It might come as a surprise to some of you, some of you who see me as strong and independent and anti-conformist and what not, but I've had this thing for a while. Well, I had it, but now I don't, and now I hate that I had it. It's this small little thing called Anorexia nervosa.
Now here,
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yes, you have that out of the way. You can now continue reading.
When I was 15 I was nice and curvy, a bit too soft here and there but with a nice rack and enough to hold on to. I was pretty confident too. Then I moved to America. The thing about America is that either you're fat, or you're anorexic. If you're not fat, you're so afraid of getting fat you go anorexic. That's the way it is, there is no way around it (unless you have an exception gene or something).
The problem is though, "But Kristiina I thought you lived in Holland?" I do.
I moved here on January 1st, 2010, and have lived here ever since. Yet here my weight loss didn't stop, it continued just the same. In short, in the past two years I've gone from 60kg (a lot of boobage weight, remember) to 50kg. I don't like it.
I don't like how my hip bones stick out like the pelvis of a starving dog, I don't like knowing that I have at least 5 bras in my drawer that are at least a cup size too large now, I don't like seeing my collarbones outlined like crossbones on a pirate flag, I don't like any of it.
Most of all I don't like my rib cage sticking out. I don't have a flat tummy, I have a caved in one. The worst bit is that I still have a lot of body fat, so I'm bony but I'm soft. I hate all of it. I want my tits back, I want my ribcage to stay in, I want my collarbones to look normal... It's made me uncoordinated and clumsy, because I still move and behave as if I weighed the same amount I used to.
I hate it. I want my boobs back.
But I'm totally over it.
It is currently 1:34, I am tired and withdrawn after a particularly brutal round of Key Terms, I am fighting off a particularly brutal migraine, and I have a particularly brutal obsession with keeping myself awake to reply to this post. With that in mind, I leave what is sure to be a rambling, incoherent comment.
ReplyDeleteI have never experienced the awfulness of anorexia for myself. It's just not something that guys have to deal with as often, and while I am not so pleased with my figure, I'm not so filled with disdain for my form as to consider anorexia (or its vile cousin bulimia, for that matter) a viable option. That said, I have some measure of experience with a small handful of females close to me.
I would consider you a strong, independent, and non-conforming woman, as you state. However, in the limited experience I possess, those girls are most at risk for this sort of thing. Yes, your stereotypical blond cheerleader might want to fit into her far too small uniform, and yes, she wants to be found attractive, but that underscores the true desire. That true desire is to be liked.
A blond cheerleader doesn't need to worry about being liked. She doesn't have to be the prettiest girl in the world. She is popular, possesses a large network of influential friends, and is found attractive by many guys, sometimes on status alone. When you're just like everyone else, or standing on the pillar that everyone else strives to reach, you are not fearful of their disapproval.
But when you're intelligent, thoughtful, something better than that, you are worried. You dare to be intelligent, dare to be different, and what if they don't like you? So you decide to appeal to their aesthetic love of all things beautiful. Beautiful, you must be beautiful. Never mind the fact that you are already beautiful, were beautiful before, and in all likelihood have always been, and always shall be, beautiful (Of which I note that I have been using the general, plural you in paragraph, but I am also using the direct, singular you in the previous sentence, in that I think you, Kristiina Heikura, are incredibly beautiful for reasons entirely separate from your weight)
In a somewhat unrelated note, as someone who has always been a supporter of breasts, even when they went through a rough period in the '90s, I wholeheartedly oppose any practice that will adversely affect their conservation status. They're already Threatened, and I'd hate to see them become Endangered. I've never supported big business destroying natural habitats, and I will not stand for consumerism drastically diminishing the chest sizes of women for their own gain.
I resent the implication that the people want such a waifish, stick-y beauty. I am a person who considers himself part of 'the people', and I do not consider abnormal thinness to be one of my standards of beauty (of which I have many, and you should feel proud that you manage to meet all of them). No, it is not what the people want. It's what the people who decide what the people want, want.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, you look fine...but you could look better. Be thinner. Lose some weight. It's not difficult. You would look fabulous if you were thinner. Don't know how? Well that's alright. I've got some books to show you. Oh, and diets. I sell diets too. Interested? Of course you are. You'll look so good in your new clothes. Hm? Well of course you'll be buying new clothes, your old ones won't fit. And once you've bought some new clothes that make you look good, you'll never stop. Every season, something new. It'll be grand, won't it?
Call me Tyler Durden, but I have a deep-seated distrust of the American consumerism that runs rampantly through this country. I don't believe in Kate Moss, or America's Next Top Model, and I don't believe in telling young girls what beauty is and is not. In an analogy I'm sure you'll appreciate, I think society telling an underage girl what beauty is is a little like parents telling a child what religion she is. Perhaps worse, since it's a seemingly endless amount of people, not just two.
If you've truly beaten the demonic hydra of anorexia and related disorders, then I appluad you for fighting off what I personally believe is an entirely preventable disorder that society could destroy if it would only wake up and try. If you have not beaten it back as much as you would hope, then I would like to remind yourself that I am here. I may not be the most available friend, nor the best one in general, but I am here, at least, should you need me.
I absolutely love you, and coming from a person who hates people, that means a lot. It's strange how I consider your opinion to be worth more than so many others that I interact with on a far more frequent and regular basis, but as it stands, I love you in a nonsexual (Though, as I said, I find you beautiful), nonromantic (Though I believe in unlikely romance as a governing law of the universe), nonplatonic (Though...this is actually mostly just because I disagree with Plato on a lot of philosophical matters), existential way. Which is to say I love that you exist, and would be profoundly distraught if your existence ceased to be.
On a COMPLETELY unrelated note, I have managed to fold one of those little spiny things from under the cap of a Gatorade bottle into roughly the shape of France. I have no idea how I managed that feat of dexterity, especially while I was concentrating on this comment, but I did it and it's awesome.
I feel like there should be some kind of logical end to this comment, because I feel like I made some point or other, but it is now 2:06 and I can't remember entirely what it was. So...remember that a crazy American boy loves you in a philosophical and existential way. Oh, and also that you should eat, because although Pirate Crossbones are really cool, I would suggest a tattoo of them as a much more viable (and healthier) alternative to crossbone collarbone.
So yeah.
(Did you know there is a character limit for comments? It's 4096. What a bizarre number)