“She’s gained some of weight... and not in a good way.”
Over the span of some years I heard this comment quite a bit. Throughout my last years of college, as I entered graduate school and launched into adulting, my weight gain seemed to be a common observation by family, friends, and acquaintances.
Little did these folks know, (and really, little did I know at the time) but I wasn’t only carrying more physical weight than I had in the past, but I was also carrying the weight of depression, anxiety, shame and fear of never-living-up.
I was using food to cope, and escape, to comfort and soothe.
At the time the weight gain seemed like the worst possible thing in the world. I was hyper-focused on the way my body appeared which only fueled the feelings of shame, worry of not being good enough and steepened the spiral and isolation of depression.
So, I did what most women in our culture do.
I started dieting.
And, as the story goes for many women, the diets took on a life of their own. They capitalized on my personal predisposition to go to the extreme and be all-freaking-in.
And it landed me headfirst into an eating disorder.
At the pits of the disorder I found myself in the all too similar place of I where I had been when I carried more physical weight- the anxiety and depression were still there. I was still hyper-focused on the way my body appeared, which continued to fuel the feelings of shame, worry of not being good enough and steepened the spiral and isolation of depression.
I was using the disorder to cope, and escape, to comfort and soothe.
Hello darkness, my old friend!
Over time, I pulled myself out of the grips of the disorder and began dealing directly with the roots of my relationship with food and my body.
And yes, I regained the thing that most people dread so much.
Weight.
Recently, I ran into an acquaintance who I hadn’t seen in a couple of years. After exchanging hello’s and how are you’s, he turned to the person he was with and without realizing I was still in earshot, said, “she’s gained some weight... and not in a good way.”
I’ll be honest, the comment stopped me in my tracks. For a couple reasons.
The first being that I’m privileged to live in a thin body. And by privileged I mean that I don’t experience weight discrimination or weight stigma on a daily basis. I’m able to find something to wear at most any store I walk into, I don’t commonly experience weight-centered comments and when I go to my doctor, my weight isn’t the first comment out of her mouth. Yes, that’s privilege in the world we live in.
And secondly, to keep it really, real... it stung a bit.
Those familiar feelings of shame and not-good-enoughness were ignited and bubbling under the surface.
As I walked away, all I could think was, “what the eff does that even mean?? Not in a good way??”
Because I had not only regained weight, I had gained so much more.
As I mulled it over, talked it through and continued on with my evening, I made the conscious decision to not give an eff about this particular person’s opinion of my body. Because it’s really none of his business.
And, to give an eff about this person’s opinion, would limit my ability to give even more eff’s about what really matters.
And what really matters is that in our thin-obsessed society, weight gain is seen as failure. As flawed. As laziness. As plain-old-not-good.
Which keeps so many of us striving, grinding, and holding onto the belief that remaining or becoming small will be what we need to heal ourselves. To heal our pasts. The finally have it all.
Which takes us directly out of our power.
Physically, emotionally and spiritually.
And stuck in eating disorders and disordered eating.
As a therapist who works with women struggling with body image and eating disorders, a day doesn’t go by where the women I work alongside don’t share their deep seated fear of weight gain.
They’re afraid for a number of reasons, including situations just like I experienced- the external observations, judgements and comments that can open us up to spiraling into a place of compare and despair, self-loathing and self-punishment.
But, we can also flip the script and see and experience weight gain in a new way. In a way that serves our sense of self and the life we are working so hard to experience and build.
Because, throughout my journey, I gained so much more than weight.
- My fertility- my ability to have a family if I choose.
- My ability to feel emotions, cope and soothe myself in ways that honor those emotions and serve my entire being.
- My ability to unapologetically enjoy food and choose what feels good in my body.
- My ability to move my body in ways that I enjoy instead of ways that punish it.
- My ability to feel at home in my body.
- I regained my life. My focus. My passions. My freedom from obsession. My love for the people in my life and for myself.
If you’re struggling with fear of weight gain, consider what else you can gain alongside it.
Imagine it. Feel it. Bask in the goodness of it. Allow those feelings to be your guide and ground you in your toughest moments to choose your health and your future over your eating disorder.
The struggle is real, there’s no questioning that.
But it’s worth it.
Because you are so much more than your size.
And, there’s so much more in life to gain than what the scale tells you.
Sarah is a therapist in Horsham, PA specializing anxiety, body image and disordered eating. For more information visit her website at www.sarahherstichlcw.com.