What if I continue putting on weight forever?
CW: eating disorders, weight
It’s a thought I’ve had relentlessly since giving up running during the pandemic. First my jeans started to feel a bit tight, but I’d manoeuvre myself into them and sit uncomfortably for the rest of the day. Then I noticed my stomach spilling over my workout leggings, and then I was suddenly no longer the clothes size I’d been for years. Admittedly, I was in a new relationship where food was a huge source of happiness and connection, and I was feeling less disordered than ever in my attitudes towards it, but I had the quiet thought in the back of my mind that this weight gain couldn’t last forever. Stu and I would take our porridge and coffees out into the garden, watching the cats play and sit on our pandemic-project plants; we’d take practice breaks together with a cuppa and some biscuits; we’d send each other recipes we saw on Instagram - “we’ve got to make this!”, and get doughnuts to celebrate getting post-Covid orchestral work and getting through some excessively hard days. It was exhilarating and idyllic.
At the same time, I was trying to find a form of exercise that made me feel as good as running had done. I could objectively recognise that the runners’ high had been mixed in with feelings of accomplishment surrounding certain numbers increasing and others decreasing, but there was something about yoga and swimming that wasn’t hitting the spot. It was so hard to consistently show up to any form of movement that didn’t give me that same satisfaction, and so I stopped. I luxuriated in stasis and spent my free time napping, partly trying to catch up on years of rest and partly as a way of taking a break from my emotions. There was a divide beginning to form: the young Rebecca who couldn’t believe her adult self was ‘letting herself go’ and giving in to laziness, but there was adult Becca too who craved this nourishing stillness and softness, and was tentatively proud for such a huge step in her recovery. As my body resembled less and less my smaller, disordered self, that chasm widened and I inhabited adult Becca much more; I got used to her rubbing thighs and rounded belly; I became accustomed to being her, though I could still hear Rebecca’s muffled discomfort.
I started posting about my bigger body online, reposting radical quotes about racism and misogyny in diet culture, and received swathes of validation for the honest conversations. For a while it was thrilling and proved an equal substitute for the validation I had stopped receiving about my body. I could deal with not being wanted sexually if my authentic voice was wanted instead. In fact, my DMs had shifted dramatically from being male-dominated to almost entirely women sending messages about how much my Instagram resonated with them and how brave I was for being honest (and bigger, or so I read). Over time, I realised how much I missed being thin: I now couldn’t look at candid photos of myself, I couldn’t drift into vintage shops anymore and fit into the clothes I liked, I couldn’t go to a doctors appointment without my increased weight being mentioned, showing skin was now controversial and inspiring rather than sexy, and I felt totally ignored by some of the men that used to book me for gigs and include me in their social circles of beautiful women.
Foolishly, I mistook the emotional numbness I’d developed around my belly and thighs as self-acceptance. I was adamant that I’d reached the mythical pinnacle of ‘body neutrality’ that I’d read about, but these mental no-go zones were in fact ways of hiding self-disgust from myself. I worked with my therapist on expanding my awareness into these fleshy, anaesthetised parts of my body, often crying when I managed to really experience my body as a whole. It was, and is still, overwhelming to truly breathe out, to feel my stomach against the inside of my trousers, my soft jawline, the fat on my arms.
I talk a lot about recovery in the past tense but it is still very much a mixture of tenses for me. I can pinpoint real moments of positive change up to 10 years ago, but I’m also still struggling with that same young Rebecca and her critical voice. My clothes sizes are still increasing; it seems I have to buy a new, bigger summer wardrobe every year, and it feels like I just start accepting the next bigger size of myself when I realise I’ve grown yet again. “What if I continue putting on weight forever? What if the rest of my life is a constant sizing-up?” I’m not allowed to air these thoughts, because these fears are viewed as something I could easily take control of if I really wanted.
“Go for a run. Eat less. Everyone else does it.”
Recovery and body neutrality is only a valid lifestyle if you find a weight and stick to it clearly. I know that if I were to try to take control of my weight in any way, I’d be playing right into the hands of Anorexia again, just like an addict who has ‘just that one drink’ again or ‘just one hit’. It doesn’t work incrementally. The narrative around being fat is one of choice and blame, because something happening in slow motion like that is something you could have stopped.
There’s a threshold of how far you can push a conversation like this. Talking about mental health is more accepted when it can be viewed from a distance, for example, rather than as a current issue. Showing a ‘recovered’ body that’s a little bigger but still within a range of what’s socially acceptable is another one. I feel that I’m on the cusp of being told to be quiet and cover up again, just in the same way I’ve been told to get over my mental health issues. “It’s been long enough.” In an ideal world, I would feel empowered, feel belligerently motivated to keep the conversation alive in the face of this silencing I’ve worked hard to break. My body is tired though and my brain even more so, and sometimes the numbness of ignoring the whole thing is tempting.
Photos by Charlotte Amherst