If Fat Isn't a Feeling...

I think that I've been stumbling in my writing lately, trying too hard to make it "meaningful" and "poetic" and "together." While I enjoy the process of creating posts that make me proud to read again and again, I think that for tonight, anyway, I must abandon the effort to create poetry and just type as it comes... without an overall theme or meaning.

Entering the realm of "stream of consciousness." Ladies and gentlemen, hold onto your seats. With this brain, who knows what may come out...

I keep being told (by my therapists and books and friends) that fat is NOT a "feeling." But despite what they say, I must admit that tonight - and for the past several days - that is exactly how I've felt.

Fat.

If it's not a feeling, then what is it? What is the emotion I am experiencing in this moment, when I am feeling gross and large and overflowing? I feel like a glutton, an out-of-control college student on the verge of my freshman fifteen. My pants are tight, and I keep catching images of myself in the mirror and feeling flushed with panic when I see how round my belly has become.

Of course, I realize this could be distorted, but I also know that it's partially true. I am gaining weight - at least I'm supposed to - and just the other night, my dear friend said, "Leah, I see you're gaining weight and I love it. I think you look so beautiful - the weight looks good on you." Despite his wonderful and loving intentions, my brain read this as a simple "Leah, you're getting fat. People are noticing. You can't convince yourself that they won't be able to see the difference any more."

I do want to be healthy, but when people (even in their most pure intentions), comment on how I look, my brain goes wild. I panic - full out panic with palm sweating, pacing, and heart-pounding anxiety. Even saying, "you look good," or "you look healthy" induces the panic, and I think what I'm realizing is that I've been living in this exact panicked state for the past several days.

My best friends came to visit last weekend; the time we spent together was one of the most beautiful and rare gifts I have ever received. They left on Monday - and since then, I've felt nothing but fat and out of control and "different" from the person that used to live in my little apartment before they came to visit. While they were here, my self image evolved so powerfully... I stopped seeing myself in terms of my belly and instead saw myself as this essential being full of love, questions, and freedom. With my friends, I felt boundless - not scared to embrace and love my fullness, but eager to do it and redefine my life. They didn't say a damn thing about how I "looked." They just told me about my wild spirit and fierce heart, and reaffirmed every minute that I am a being deserving and worthy of love.

But now they are gone, and instead of holding tight to the evolved self image I strengthened during their visit, my insecurity has returned, and I have been spending hours staring at my stomach in the mirror, pinching and poking and prodding and wondering how I grew so much so fast.

I feel utterly out of control. My fingers feel bloated, my stomach feels like a protruding piece of damning evidence, and I am physically FULL. I have felt FULL every second of the last several days; eating seems like the most terrible punishment. I don't want to do it - I feel fat already.

But I also don't want to minimize my life... in the last several weeks, my fed body has allowed the grace of the universe to enter in and move through me, shaking everything around and bringing intense emotion. I cry all the time; I laugh harder than I have in years. I know that if I start starving, binging, and purging again, I'll lose the "muchness" that I've spent the last month so desperately building. I don't want to lose it. But I don't want to get fat. And those two desires are in equal measure.

And it's hard to fend ED off when I am feeling fat and awful. I don't feel confident or capable, I feel slow and sluggish and heavy. I feel like I weigh too much to walk around without effort or ride my bike to this coffee house without breathing heavily like it's some sort of difficult "task." I am full - I am claiming my womanhood - but I am losing the "I can do anything" girl that I want to cling to so desperately. Feeling like a "woman" means - in my head - feeling fat. And I hate it, because when I feel fat, I don't feel free.

So, I pose a question now to the many people, doctors, and books who keep telling me that "fat isn't a feeling." If it's not a feeling, WHAT is it? And more than that, WHAT is this feeling I am experiencing now? Because there is something very visceral and real happening inside of me on nights like tonight.

I ate dinner tonight - but only because I called my mom and had her help me decide what to eat and how to stay accountable. Learning to do this on my own feels like an impossible feat; just getting my food to stay down tonight feels hard enough.

And to add to it all - I'm having another wave of "I'm not actually sick." Today my mom (with the most loving intention), said that she doesn't think it's important for me to drink my Ensures or have two snacks every day - as long as I'm eating three meals and having a snack. I'd rather eat three meals and an occasional snack, but hearing her say that she thinks I don't "need" all of the food that my treatment team keeps pushing makes me doubt that I'm sick at all. I even have the distorted feeling (distorted, but still present), that my mom is scared that the team is wrong, and is worried that I'm going to gain too much weight. Maybe she even agrees with ED, and believes that I am too big now. I don't need to be eating so much. Or maybe it's just that I am the one thinking these things, and am seeking evidence to prove that I'm not as distorted as my therapist wants me to believe. If my mom doesn't think I "need" as much food as I've been "prescribed," then maybe the treatment team really is wrong and I'm not as sick as they want me to believe. Maybe they are, in the end, just trying to get me fat.

My mom wants the best for me - of that I am certain. But even her encouraging of things like "healthy meals" and "balanced foods" so that I don't feel overwhelmed feels like a double-edged sword - does she honestly understand that overloading my system does my recovery more harm than good? If I eat ice cream, I will probably label it a binge and purge. So in many ways, she is right. I have to be careful when I'm so vulnerable. I need to make good choices and stay safe.

But her concern for "healthy meals" and "not overloading" are being co-opted by ED. Which means that instead of realizing that she really does understand me - and that she understands that I need to do this in a way that is both safe and challenging - I hear what she says and think, "she doesn't believe you're sick." ED is telling me that my own mother is worried about me getting fat, and doesn't actually believe that I'm too thin right now. I certainly don't believe that I'm too thin; ED is now convincing me that my mom agrees with me. And even though she means well, I can't figure out how to tear what she says away from the interpretation ED hears. She has been my savior in this process, and now ED is trying to take even my small sense of alliance and trust away from me. If mom agrees with ED, who's to say that he isn't right? Maybe I am a fat pig, needing to take careful steps to ensure that the world never sees my true, uncontrolled nature.

I don't want to disappoint my mom. I know she wants me "healthy," and I know that she wants me to be capable of happiness and love in this world. But for tonight, ED is using her against me... and I'm starting to wonder if she - and my dad - and my siblings and friends - all think that I'm just mentally ill. And if this whole disease is inside my head, then why does my body need to change in order to make it better? Why then does Megan keep insisting that I eat more food than I think necessary? More food than my mom even sees as "normal?" If it's in my head, then can't I just behave normally, keeping myself in check like normal women, fending off the uncontrolled beast inside of me that would eat until I'm plump and failed and "average?"

Ahk. I'm feeling annoyed. I don't know who to believe - because all of me wants to believe ED when he says that I don't need to get any bigger. So much of me wants to believe it that in fact, I'm gathering evidence and allies for his side of things. And for tonight, I'm having trouble talking back to that voice.

In this moment, I still feel fat. And since I can't understand or change that feeling, I'm going to try and focus instead of keeping my dinner down and getting enough sleep tonight. I'm feeling on the edge of purging... a dangerous zone, indeed. I HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT I HAVE OPTIONS on this edge, though. I CAN CHOOSE. Because even though I feel fat, I don't HAVE to act to make it better.

So, for tonight, I'm going to try and notice the feeling and let it go, without judgment. It won't make me feel differently, but maybe I can let the "soft animal of my body" feel whatever the fuck it wants without giving in to the man in my head offering maladaptive solutions to make that animal shut down and starve its feelings away. That is the task for tonight. I feel fat. I recognize it. Now I must sit in it without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I'll most certainly need some divine strength to get through this evening - reaching deeply into myself, I'm finding only frustration, exhaustion, and absolute self-disgust. Time to reach out for that thing that is bigger than me... the thing upon which I must place all of my hope and trust...

The thing that I can't figure out and still don't quite know exists.
But for tonight, please help me...