My family reunion was last week. One of my favorite people on the planet is my cousin Krissy. She's two years younger than me and between the years of 5 and 10 she was my best friend, my shadow and my surrogate sister. I protected her from bullies (while often bullying her myself), splashed around in mud puddles and shared in a horrible asthma attack and illness that almost killed both of us thanks to liking lilacs little too much and realizing way too late that we were both allergic to them. But when I turned 10 my family moved away and we somehow lost touch with each other. It wasn't as easy as it is now to stay in contact when you are hundreds of miles apart. Computers and cellphones weren't available to anyone who wasn't super wealthy and even then it wasn't something people cared about. There were land lines but we didn't use them much and that can't make up for times spent in the outdoors pretending to be indians hiding from the White People (a.k.a our parents) who were going to take us away from each other.
Maybe if I had been there to be her rock I could have stopped this from happening. Maybe I could have been the one to save her even though I was going through my own problems. I was always the strong one and maybe this is where my intense need to protect other people comes from; I always protected her. These thoughts are irrational; I know it and yet I am still thinking of them. You can't stop someone from becoming bulimic or having an eating disorder. Just like how you cannot cure them. It is unfortunate but true. Once someone develops an eating disorder it stays with them.
She's been this way for years and years and I'm only talking about it now because people need to realize that while having an eating disorder isn't healthy it is ok. It is ok to have a moment of weakness. It is ok to hate a part of yourself. IT IS "NORMAL," whatever that means. Everyone feels this way, once twice, sometimes even all the time. We just don't talk about it or display it and I think we should. We should have open, mature and healthy discussions about problems that we have. I am not promoting unhealthy habits; I am promoting discussion.
America and society have this, this awful way of making anyone with some type of mental illness feel horrible about it and the general consensus is that anyone with "problems" are "sick" people that should be locked up. We've all created this stigma on mental illness and now we refuse to do anything about it. Not me, I will not be apart of that. Just because you have to take a medication to keep the blues away so you can function does not mean you should be treated as a pariah and be quarantined from society.
Do you feel that someone who has the flu should be locked up with the key thrown away? No, you give them medicine and they get better. So why then do we treat someone with bi-polar like they don't deserve the air they breathe? They have a problem, we give them medicine and therapy and it helps them become a functioning human being. Didn't we just do that with the person who has the flu? Yes, you have a health related issue but you are not "sick" and you should not hate yourself for something you have no real control over.
That's the main issue here. Eating disorders are not about vanity. They may start out that way but the underlying issue is control. The want and need to control something in your life because everything else is out of your control. "I may not be able to stop my parents from getting divorced but I can control what, how much and how often I put something into my body or don't put something into my body."
I was a little intoxicated but finding my cousin in the bathroom hating herself for "being this way" broke my heart. Hearing that the places she went to treatment for taught her to treat the thoughts in her head of making herself sick as a demon, to remove them from herself and hate them disgusted me. Sure, there are parts of myself that I dislike or hate even but I have never ever been taught that the "voice inside my head" or my inner self was a demon that needed to be eradicated They are literally teaching her to hate a part of herself and that's not helpful at all. That to me is counter-productive. That is telling her that it is a separate entity that she needs to control and so there we were when she couldn't control it anymore. She was freaking out, hating herself because she still couldn't control her own life and her own urges.
That is the ultimate control and what no one has done with her is helped her to deal with it. I deal with my depression; I have overcome it. My depression does not rule my life anymore. It did for a very long time. 10 years or so it ruled my life. Everything sent me into a tailspin. Everything made me want to kill myself for the sheer relief it would bring. I lost my job last week and my immediate reaction is not to kill myself to rid myself of the pressure of needing money to pay my bills but to find another job. Two or three years ago that would not have been the case. I want my cousin to get to that point. I want anyone struggling with an issue, be it mental or not to get to that point.
I struggled to assure her that she is normal in hating herself sometimes. That it is normal to cry in the bathroom because things aren't going as planned. Everyone feels like a failure once if not multiple times in their life and everyone has issues they deal with even if they don't show it. Some people can hide their pain and others cannot. This was the most important thing I said to her: "I'd rather you be bawling your eyes out with me in the bathroom at our family reunion than have you sit in silence and endure this by yourself. I love you, every part of you even if you don't and there isn't a thing you could do in this life or the next that could change that, that could make me love you any less or that could make me disappointed in you. Every day that you are here in this life, living and breathing and trying makes me proud of you. When you give up, when you check out then I will be disappointed but I will still love you."
And I hope every day that you tell someone that. Whether they are healthy or unhealthy, whether they are near you or away, these are things people need to hear once in awhile. Don't wait until they are crying in a bathroom or doing something awful they cannot undo. Sometimes the best thing you can do is hug them and tell them it is ok, everything will be ok. Even if it won't, it is still nice to hear.
Please love yourself. I thought long and hard about not posting some of the photos of myself yesterday. You know, the ones where you can clearly see my stomach fat and would inspire the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch use me as a campaign for anti-fat people. Yes, I have self-image issues. But I thought "I don't want to hate any part of myself. I need to feel comfortable in my own skin. I've been trying this for years. Let's actually just commit to it. Be proud of yourself, give yourself a little love even if there is a lot of you." I may not be Kate Upton, ready to display myself in a bikini but I definitely prefer pizza to visible hip bones, that will never change.
Love yourself enough to ask for help. If you don't feel like you can talk to family because you don't want them to know or you don't quite feel like talking to a complete stranger you can talk to me. Comments, e-mails, hell I'll even give you my phone number if it is that urgent. I always want to talk to you and I always want to help.
I'm just going to leave this here disclaimer with you: Although I do have a degree in Psychology I am not licensed in any state except Saraville; which has no residents besides myself save for one or two tourists. Therefore, everything said in this particular entry of my blog is not to be taken as professional advice. If you are thinking of harming yourself or someone else please call 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
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