- I remember thinking I was fat when I was four years old.
I remember standing at the barre in ballet class
looking in the mirror and comparing my body
to everyone else's.
I remember using food to cope with my emotional anxieties
at an early age.
On the outside, I had a tremendous
amount of privilege growing up,
which made it complicated to live
amidst the pain in my mind,
and the trauma within my body.
I started starving myself at age 11.
I struggled with an eating disorder, mostly bulimia
for a full decade.
I was molested for a year and a half in high school,
and raped my first month of college
the week before my younger brother
was hit by a car and killed.
Two years later, I was sitting on my bedroom floor
with my best friend,
and I laid out my entire life trauma by trauma,
and had a major realization.
I was killing myself.
I'd actively been putting my body in jeopardy for 10 years.
Other people had violated my body,
and my brother no longer had a body at all.
Everyone only gets one body in their lifetime.
I knew I had to start treating mine differently.
I made a choice to love my body
for the rest of my life.
Every single day.
Recovery was like peeling layers of an onion.
First, I promised myself that purging
was never going to be an option.
I learned to sit with what it felt like not to purge.
Then, not to binge.
Then, not to eat emotionally.
Then, not to fear food.
Then, not to fear my body.
And I learned that how I eat and move
has to come directly from within me.
It took a lot of practice.
And I learned the art of intuitive eating,
where I eat what I want when I want,
eat when I'm hungry,
and stop when I'm full.
That has single-handedly been the tangible practice
that's allowed me to maintain full recovery
for the past 10 years.
I witness all the ways the world tells bodies
not to love themselves.
From the billion dollar diet industry,
to war, racism, sexism, homophobia,
ableism and all oppressions.
And i know that the choice to love my body
is both revolutionary for my ability to live in my own body,
and also the key to allowing me
to love and respect other people's bodies.
Because I made a choice to recover fully,
I decided every day doesn't have to be a struggle.
I've learned to sit with my feelings,
to feel everything, and wait,
and it's utterly intoxicating.
And even though I love my entire body,
there are moments that are difficult.
And sometimes I feel fat.
And when I think I feel fat,
I remember that fat is not a feeling.
There's no such thing as feeling fat.
So when I feel fat,
I know that means I'm feeling something else
and it's worth figuring out what that is.
In these moments especially,
I take deep, slow breaths,
and I remember that my body's ability
to do this incessantly, unconsciously,
and involuntarily, is a miracle.
I choose to be grateful in these moments.
Grateful for everything my body can do,
and everything my body has overcome.
I choose to love my body.