I want to begin by calling myself to the carpet. I am one of the very worst offenders when it comes to not practicing what I preach. In my defense, my (possibly overzealous) attempt to warn younger people of the ills of eating disorders stems entirely from my experience with the consequences. I am terribly desperate to help other people avoid the struggles I have endured. I have had a few ballsy people point out that I am hardly the one to extoll the virtues of self-care and body acceptance. It's apparently difficult to take body-love advice from a woman who still shops in the juniors section.
That being said, my mission remains the same. My pastor, a woman I love and admire tremendously, once told me that she preaches what she needs to hear. That's how I blog. I need this reminder now more than ever, which is why I'm bringing it to you.
Our words and actions carry weight. Far more than we know. Especially when we take on roles like parenting, mentoring, teaching, or otherwise interacting with youth. We become examples. We have the option of either being positive role models or cautionary tales. What we do and what we say is absorbed by a younger generation, still innocent, still idealistic. They look to us to know what they should do, and sometimes, what they should not do. Our influence cannot be trivialized.
I have made it a point in the last few years to educate and inform parents and children about the importance of making healthy choices. In the meantime, I have made some very unhealthy choices myself. I have given speeches on the dangers of eating disorders to auditoriums full of high school students only to head off to rehab weeks later. I have carefully instructed my own children on the necessity of a balanced diet and moderate exercise, only to sit down to dinner meticulously portioning out my boiled chicken and steamed carrots before heading out on a run. I have blogged about ignoring media influences while poring over the latest issue of Shape, criticizing myself for not having an eight-pack. To put it plainly, I've been a hypocrite.
I began to wonder what type of people I myself look up to. Kate Moss, still heroin chic after all these years? The battalion of Victoria's Secret models, strutting their nearly-naked stuff in thousands of catalogs? Any of the countless gangly, pale, hollow-cheeked actresses I watch on television and at the movie theater? No, no, and no. My heroes are Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, my grandma. Women who were and are incredibly intelligent, fiercely bold, unimaginably brave. Women who put justice and mercy and compassion before all else. Women who care far more about the welfare of humanity than about the size of their dresses.
When I consider the impact my presence might have on other, younger people, do I want it to be body-related? Do I want my students to remember me as their "skinny teacher?" Do I want my own precious children to reflect on how little I ate, how disciplined I was? Absolutely not. I want to blaze a trail of bravery, of justice, of love. I want to be remembered as a woman who wasn't afraid to hold strong for her convictions. I want to be remembered as a woman who was resolute in her principles. I want to be remembered as a woman who stood toe-to-toe with her demons and never, ever backed down.
That's the legacy I want to leave. In order to do so, I must act now. What sort of influence do you want to have, and what do you need to do to guarantee it?
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
On Women and Violence
I have been married to a man for ten years who has never - not one time - so much as raised his voice to me in anger. We have had our disagreements, of course. We have gone at it about money, household chores, parenting, all the average points of contention of committed relationships. But we have done so respectfully, careful to never name-call or demean or cut down. We love and respect each other too much to be cruel.
Before I began my relationship with my husband, my landscape was very different. I'll never forget showing up to work (where my current spouse was my then-boss) with a black eye. Now-husband asked how I got it. I spun some tale of falling, being a clumsy idiot. His response: "Oh. Well... if it was a guy who did that to you, he should be in jail." I didn't cop to it at the time, but it was indeed a guy who gave me that shiner. I had been dating a man for awhile (we'll call him "Joe"), and though I didn't love him and couldn't see any future with him, I stuck around. He was familiar. Joe could be very sweet. He would surprise me with flowers. He would share romantic songs that reminded him of me. He also drank an awful lot. One night he showed up with a tiny gold ring, and proposed. I was 19. I was a mess. I had no desire to marry Joe or anyone else, and I told him as much. He left my apartment, and I assumed that was the end of our relationship. Around 3 am that morning he was back at my apartment, drunk as a skunk, and awfully angry. He insisted I marry him. I refused. He punched me square in the face.
A few years prior to that incident, a boy I had known, loved, and treasured since kindergarten asked me to be his girlfriend. "I can't! It would be weird," I explained. "You're like my brother." He pulled out a knife, held it over me, and sexually assaulted me repeatedly for two hours. That was one of those pivotal, life-altering moments. That single event permanently changed my entire trajectory.
I like to consider myself a very progressive woman. I am teaching my daughter (and my sons) that women don't NEED men. Women can take care of themselves, can fulfill their own dreams, can succeed and achieve at the same level as men, and that's just how it should be. My views are based on personal experience, but not in the conventional sense. I want for women - my little girl among them - to have more than I had. I am tremendously blessed with a good, honest, kind man now, but he came along after a succession of violent abusers. I aspire for a world in which those abusers no longer have a place.
Unless you live in some kind of hobbit hole, you have likely heard about the Ray Rice controversy. Mr. Rice is a very talented football player who was caught on video beating his then-fiancée. The NFL's first response was to suspend Mr. Rice for two games. Two games for knocking out a woman and dragging her out of an elevator by the hair. The enormous public outcry eventually prompted the NFL to revise its stance on domestic violence offenses, and later (much too late) to suspend Mr. Rice indefinitely. In the aftermath, I have heard comments from "reputable" television personalities including, "She cost him his football career," "Why didn't she just leave?" and, "She should've taken the stairs."
I'd like to address this issue, not from the perspective of a football fan (which I am) or a "good ol' boy" (which I am most assuredly not), but as a woman who has been raped and beaten by men, and also treated respectfully and lovingly by a man. I've walked both paths. I know what love can be, and I know what love never, ever is.
In spite of all the gains we women have made in the past several decades - we can vote, we can have careers, we can control our own finances, we can control our reproduction, we can determine our own goals - we still find ourselves in the one-down position. We too often find ourselves at the mercy of the men in our lives. For whatever reason, we find ourselves with less power. Sometimes, no power at all. This affects our psychology. A repeated pattern of victimization by men, often beginning in childhood, leads to a core belief that we are simply not as important, as valuable, as our men. I certainly believed this for a long time. Several years ago, when I sought trauma therapy, I walked into my counselor's office and said, "I know God put me on this earth for the pleasure of men. I need you to help me figure out how to deal with that." Thank goodness (no, thank God) she was a good therapist, and she helped me realize I was the victim of circumstance, not a bad person deserving of abuse. Many, many women never have access to the help that I received. Many, many women never have the opportunity to recognize their own value, their own power. Many, many women will continue to go back to the men who hurt them, because these women believe that they are blessed to have someone to love them. The bruises and fractures and concussions are just confirmation that they don't deserve that love.
Victim blaming needs to stop. Victim blaming only serves to further oppress the people who have already been stomped down. Victim blaming absolves the perpetrators - the people who committed acts of violence against other people unable to defend themselves - from the guilt which is entirely theirs. I am pleased that the NFL ultimately revised its policy on domestic violence, but I am dismayed that it took so long to get there. I am pleased that violence against women is in the spotlight, but I am dismayed that it continues to be so prevalent and pervasive. I am pleased (incredibly grateful, overwhelmingly blessed, hugely fortunate) to be married to a genuinely good man, but I am dismayed at the pain and suffering I endured before I realized I deserved that good man.
The best we can do - and if it's the only thing I do with my time on this planet, I will be thrilled - is to teach our own children how to treat others, and how to be treated themselves. We need to teach our sons and daughters that violence is never, ever acceptable. We need to teach our sons and daughters to respect their bodies, their minds, and their spirits. We need to teach our sons and daughters to demand that same respect from others. We must - we MUST - raise up this new generation to care for one another. And we must lead by example by diligently caring for each other and ourselves.
Before I began my relationship with my husband, my landscape was very different. I'll never forget showing up to work (where my current spouse was my then-boss) with a black eye. Now-husband asked how I got it. I spun some tale of falling, being a clumsy idiot. His response: "Oh. Well... if it was a guy who did that to you, he should be in jail." I didn't cop to it at the time, but it was indeed a guy who gave me that shiner. I had been dating a man for awhile (we'll call him "Joe"), and though I didn't love him and couldn't see any future with him, I stuck around. He was familiar. Joe could be very sweet. He would surprise me with flowers. He would share romantic songs that reminded him of me. He also drank an awful lot. One night he showed up with a tiny gold ring, and proposed. I was 19. I was a mess. I had no desire to marry Joe or anyone else, and I told him as much. He left my apartment, and I assumed that was the end of our relationship. Around 3 am that morning he was back at my apartment, drunk as a skunk, and awfully angry. He insisted I marry him. I refused. He punched me square in the face.
A few years prior to that incident, a boy I had known, loved, and treasured since kindergarten asked me to be his girlfriend. "I can't! It would be weird," I explained. "You're like my brother." He pulled out a knife, held it over me, and sexually assaulted me repeatedly for two hours. That was one of those pivotal, life-altering moments. That single event permanently changed my entire trajectory.
I like to consider myself a very progressive woman. I am teaching my daughter (and my sons) that women don't NEED men. Women can take care of themselves, can fulfill their own dreams, can succeed and achieve at the same level as men, and that's just how it should be. My views are based on personal experience, but not in the conventional sense. I want for women - my little girl among them - to have more than I had. I am tremendously blessed with a good, honest, kind man now, but he came along after a succession of violent abusers. I aspire for a world in which those abusers no longer have a place.
Unless you live in some kind of hobbit hole, you have likely heard about the Ray Rice controversy. Mr. Rice is a very talented football player who was caught on video beating his then-fiancée. The NFL's first response was to suspend Mr. Rice for two games. Two games for knocking out a woman and dragging her out of an elevator by the hair. The enormous public outcry eventually prompted the NFL to revise its stance on domestic violence offenses, and later (much too late) to suspend Mr. Rice indefinitely. In the aftermath, I have heard comments from "reputable" television personalities including, "She cost him his football career," "Why didn't she just leave?" and, "She should've taken the stairs."
I'd like to address this issue, not from the perspective of a football fan (which I am) or a "good ol' boy" (which I am most assuredly not), but as a woman who has been raped and beaten by men, and also treated respectfully and lovingly by a man. I've walked both paths. I know what love can be, and I know what love never, ever is.
In spite of all the gains we women have made in the past several decades - we can vote, we can have careers, we can control our own finances, we can control our reproduction, we can determine our own goals - we still find ourselves in the one-down position. We too often find ourselves at the mercy of the men in our lives. For whatever reason, we find ourselves with less power. Sometimes, no power at all. This affects our psychology. A repeated pattern of victimization by men, often beginning in childhood, leads to a core belief that we are simply not as important, as valuable, as our men. I certainly believed this for a long time. Several years ago, when I sought trauma therapy, I walked into my counselor's office and said, "I know God put me on this earth for the pleasure of men. I need you to help me figure out how to deal with that." Thank goodness (no, thank God) she was a good therapist, and she helped me realize I was the victim of circumstance, not a bad person deserving of abuse. Many, many women never have access to the help that I received. Many, many women never have the opportunity to recognize their own value, their own power. Many, many women will continue to go back to the men who hurt them, because these women believe that they are blessed to have someone to love them. The bruises and fractures and concussions are just confirmation that they don't deserve that love.
Victim blaming needs to stop. Victim blaming only serves to further oppress the people who have already been stomped down. Victim blaming absolves the perpetrators - the people who committed acts of violence against other people unable to defend themselves - from the guilt which is entirely theirs. I am pleased that the NFL ultimately revised its policy on domestic violence, but I am dismayed that it took so long to get there. I am pleased that violence against women is in the spotlight, but I am dismayed that it continues to be so prevalent and pervasive. I am pleased (incredibly grateful, overwhelmingly blessed, hugely fortunate) to be married to a genuinely good man, but I am dismayed at the pain and suffering I endured before I realized I deserved that good man.
The best we can do - and if it's the only thing I do with my time on this planet, I will be thrilled - is to teach our own children how to treat others, and how to be treated themselves. We need to teach our sons and daughters that violence is never, ever acceptable. We need to teach our sons and daughters to respect their bodies, their minds, and their spirits. We need to teach our sons and daughters to demand that same respect from others. We must - we MUST - raise up this new generation to care for one another. And we must lead by example by diligently caring for each other and ourselves.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
How Soon We Forget
Those of you who have given birth will understand this phenomenon: during the process of bearing a child, you're overwhelmed with pain, fear, and desperation. The physical torment is unlike anything you've ever experienced. Your body is being ripped in two. All you can focus on is the hope for an end to the hurt. Fast forward a year, and your memory paints a picture of a brief period of struggle followed by the greatest joy of your life. You forget the pain, you remember the greatness.
That's the benefit of a tricky memory. The slipperiness has a dark side, though. I imagine it happens with any addiction; a sober alcoholic may reminisce about the sudden release of anxiety that follows an empty glass. An addict may remember with relish the ecstasy immediately after a hit. A compulsive gambler may delight in the thought of the adrenaline burst of throwing the dice at the craps table. So too do I fall into the trap of dwelling on the good while editing out the crippling.
A year ago I was 94 lbs. I'm 5'8 and have birthed three children, so this was not a physiological high point for me. When I look at pictures from this time last year, I see a very, very thin woman... and I am jealous. Jealous of myself. Jealous of the place I was in, bitter that I'm not there now. I look at the photographs then look in the mirror then spend a very, very long time feeling like shit. Because my memory is broken. I remember the delight of seeing the scale dip lower every morning. I remember the head rush of hunger. I remember the tremendous sense of superiority I felt on the beach, looking at childless high school students who weren't as thin as I was.
I have a much harder time remembering what was really happening a year ago. My heart struggled to beat regularly. I could only walk short distances. I passed out. My husband couldn't stand to be around me. I was mean to my children. I didn't want to have anything to do with the people who loved me because I rejected their concern. I cared more about the calories in a tomato than about the welfare of my family. I was barely a shadow of myself. I was dying, and furthermore, I was angry that I hadn't died already. My disease had full hold, and I was on a runaway train.
How soon we forget. Those of us in recovery (from anorexia and from all other addictive, compulsive disorders) reach a point where we are far enough away from our destructive behaviors to function normally, but still close enough to hold onto their imagined benefits. Like the mother who forgets the pain of childbirth and focuses on the joy of parenthood, we forget the torture of our disease and focus on the illusion of happiness it gave us.
That's what it is, though: an illusion. Nothing more. Losing thirty pounds will not make me happier (despite my mind's best efforts to convince me otherwise), it will just make me dead. Taking a drink after a long dry spell will not take the edge off, it will just bring you back to the misery you worked so hard to get away from. Freebasing cocaine may seem like a way to get a thrill in an otherwise mundane world, but it will find you penniless and alone before you know it. Heading to the casino will be exciting at first, until you've lost your rent money and don't know what you're going to do to keep the lights on.
Memory is indeed a tricky thing. We have the power to bring it into perspective, though. Let us remind each other of reality. Let us not allow each other to fall into the trap of airbrushed reminiscence. We can stay strong together. Sobriety can be hard. It can be painful, it can be lonesome, and hell, it can be downright boring. But it is the price we pay to stay alive, and it's worth it. Walk the path with me, will you?
That's the benefit of a tricky memory. The slipperiness has a dark side, though. I imagine it happens with any addiction; a sober alcoholic may reminisce about the sudden release of anxiety that follows an empty glass. An addict may remember with relish the ecstasy immediately after a hit. A compulsive gambler may delight in the thought of the adrenaline burst of throwing the dice at the craps table. So too do I fall into the trap of dwelling on the good while editing out the crippling.
A year ago I was 94 lbs. I'm 5'8 and have birthed three children, so this was not a physiological high point for me. When I look at pictures from this time last year, I see a very, very thin woman... and I am jealous. Jealous of myself. Jealous of the place I was in, bitter that I'm not there now. I look at the photographs then look in the mirror then spend a very, very long time feeling like shit. Because my memory is broken. I remember the delight of seeing the scale dip lower every morning. I remember the head rush of hunger. I remember the tremendous sense of superiority I felt on the beach, looking at childless high school students who weren't as thin as I was.
I have a much harder time remembering what was really happening a year ago. My heart struggled to beat regularly. I could only walk short distances. I passed out. My husband couldn't stand to be around me. I was mean to my children. I didn't want to have anything to do with the people who loved me because I rejected their concern. I cared more about the calories in a tomato than about the welfare of my family. I was barely a shadow of myself. I was dying, and furthermore, I was angry that I hadn't died already. My disease had full hold, and I was on a runaway train.
How soon we forget. Those of us in recovery (from anorexia and from all other addictive, compulsive disorders) reach a point where we are far enough away from our destructive behaviors to function normally, but still close enough to hold onto their imagined benefits. Like the mother who forgets the pain of childbirth and focuses on the joy of parenthood, we forget the torture of our disease and focus on the illusion of happiness it gave us.
That's what it is, though: an illusion. Nothing more. Losing thirty pounds will not make me happier (despite my mind's best efforts to convince me otherwise), it will just make me dead. Taking a drink after a long dry spell will not take the edge off, it will just bring you back to the misery you worked so hard to get away from. Freebasing cocaine may seem like a way to get a thrill in an otherwise mundane world, but it will find you penniless and alone before you know it. Heading to the casino will be exciting at first, until you've lost your rent money and don't know what you're going to do to keep the lights on.
Memory is indeed a tricky thing. We have the power to bring it into perspective, though. Let us remind each other of reality. Let us not allow each other to fall into the trap of airbrushed reminiscence. We can stay strong together. Sobriety can be hard. It can be painful, it can be lonesome, and hell, it can be downright boring. But it is the price we pay to stay alive, and it's worth it. Walk the path with me, will you?
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