger body type has never been over-represented in models, influencers, celebrities. sure, people might say "i'm worried for your health," but they do it with respect and gentleness, like they're talking to a scared deer.

every single fucking time i talk about this, i have to be so careful with what i say, in case i offend even one skinny person. it is just true that skinny people have social capital across many cultures. there is a reason you almost never hear someone say "i wish i was fat," but you will constantly see people say "I wish i was thin." and yet inevitably some skinny person will tell me: i thought you wanted body positivity. it is the same fucking attitude as when a cis man says "when you say men have power, well, i've been bullied for being a man. i thought you believe in mental health awareness. don't you know men have a higher suicide rate?"

two things can be true at once: your experience being bullied for being thin was terrible. and people with larger bodies probably have it worse.

i have been big and small. i know many other people who have been big and small. trust what i'm about to tell you: being small is much easier. the world is kinder to you. people treat you better. honestly, this pattern occurs pretty much regardless of gender - my guy friends have confided that they'd rather be bullied for being thin than be bullied for being fat. if you're skinny, the pressure might be to gain weight, sure, but it's often to do so in a way that keeps you skinny - to gain muscle, specifically.

thinness is seen as innate and natural, genetic. whereas carrying any fat - that is a moral failing. it is assumed to be related to your character, your personality. i have seen people equate it to discipline, to hygiene. that bias is why we need to talk about this.

Let me tell you my story in relation to eating disorders.

I stopped eating when I was eight. Eight years old. And it wasn’t because I wanted to be skinny, or fit, or anything. It was because food made me feel dirty and gross. I couldn’t eat without feeling sick with myself—it was especially bad with certain foods, but less bad with others. I would sit at the dinner table and sob and beg my mom to get it away from me. I started rapidly losing weight. My mental health had already been plummeting and it started plummeting more.

Eventually, my mom took me to see someone, to help me get over my fear of food. I don’t really remember the details anymore, just that I hated going and that I cried a lot. I don’t remember when I stopped going, either.

I remember my family making fun of me for all the weight I lost and how skinny I was. At the age of eight, nine, it made me feel ashamed and awful. We stopped going to the therapist, or whoever she was. I pretended to get over my fear of food, tried to hide it more. And maybe she helped, the therapist did—at least enough to keep me alive. But I never really got over my feelings and my relationship with food.

Fast forward to now, my relationship with food is imperfect, to say the least. I have been underweight for eight years now—I’m sixteen. Sometimes more dangerously underweight than other times. There have been periods of times where I’ve eaten normally, but I keep falling back into old habits. There have been periods where I’ve been barely above starving. There have been periods where I ate, but threw up everything. And the sense of shame has never gone away. The sense of shame that I have some big secret that isn’t really a secret. The sense of shame that I can’t—or haven’t—gotten better, after all these years. The shame I feel when I eat, when I don’t. When I throw up, when I don’t. When I lie about how much I’ve been eating and when I don’t have to. Shame because I can still fit into jeans from the fourth grade—jeans that are baggy now. And shame because that brings me a sense of guilty pride.

My eating habits, or lack thereof, are now based around my view of my self image, it is true. Unlike when I was eight, I am constantly obsessing over my appearance. I’m sure you know the feeling well. “How skinny do I look? How much skinnier can I get? Are my bones showing? Good. How skinny is my waist? My wrists? Are my clothes baggy? My thighs look fat. My everything looks fat. I’ll be skinny if I don’t eat. I’ll be skinny if I throw up dinner. I’ll be skinny if, I’ll be skinny when, I want to be skinny, skinny, skinny.”

But I digress. One of my sister’s friends has a sister. A while back, word got out that she had an eating disorder. Everyone fussed and worried over her, because she, despite therapy, wasn’t making any progress. One day, we recieved news that she was being helicopter lifted to some hospital in another state, because she was dying and needed immediate care.

Someone very close to me, (who I will keep anonymous my relation to, because I am unsure of whether they’d be comfortable with me posting it online for the world to see), is in residential hospitalization at this very moment, due to having an eating disorder. They’ve actually only been there for a few days, but they are supposed to be there for a six to eight week minimum, although likely longer.

And I haven’t even mentioned the countless other friends I have with eating disorders, recovering from eating disorders, with unhealthy eating habits, et cetera, et cetera.

What’s the point of all of this, you may be asking? Great, thank you Stellar, you shared your sob story, can I go now?

Not yet.

My point is, eating disorders consume you. There is no end. There is no end goal. Once you start losing weight, it becomes addictive. Calories become terrifying. Food feels like the enemy. But once you reach your weight goal, you will make another one. And another. And another.

When you stop eating, it’s not just losing weight. And that isn’t even a given sometimes. It means hair loss and headaches and cold. When you start purging, it means feeling light-headed all of the time, it means disgust and bad aftertastes.

But what eating disorders really mean is death.

You aren’t going to stay this way forever. Okay? You aren’t going to “get skinny” and then that’s it. After a while when you have an eating disorder, either somebody will find out or something really bad will happen. And you’ll end up in residential for four months, or hooked up to a machine providing you nutrition.

You either recover, or you die.

And that’s just the damn truth.

And no, recovery isn’t going to be sunshine and rainbows. And your relationship with food will be fragile—at the very least—for the rest of your life. It’s been eight years for me. I don’t know where I am but I’m sure as hell not recovered. And if I’m being honest with you all, this post is for me just as much as it is for all of you. Because, like I said, you get better, or you die.

And all of those photos you see? Of skinny people? Yeah, none of them have eating disorders. I can tell you that much. They are naturally skinny, or they work out a healthy amount, eat healthy food—or a combination of all. People with eating disorders don’t look like that. They look sick. Their hair falls out. Their teeth rot. Their fingernails grow brittle. Their skin will be pale and sickly. And they will have many other health issues that go along with their eating disorder. But even then, you can have an eating disorder and NOT be underweight. That’s not something a lot of people realize. And even if you aren’t, you can still be critically unhealthy.

So, if you are thinking about stopping eating, or starting to purge, get off the thinspo tag right now. I know you are struggling with your body image but once you stop eating or start throwing up it will fuck up your life for a VERY LONG TIME. It will make your body image WORSE. It will make you look unhealthy and tired and it will consume your entire life. YOU DO NOT WANT TO START THIS. You do not want to put yourself in this situation, I PROMISE. Please, see someone such as a therapist so you can discuss how you feel about your body and your self image before it gets to a life threatening point. I know that it is easier said than done. And I know how toxic the thinspo community is, how tempting the pictures of all the bone-skinny people are. But there are healthy ways to learn to love yourself and an ED will teach you the opposite. And it will slowly kill you.

Do. Not. Start.

And if you already have. If you haven’t been eating, or you’ve been purging your meals. Get help. Reach out to a trusted adult. I know food is scary. I know that the last thing you want to do is get help. I know that eating feels like the end of the world a lot of the time.

But you don’t want to end up like me. You don’t want to end up in residential. Or helicoptered to a hospital to get vital nutrients pumped into your body while your family and friends wait fearfully, praying that you won’t die on them. Beautiful doesn’t mean skinny. Beautiful means you. Beautiful means recovery and healing. The longer you wait to get help, the harder recovery will be. And you will need to recover at some point because you cannot keep your eating disorder a secret forever. Someone will find out. Someone always does.

And no, you are not the exception. I can see you scoffing at this post—“Yes, it’s sad that all of that happens, but not to me. I’m not skinny enough, not sick enough, won’t get to that point.”

But you will and you are. Eating disorders don’t HAVE exceptions. They simply take and they take and they take. There is no sick enough—there is only sick. There is only unhealthy. I don’t care how many times you break your calorie limit or how much you weigh. You are sick enough. You are at the point where you need help. Get help before it’s too late.

Please don’t make the same mistakes I did—the mistakes I am still making now. Please don’t make the same mistakes my friends and loved ones did. Reach and strive for recovery. You will thank yourself.

I promise.

You are beautiful. Now get off the ED tags, have a glass of water if that is all you can manage, and do something nice for yourself—watch a show, curl up with a blanket, listen to comfort music.