I don’t usually share my personal struggles on this blog.
I really don’t. Talking about writing or my issues with writing isn’t what I mean. Yes, I do discuss those, but they are pretty innocuous topics.
I mean, I don’t usually go deep and write about the daily struggle I have with my weight, my eating disorder, and my body image.
But…first I want to share something with you that I saw the other day that just RESONATED with me sososos much. Please take a few minutes to watch this. If you’ve already seen it, watch it again because every single person on the planet needs to hear this.
SO.
I’ve been fat shamed my entire life – by others and by myself. I know, I know! You’re supposed to love yourself for who you are, not what you look like. The reasons behind my eating disorder are lifelong and involve things said to me while I was child by my biological father and my grandmother. When people who are supposed to support you tear you down instead as a child, well, let’s just say that baggage gets carried into adulthood. I’ve never been able to look in a mirror and tell myself “you’re enough the way you are, because I was never able to feel that way.”
That’s on me.
When my daughter got engaged on Christmas eve, my first emotion was elation. For her. My second was terror. For me. As mother of the bride, I’m going to be front and center at all events looking….not good. Not the way I want to. Not the way I should. To have two opposing emotions – happiness for her and sadness for me – at the same time sent me into an emotional spiral that ramped up my eating disorder. Just like James Corden says in his video, shaming someone leads to depression, decreased feelings of self worth, and ineffective coping mechanisms. For me, that means an increase in my bulimia.
There. I said it. I admitted it out loud. Well, in print, anyway. But you know what I mean.
The first step towards fixing a problem is to admit you have one. Just like with alcoholism and drug addiction, you first need to recognize, name and accept that you have an issue, before you can begin to heal, fix, and help yourself.
So here’s my admission. My name is Peggy and I’m a bulimic.
First step? Check.
The second step is to come up with a plan for dealing and/or changing the issue. Way easier said than done, for sure. But now that I’ve said out loud what my issue is, I can devise a plan to fix it.
First step in this is to stop binging and purging whenever my emotions get out of hand.
Again, easier said that done, but if I think it, speak it into the air, and tell it to myself often, I know I can combat the desire.
Maybe this is all a little TMI for you. Maybe it is for me, too, but I am determined at almost 60 years old to finally FINALLY squelch this behavior. If writing about the struggle will help me attain that goal, so be it.
My goal is to eradicate my eating disorder, lose the excess weight pulling my health down, and in so doing, be the best, healthiest Peggy I can be. If that means that ultimately I am a size 8 or a size 18, so be it.
Until the next time I feel the need to talk about this again! ~ Peg
Peggy Jaeger, Author 