My Eating Disorder Recovery Helped Me Finally Realize That It’s No One’s Job to Validate How I Look
“Wow," a former coworker said to me, looking me up and down. We had run into each other at the grocery store where we used to work. I was waiting for my runny cheese. "You look...different. Did you gain weight?"
I'm in recovery for an eating disorder and haven't stepped on a scale in years. My jeans fit me just fine that day. Still, his words stung. As I went to pay for my cheese, I mulled over his audacity and my reaction to it. There was a time not that long ago where words like this would do more than just sting.
Six years ago, in the thick of my eating disorder, a comment like that would have been enough to set me off on an epic binge or a renewed vow to restrict.
I started loathing the way I looked in middle school. I was already the tallest girl in the class when I grew breasts, seemingly overnight. I felt different from my classmates, jealous of their little girl bodies and wronged by genetics and fate. I fantasized about lopping off layers of flesh, inches of height. I wanted to disappear. When I learned I could control my weight by restricting what I ate, I felt powerful and terrified. Powerful because I took the matter of my body into my own hands—maybe I was in control after all, I’d think. Terrified because I was constantly hungry and on edge.
Restricting was miserable, and I knew I couldn’t keep it up for long. But oh, how I wanted to keep it up! It was a thrill, wiggling into a new pair of jeans. And even better when classmates, friends, family, and even strangers stopped me to tell me how great I looked. I believed them, and their approval tasted sweet. I sought that approval like a drug.
When my roommate said I looked cute in a hippie-ish green dress I had bought at a street fair, I outwardly accepted the compliment with cool nonchalance, but inside felt a warm glow of validation. When my aunt told me I looked thin, my eating disorder fist-bumped my ego in victory. Every time something didn’t work out with a guy I was dating, I worried that my body was to blame. Was I too fat to be desirable?
Throughout it all, what anyone (friends, strangers, boyfriends, family) thought about my body felt incredibly important. It carried the weight of my worth.
Even their compliments raised a question—how did they see me before? It seemingly confirmed my big fear: that I had been too fat, too much, unacceptable. I could be that way again, at any minute, because that was the truth of who I was. Through my distorted vision, the world liked me better when I was starving myself. It seemed an impossible and miserable bind.
These are not the values I wanted. I knew better. I read everything I could get my hands on about body positivity; I believed in the worth of all women in all shapes and sizes, unrelated to the way they looked. But somehow this did not apply to my own body. My quest for skinniness deeply embarrassed me. I told no one.
Until one day, when the pain of starving, binging, obsession, and self-hatred finally became too much to live with.
I joined a recovery group, got a sponsor, and very slowly over the course of six years learned a new way to see my body and myself in the world. What I ate, what I am going to eat, what I am afraid to eat, and the size of my thighs are no longer the first things I think about when I wake up in the morning or running on a loop when my head hits the pillow.
I used to look for external validation everywhere until I slowly but surely learned it didn't work. It would never be enough. And while it's been hard learning how to summon my own acceptance and kindness for myself, I realize that it’s the validation that matters most. Today, I know I am fundamentally okay. I feed myself healthfully but imperfectly. I live a big life full of adventures. I let myself eat when I’m hungry and rest when I’m tired. I still regularly struggle with body dysmorphia—trying on clothes can be an ordeal, and looking at pictures of myself sometimes feels like getting punched in the gut—but it’s far better than constantly not feeling comfortable in my skin or worthy of the space I take up in the world.
I’m grateful that recovery has helped me understand that whatever someone thinks about my body shouldn’t affect my self-worth.
A few months into recovery, I called my new sponsor in a fit of body image insecurity. I had stepped on the scale and the number had moved up, which was always the wrong direction, proof of my failure. I wanted to hear her reassure me that she couldn’t tell, to say to me, "Don't worry about it, your body is fine." Instead she told me that it wasn’t her job to validate the way I looked. That totally shook me. In my mind, that was exactly her job. I had looked to teachers, mentors, and boyfriends for praise. If I couldn’t muster my own self-esteem, I could borrow theirs. Shouldn’t a sponsor do the same?
It took me years to really get what she meant. But now I understand that whatever someone thinks about my body—good or bad—shouldn’t affect my self-worth. When my old coworker made that tone-deaf comment, I was momentarily thrown, but I didn't take it to heart. Later on that night, I mentioned what happened to my fiancé. "You look great,” he reassured me. I loved hearing his compliment, but I didn't dwell on it. We settled into the couch and dug into our favorite Indian delivery dinner.
