Being my Body
Society places so many pressures on us, it therefore shouldn't come as any big surprise that there are people out there who are lacking in self-esteem and self-confidence. These people, me included, spend our lives searching for comfort. In my case the comfort came in the shape of food.
I was brought up to eat everything on my plate and not to waste anything. I was always encouraged to have seconds - this was flattering to the cook, generally my mother. Sure enough she was a great cook and she encouraged me to eat. She was also the person who told me often as a teenager that I was fat and ugly, and so began the spiral. I am not blaming my mother, she felt she was helping me and would say things in the heat of the moment, generally when we had a disagreement. I too could be spiteful but it took me some years to learn just how damaging being spiteful could be.
I am 37 years old now, and it has taken me many years to really define who I am and what I represent. It has been a rollercoaster ride and I know the rollercoaster will continue its run but I am more prepared now and ready to take whatever path my life journey should take me down.
As I was brought up with food being an important part of life, this continued when I left home at the age of 17, and right up until the present day.
I have a fairly compulsive and obsessive personality, although I didn't know that then. Throughout my life when things have become tough I have turned to food. It has been my friend and my comfort but also my worst enemy. You see, I always thought that only slim people got on in life. Only slim people met the man of their dreams and that was because decent men were only interested in slim people and so began my self-destruction.
When I look back at photos of myself when I was younger, I realise now that I was never fat. I wasn't ugly either, but it is amazing what you can make yourself believe if you really try.
Over the years I was on and off diets and my weight went up and down continuously. I berated myself for not having the courage to put my fingers down my throat or the courage to stop eating altogether. Yes, I know, I thought I was a failure because I couldn't become anorexic and I couldn't become bulimic.
It wasn't until I came across other people who had been severely anorexic and bulimic that I was grateful I hadn't taken that path. However, I ate compulsively and in secret, and my weight was erratic, and I wanted it to stop but I didn't know how. Everyday I would say that tomorrow I will start a diet, this meant that today I had to stuff myself silly as tomorrow I wouldn't be allowed to have all the foods I gained comfort from. Tomorrow would come and I would do really well for most of the day, and then suddenly my mind would take over and before I knew it I would have binged and then the cycle would start all over again. At this stage of my life I exercised quite a lot and I think it was this that kept my weight relatively stable. That is until my Father died.
He had been my guardian angel, someone I could turn to for anything, and when he died I knew my life would never be the same again. For a couple of years I was angry. I would eat in secret so no one would know. I gained more weight and where I had been able to have some sort of control before, now I lost control completely.
I grew in size and my self-esteem plummeted. I felt ugly, unattractive and decided that there was no way my dreams of marriage and children were ever going to materialise. I threw myself into my work, my career, but even this was not enough. The anger just grew and in the end I felt I needed to return to England, face my demons and basically get my act together.
I did return to England and the past came back to haunt me. My mother was worried about my weight - no one would be attracted to someone my size and I probably wouldn't get a job either. She told me all of this "for my own good". All I ever wanted was for her to love me unconditionally and not be so obsessed by how I looked.
So began 3 months of dieting under my mother's watchful eye. I did lose weight and yes I did get a job and as soon as I moved away from my mother again the weight returned and the food issues returned in a big way. The only reason they had not been big when I had been with her was because she kept a very close watch on what food was in the house. There was no way for me to get food elsewhere as we were in the middle of the countryside and there were no shops within walking distance. If there had been, I would have walked to them in order to binge. Every day all I could do was think about food and everyday I felt bad about it and about myself.
After 2 years back in England and things not seeming much different, I returned to New Zealand. Each time I moved I hoped that I would become this super skinny, attractive person, and that I would make a huge impact on my return. Needless to say this has never happened and again I felt a failure because of it.
What I didn't realise was that I had always been attractive and that what was on the outside was purely an unimportant shell.
When I returned to New Zealand, I realised that I needed to take some serious action otherwise food would rule my life, and nothing would improve at all. I was treated for depression and sent to see a psychologist. Funny, you would think that by being diagnosed with depression and having to see a shrink would make me feel worse, but in actual fact for the first time in years I felt really normal.
For the first time too I realised just how blessed I am as I have the very best friends, and through what was a pretty difficult time I had the very best support. I can't thank those people enough.
I addressed many issues, but still my issues with food continued.
Towards the end of 2001 I experienced a major shift in myself and decided that life was too short to be feeling bad about myself. I looked back at my life, and realised just what a great job I had done to get this far, and I decided that I wanted the next part of my life to be fun, positive and fulfilling. I no longer wanted to look back, I wanted to look forward.
I still have issues with food, and I guess it will take some time to lose the years and years of conditioning that I have around food. I recognise the issues now, and I am able to talk about them, and this is half the battle.
For the first time in many years I have reached a major realisation. And that is size does not matter. I have always taken people on face value and seen their beauty within, I just never thought other people saw me that way too. Now I know they do.
I have my own business. I am not judged because of my size, but by the skills that I have. My mother was wrong, I can get work.
I met a special guy who told me that I was beautiful. I don't think he knows just how much that meant to me. He is not my Mr. Right, whatever that may be, but I still have my dreams. He has helped me to see that there are men out there who can see beyond a person's shell. My mother was wrong, I am not ugly.
Being my body has been an amazing journey. That journey continues and I am ready for the next installment.
Tania