So You Wanna Talk About Body Image?

*tw // anorexia, bulimia, depression, self-harm

Quarantine has caused many people I know to be more aware of what they're eating, their exercise routine (or lack thereof), + how much they weigh more than ever probably.

It's ironic because while most of my friends complained about gaining weight, I've been having the opposite problem recently.

When I first came back to New Jersey after being quite literally kicked off my school campus over four days, you can say I was really upset.

It was mid-March; it was still pretty chilly and brown outside with the bare trees + a severe lack of sunshine.

I lived at my boyfriend's apartment most nights in a college town where junk/late-night food was available 24/7. After staying in bed wearing loungewear every day for the first few months of quarantine, I found out that I gained 15 pounds in mid-July. How? I was going for an outdoor dinner by the shore + decided to put on a pair of jeans for the first time in months.

They didn't even make it halfway up my thighs. I went to my friend's parents' bathroom + weighed myself.

After that, my self-esteem plummeted.

I don't think I even realized it first, but I noticed myself avoiding the mirror when I would get in the shower more. If I looked in the mirror, I was usually looking at myself, wondering how it came to this—wondering why all of my clothes are skin-tight for the first time.

I was the heaviest I had ever actually been in my life.

I was up to 149 lbs. I'd never been over 135.

When I was younger, mostly in middle school and early high school, I struggled a lot with my body. I was the girl in 7th grade that had the biggest ass, and every guy wanted to slap it in the hallway when I walked to class. I hated that attention. I hated boys talking about my body vulgarly to my face + not even caring about how it might've felt.

If you're in your twenties now, you may have spent a lot of time in the 2000s on a website called Tumblr. Tumblr did a lot for me, but I think it did a lot more harm than good.

Being 13 was hard enough as it was. Hormones, acne, getting a bra for the first time, trying to be the perfect daughter for my parents, figuring out what it meant not to be a little kid anymore... it all sounds like such a nightmare now.

Today I'm feeling thankful I'm 23.

I didn't want attention from boys. I didn't want attention from my parents or anybody else. I just wanted to be left alone by everyone. Tumblr was a place for me where I could do that. I had an online blog where no one (except for my closest friends) knew who I was, and I had a pretty decent following.

I knew there were many older girls on Tumblr, and I started interacting with them. I stumbled upon a lot of pages that were romanticizing depression, anorexia, and bulimia. Let's be honest, though - that was a LOT of blogs on Tumblr.

As a young, impressionable girl with no actual parental figures to guide her through life as a teenager, I looked up to these girls on the internet. I went to them for advice. I read all of their posts about how they starved themselves or made themselves throw up, + it sounded so easy.

Well, first off, let me say that it was NOT easy.

I didn't drink coffee back then or have any form of caffeine during the day, and without food, I was exhausted + often took naps during my study hall.

As time went on, I got skinnier and skinnier. By my freshman year of high school - I was down to 100lbs. Nobody even noticed. My father said that I "looked good and to keep up whatever I was doing." Even though my Tumblr account has long since been deleted, I made sure to keep the photo below me as a reminder of what I went through.

So this was me at 15 years old, at 100 lbs. on the dot. I wanted to be 99, but I never made it to that. I post/look at this picture not to brag, but to remind me of how sick I was. To remind my that I wasn't thinking about how my body protects me and works properly - I wanted something I couldn't (and shouldn't) have.

I still have those shorts I'm wearing in that picture, and it's incredible to see how differently they fit me now.

It was like the smaller I got, the more I felt like I didn't matter + like people couldn't see me. Like I could just become so thin I could waste away. I loved it. I was in love with my madness. I loved the feeling of being in control of something. Not eating for the day felt like I got a gold medal. It was a toxic relationship that I couldn't get out of.

I was in love with the way my hip bones popped out and the way my thighs didn't touch anymore. But of course, it was never enough, right? I would be so upset when I couldn't keep my weight at 100 lbs or get my weight down even lower.

My parents got an elliptical machine, and I was on it almost every day, trying to sweat out anything I might've eaten or drank that day. Eating food made me feel like I failed - even if it was one snack for the day. I preferred to starve myself rather than throw up my food. I would choose to throw up my food whenever I had to eat in front of people or something I wanted to eat. But even then, the food I loved felt like shit, as I thought it was sitting in my stomach. I wouldn't let it sit long.

Sometimes, when I would eat a lot and feel extra depressed, I would hurt myself. Why? Because that was something I could control. I obviously couldn't control my impulses (and natural bodily response to hunger), so this was the next best thing on days that I failed.

So why did I bring all of this up?

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I've had terrible anxiety since February 7th, the day my semester started. My life has been falling apart in lots of different ways, and my sleep schedule is messed up because of my 9 pm-midnight class on Wednesdays. On top of that, I'm taking my major's capstone course this semester which means weekly projects + essays and my work in my other three classes. This is the most challenging semester I have ever had in college.

All of this, combined with the ADHD medication I'm now taking six days a week, puts eating off to the side as something I do after the day is done.

I knew I was eating less this semester, but I hadn't realized how much weight I lost until my grandparents laid eyes on me a couple of weeks ago. Like I said - I tend to avoid looking in the mirror unless necessary, and I think my brain has trained itself to not look at my body too much.

They were making a lot of comments about how little I ate and how skinny I was. That got me curious about how much I weighed now. I went to go shower after a day on the beach with my grandma. I put my towel on the hook and changed out of my swimsuit when I saw a scale in their bathroom. In my house, we don't have a scale that works. Well, we just got one, but for years we never had one because no one in my house wanted to see their weight. This was the first one I'd seen in a long time.

I stepped on it and held my breath as the number 129 showed up on the scale. I was finally a weight again which was unhealthy from my habits, but I lost the quarantine lbs. I put on.

I stepped into this beautiful glass door shower with a waterfall shower head and a spotlight. It was genuinely one of the best showers I've had in a long time. It's also funny to think about how much I really can't see in the shower when there's not a spotlight shining above me. Shaving was a LOT easier. Older people need everything to be so bright!

Anyway, I washed my body, getting rid of all the greasy tanning oil, + began to scour every inch of my body in this bright light. I picked and pulled my skin to see the little white lines on my waist all the better in the light, and suddenly, I realized that girl wasn't just the old me. I'm still that girl - I'm just older now.

It's funny to think that you're not thinking about what will give you a permanent reminder of your low points + what will stay with you forever when you hurt yourself. It's a reminder that even though your brain has blocked out the worst parts of those years, they did still happen. They are real, + most of us have probably never fully healed from past struggles.

I never really thought about the meals I skipped or the injuries I gave myself, or the cigarettes, I chain smoked, thankful that each one could knock a few minutes off my life. I never really thought about the possibility of an older version of me would be here thinking about this + hold that girl accountable for what she did to herself. I didn't think about her anymore.

As I felt this close connection to myself + little Alex, who was once terrified of having a normal BMI, I wondered what she would think of how I look now.

I sat down in the shower as I said a little thank you prayer to Jesus for giving me a better life now than I ever could have imagined.

I think sometimes it's still hard to feel like I deserve the life I have now.

I put on my biker shorts and tank top after I towel dried and looked at myself from all angles in the mirror. I was feeling good about myself!

Like wow, I wasn't even trying to lose all of the weight I gained over the summer, but I lost it all and then some. It felt like I had accomplished something that I wasn't even trying to do.

I didn't realize until recently how dangerous that was for me. I started to wonder about the after-effects of this for me. About what will happen when this version of me isn't here anymore. Will I still be able to love myself the same way? Will I like how my clothes look on me?

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I'm back at home now, and I've found myself looking in the mirror more often - especially in the morning when I take some time to stretch, and I can't help but be happy with how I look right now. I feel like I have gained a lot more confidence since losing weight.

I'm going to be honest and say that I'm not sure how to deal with these conflicting feelings about myself right now. I think that it's something I'm going to have to discuss with my therapist.

I think it's great that I have my confidence back + want to wear clothes other than my sweatpants and loungewear. I'm just trying to find a way to keep up this confidence when I get back into a rhythm of a healthy + balanced diet after this semester is over.

So while some of you are probably also struggling with body image/healthy living, know you are SO not alone in this battle. COVID has affected a lot of us mentally in more ways than we may ever know.

Don't feel bad about your eating habits. Unless there is something that you want to change, don't!

We're all working with what we have right now, + some healthy lifestyle changes are just not possible right now. Remind yourself that your body is working hard to keep you healthy during a pandemic and that food is not and should never be a burden.

Food is comforting, and you should try to eat some of your favorite foods when you're feeling down.

Something I started doing is leaving a treat in my car for "emergencies." I like those confetti cake Little Bites. I used to eat the chocolate chip ones when I was younger, but now the confetti is my favorite.

I found a box in Quickcheck one day while grabbing a quick coffee and kept them in my car for whenever I was sad or anxious + needed something sweet to get me back on track. I just finished the box last week, actually - now that I think about it, I should get some more.

Make foods like soup and eat ice cream when you feel like you need food to be there for you! Don't worry about the calories or if you already ate three meals for the day.

My advice is this: if you're struggling with body image, try doing some light yoga and stretching. That will help to build flexibility, agility, + tone your muscles. If you, like me, struggle with looking in the mirror sometimes, try placing post-it notes with positive affirmations on them on your mirror.

My friend is a Psychology major at our school, + she did this study with one of her professors + put together a mini-course called "The Body Project."

It was such an incredible experience. All six of the girls who signed up sat in a circle facing each other + talked about some of our biggest insecurities. It was so awkward at first because I had never even seen some of these girls before, and now I have to talk about the things that used to make me hate myself? Yikes.

Each session lasted a few hours, + there were two of them. We learned so much about giving people compliments that don't have to do with their weight or how they look; we talked about our biggest insecurities and talked about things we can tell ourselves when we're feeling down.

You would be surprised by a lot of what girls think about themselves.

I remember this beautiful, blonde, petite, athletic girl telling us that she wears a shirt when she's on the beach sitting down because she can't stand to see her stomach folding over itself.

We complemented each other and cried and laughed, and by the end, I had a whole new group of friends at Pepperdine! To this day, I still keep in touch with one of the girls I met during "The Body Project," and we hype each other up on Instagram photos.

I wish there were a way to end this post with concrete ways to deal with body image issues + how I've been handling my own. The truth is, I still have a lot of work to do, but I know that I have come a long way. I'm hoping to keep this level of body positivity up even after gaining back a few pounds and relearning that it's okay for my weight to fluctuate.

Stability is something I strive for because there are so many aspects of my life that did not come with stability. Weight was always something stable for me when I was younger because it was something that I felt I had complete control over.

Well, I can honestly say that I don't want to have an urge to control how I look anymore. I find myself obsessing with how I look right now and feeling like a skinny mini, but I'm going to do what I can to keep myself fed + happy. If that means I'm getting McDonald's at 11 pm, then so what?

Your body is your home. Your body keeps you safe. Your body is what helps to make you, you. Everything else in our lives changes + evolves. Why do we expect our bodies not to?

Take care + if anyone is struggling right now with body image, please reach out to me, + let's talk about it.

Yours Truly,

Alex