Mom’s moving to a retirement and assisted living home. As part of that move, my daughters and I are helping her sort through her stuff to see what goes in the trash, what gets donated or sold, what comes home with me, and what goes to her new, 800 sq. ft. apartment from her 1200 sq. ft. condo.
Through that process, we came across some letters that I had written to my mother when I was at boarding school in Plymouth, England. I knew that when I was a teenager, from about the time I was 15, I started being conscious of my weight – for some reason I thought I was fat. I wasn’t. I was a slim 130 (if that) 5’6” healthy teenager. I was active in competitive swimming, school sports including the occasional cross-country run, every other weekend “expeditions” consisting of 20 mile hikes across southern England carrying a backpack (stuffed with contraband) and a sleeping bag.
My memories of my teenage years are somewhat fragmented but I had always thought of myself as healthy, albeit depressed a lot, but that’s a different topic. What really opened my eyes was this paragraph I wrote to mom:
“I’m on a diet. Today I ate only five carrots and a biscuit.”
My heart is broken when I look back at the young girl who was so lost and thought that eating only five carrots and a biscuit was a healthy diet. No one noticed that it was the sign of an eating disorder. And yes, I now think I probably had a pretty active eating disorder. The picture above is me at my high school graduation. I had a 23 inch waist at the time. I was proud of that.
Things soon changed when I went to college because I switched over to eating hamburgers and milkshakes and quickly lost that 23” waist. It grew even further about six months later when I became pregnant at age 18. Then I switched from eating 5 carrots a day to eating bread and sugar sandwiches.
Good lord. No wonder by the time I hit Weight Watchers I was nearly 100 pounds overweight. I would go in cycles of binging and not eating. Nothing was normal or healthy. I didn’t know what healthy was. I was never taught, or never witnessed, healthy eating.
Now I know better. And I’m glad I wrote that letter. It resurfaced at just the right time. My life focus is now on being healthy – body, mind, and spirit – and going to whatever lengths I can to make that happen.
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