disordered eating

If you were a teenager in the late '90s or early 2000s, chances are you know about Livejournal.

If you wake up and you’re thinking about dinner, and it’s not because you forgot to thaw out the pot roast, you have a problem.

Most days, I find good reasons to be optimistic about the way diverse figures are celebrated in the media.

I would wonder if others saw me as “super healthy” or as a “fit chick” — or if they had those thoughts at all. I was constantly consumed with every minute detail of my lifestyle, wondering if it was going to take me closer or further away from my ideal body.

I talked to you about the scale last week. It’s a tool I’ve proven that I will use to punish myself. I said I wouldn’t weigh myself. I said numbers don't matter. And then I broke my promise to you. I made the same promise face-to-face with my oldest and dearest friend — a pinky-swear. I broke that one, too.

My therapist of six months — let’s call her L — was letting me go. It was so subtle that I wasn’t even sure what was happening; I had to ask.

I understand the connections between the violence that leads to police shootings and the violence that leads people to starve themselves. I know with complete certainty that diet culture is a manifestation of the state’s expectation of assimilation and of social control, both of which are manifestations of institutional violence.

Have you ever been on a seemingly endless road trip and asked yourself: "Am I there yet?" ...only to realize that your GPS says you have about eight more hours before your reach your destination? At that point, you probably felt like you were never going to reach the end of your journey, but even though you couldn't see the end point, you still kept going.