I don’t know how to qualify the way I viewed myself. Days I knew I was too thin and others where I viewed myself as in need of losing weight. Small things, skin roll when sitting, bloating, skin pinching, that made me obsessed over every ounce of fat.
I don’t think I viewed myself as fat or obese, necessarily. I was aware and unaware of being thin. I knew my ribs sticked, I knew I looked I’ll. But the need, the will, the absolute triumph I felt when my weight dropped trumped everything else. This feeling mattered more to me than the consequences, I felt important, I felt good and in control.
And seeing and feeling my ribs, my hip bone, having a thin waist line. It was both soothing and comforting. I craved the touch of my fingers over the bones. Seeing my weight go up even by a pound, was an experience so… Traumatic, each time. I felt like a failure, like a worthless pig who had no control over herself. Not eating, enduring the hunger was my quest for control back in a period where I felt I had very little of it. It felt empowering that I could control the most basic of instincts. I thought I was strong each time I ignored it. I genuinely thought myself better than other people, while being so so jealous. I was miserable, in a twisted form of happiness that just shattered over time.
And then, even when you realize you’re too thin, you can’t stop. The vanity of being thin is such a small part of the whole thing… It’s not about your appearance anymore. I did not care about what I looked like, what I felt like. I cared about what other saw in me and to the me of that time it was fat. It was ugly. It was bad, and awful, and I just projected myself. Every thought I had about myself I threw it on others and then comforted myself in believing I was a superior being who could ignore instincts. Oh how I envied them and hated them.
There’s nothing logical in this thinking process. It’s just the visceral desire of introducing control in your life. It’s like believing you can extinguish fire with oil and you keep repeating the process, completely unable to see how violent the inferno became. And you can only realize much too late that the fire you were confronting in front of you made a full circle, and you’re trapped. You want out, but you just have the oil in your hands to put it out, so you just make it brighter and stronger.
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.