Eating Disorders and the Illusion of Control

11

59 p.m i don’t know about you

but i always submit my assignments which

are due at midnight at

11 59 p.m in fact

i’m pretty sure i submit my application

to give this talk

at 11 59 pm

because 11 59 pm has power

within those 60 seconds it is decided if

you are someone who is

responsible prepared and in charge of

their own life

you’ve gone to the edge and you’ve taken

control

but the truth is you’re not in control

of anything

your assignment is just as late as it

was submitted at 12 or 1201

but 11 59 pm tells a lie

and gives the illusion of control

and the adrenaline

is almost euphoric

this is the best

metaphor i have for an

eating disorder

disorders are not a lifestyle they’re

not

about health about beauty but they are

fundamentally

about control the logic is

if i control my body what i eat how i

look then obviously i’m in complete

control of what is happening to me

and what has already happened to me and

that does make sense

because an eating disorder is the

illusion of

control now what i’m saying may sound

insane to you it

it definitely used to sound insane to me

because

this type of thinking is what is

encouraged by our society and culture

eating disorders are shamed stigmatized

and used for profit they are either

not talked about or discussed in some

romanticized

glamorized b plot in the cw show

looking at you gossip girl and this is

extremely dangerous this is like

advertising a guillotine

as a vegetable slicer oh well if blair

waldorf has bulimia for

one episode in the first season and it

is literally never discussed again

oh that can’t be that bad

and you’ve drunk the kool-aid

however this casual treatment of eating

disorders is not solely

trapped inside our televisions but

rather

it bleeds out into our culture

it exists on three levels all right

let’s break it down

the first is the biggie social movements

eating disorders will do a bogus

metamorphosis

into digestible and acceptable forms of

consumption

the best example i have is the wellness

movement for those of you who don’t know

the wellness movement is an industry

built upon this idea

of health however this health

is not based in logical medicine but

rather upon natural white washed

cures like cleanses and superfoods and

intermittent fasting and so many more

manifestations

of disorders eating

and yet the evil

brilliance of the wellness movement is

that it presents a choice

are you well are you healthy

are you being good to yourself

or are you being unwell unhealthy and of

course the logical response to this is

no no

i want to be good i want to practice

wellness

because who would want to be bad

it’s the same rhetoric that created the

anti-vaccination movement

and it’s the same rhetoric that created

my eating disorder when i was eight

years old

i was diagnosed with adhd and my family

didn’t know how to handle it

and my mother was given a choice

put your child on medication that you’re

not familiar with

or control her diet so there i am

eight years old no idea what’s happening

to me and i am

taught that the only way to control

myself control the way people

see me and like me

and to fix what’s apparently

wrong with me

is by not eating white flour dairy or

any form of sugar

now try selling that to an

eight-year-old

pizza parties shocked

but that rhetoric has stayed with me my

entire life

and that’s the wellness movement you can

control your daughter’s mental disorder

you can control anything it sells

the illusion of control

now the second level is no surprise

social media i don’t know about anyone

else but my explore page is basically a

shrine

to losing weight a shrine with many

different forms

those health pages with those stupid uh

his and hers plates

oh calories of different nuts follow her

for a workout routine and then of course

my least favorite what i eat in a day

if i came up to you on this street and i

went hello

well i’m i’m a stranger and welcome i’m

hot

uh do i know what i ate today now you

eat it too

you would be very afraid

however we do this on social media and

not only is it an accepted form of

communication

but rather an encouraged one we would

rather

emulate a thin stranger

than listen to our own bodies

the third and final level is the most

dangerous

our everyday interactions this is how

diet culture

is cemented because it becomes part of

our language

especially on a college campus we take

pride

in our disordered eating oh i only had

coffee today i’m

feeling thin today i’m feeling fat today

skinny legend oh god i ate so much i’m

going to throw up

lmao i feel like i’m gaining the

freshman 15.

there’s literally too many examples for

me to name

and this is the lifeblood of eating

disorder culture

because it completely assimilates eating

disorders into way that we communicate

with each other

it makes it cute it makes it pretty

it makes it nothing

but it’s not nothing

the truth is eating disorders are not

pretty

they’re not cute they are

gnarly all consuming

ruinous things

and they have to be treated as such

so how do we do this how do we not only

begin dismantling the victoria’s secret

model lab system but also our own

personal eating disorder beliefs

and the answer is but what we’re doing

right now

we are having an honest and vulnerable

discussion

about eating disorders

when i had anorexia and bulimia it was a

secret

no one knew not my family not my friends

no one and the lie

it allowed me to spiral deeper until i

had to ask for

help when i was at rock

bottom and it was because

i didn’t know that anyone else was

experiencing this

when i make art about eating disorders

it’s not for no reason

i had a piece up at the kennedy center

about my anorexia and bulimia around

three years ago and a girl came up to me

a stranger

and she said i have not eaten

in two years and this was the first

time anyone has said what i was feeling

thank you she started crying

and i started crying

and it was one of the most beautiful

things i’ve ever experienced in my

entire life

because we were two people strangers

but we weren’t alone anymore

and that is the power of talking about

eating disorders that is the power

of putting an uncomfortable issue at the

forefront of discussion

you are breaking the pattern

and this can be through artwork creation

talking to your friends your family or

standing in front of all of you

and talking about my eating disorder

all of these take strength resilience

and bravery four years ago

when i was sucked into my eating

disorder i never

thought i would be here in recovery

talking about it and my hope is that

this

talk has made at least one of you feel a

little

less alone and i’m not fully recovered

i still have my you know uh-oh moments

but now i’m prepared i’m resilient

and maybe one day i’ll be submitting my

assignments the day before

and not one minute until midnight

thank you