For the last seven or eight years (save for periods of pregnancy), I have gone two or three times a month to my favorite neighborhood wine bar. I take a good book and stay for a couple hours, drinking in the quiet atmosphere and enjoying the solitude. I went tonight, dressed smartly, copy of Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling" in hand, savoring a glass of sauvignon blanc. I read for quite awhile, occasionally glancing up to peer at the patrons around me, when suddenly a radical idea smacked me in the head: "I am putting on a show." The clothes, the literature, even the wine was a calculated display. This realization came less in the judgy, "Oh my God, I'm a pretentious asshole" form, and more in the awareness that my presentation - my very BEING at that time - was an intentional portrait of how I want to be perceived. Boiled down further, my clothing, my book, even the flamboyant vocabulary with which I ordered my wine, was an effort to scream, "Look, I'm intelligent! I'm intellectual! I'm refined!" At it's most basic, my self-portrait is a plea to the people around me to disregard my body and notice instead my mind.
To be fair, even when I'm by myself I appreciate fashion, enjoy good wine, and delight in existentialism. Those are authentic parts of myself. However, it is important to note, for me, the implications of emphasizing my brain over my body. I have an eating disorder. Plainly stated, I have a disease marked almost exclusively by body obsession. I have a desperate, dangerous infatuation with perfecting my physical appearance. Why, then, the (probably obnoxious) effort to display my mental prowess? I think the two are born of the same flesh.
Much is made in the therapeutic sphere about "core beliefs." Simply stated, your core beliefs are the long-standing beliefs you hold about yourself, other people, and the world around you. These beliefs were formed early in life from messages - both overt and covert - received from your environment. One of my most damaging core beliefs is that my body is a wicked, dirty, nasty thing. In this context, the eating disorder makes perfect sense: my body must be punished, beaten into submission, made penitent, made undesirable to others who may wish to do harm. Starve to save, in other words. The hyper vigilance around displaying my intelligence makes sense too, though: maybe, just maybe, if I can distract you and impress you with my brain, you will miss the abomination of my body.
My goal in sharing this realization with you is not to highlight my own neurosis (God knows you've already seen that). Rather, I want to invite you to think about how you present yourself to the world. Are you completely authentic, putting your true self out there to the world with confidence and enthusiasm? (If so, please sit me down and impress upon me all your wisdom and clarity.) Or, like me, is your presentation a calculated effort to hide the parts of yourself of which you are ashamed? Do you put your best face forward while turning away the face that is flawed, that makes you human? Is there a part of you you've done your very best to hide?
I will never stop loving A-line skirts, wine from New Zealand, or Herr Kierkegaard. However, I hope to begin loving my body as well, that part of my being that allows me to slip on a dress, pick up a glass, and crack open a book. My hope for you is that you can embrace the painful but honest parts of yourselves too.
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