my background is, well, it's been a roller coaster. let's start with my mom. FEM-I-NIST. she's a hardcore 2nd-waver and passed on some of her principles to me. unfortunately, she has had eating/body image issues i think most of her life and passed those on to me, too. my sister and i remember little things she did that we now recognize as her being on a diet. monkey see, monkey do-- often unconsciously.
the first time i remember thinking i was fat or restricting food was around age 14. i remember i carried around a notebook and wrote down everything i ate with the number of calories and totaled them each day. because my mom and i have always butted heads (both alike and different in all the wrong ways), i felt deeply oppressed by her (the media certainly didn't help) and food was the only thing i felt i could control between us, so my almost benign issue exploded into a full-blown eating disorder about a year later. i remember the day, the moment, the thought: my mom grounded me for the rest of the summer after finding a bottle of vodka in my room. i literally made the decision to commit to weight loss and promptly got on the internet to look up crash diet tips. i was going to eat next to nothing. try to control this, mom!
for a while i refused to eat dinner, pretending i was pissed at something they did, then took to pushing food around my plate, taking more veggies than meat or bread, throwing food away, lying about food, fat/sugar free everything, no thanks i'm not hungry, i joined a food diary site and obsessed over measurements and calorie counts, i joined anorexia online communities to find tips and support, everything. in retrospect, i think the online communities helped because i saw girls who had it so much worse than me and that scared me-- their goal weights were crazy numbers like 80 or 90 pounds. but they also gave me emotional support when no one else understood what i was experiencing.
against my better judgment, i started purging during junior year. i think because i was so hungry after such a long period of starving my growing body i couldn't stop myself from eating. but that wasn't acceptable. i was so mad at myself for it. but, i didn't do it often because i hated doing it, i could easily get caught, and i had a boyfriend who hated that i did it, but i was definitely went through a bulimic period with consistent anorexic tendencies.
summer before senior year, i was on a purity kick too, ("orthorexia" i'm told), so i decided to go vegan. it was another way for my mom to fuck off-- she didn't know how to cook vegan! i could eat alone like i wanted, i could cut out more fat, and so on. it got out of control. i lost 20 pounds in a semester, maybe less. every waking moment i was consumed by my thoughts about food and eating. i fasted for days, did tea cleanses, liquid diets, cut out this and that, eating just enough that i wouldn't pass out at the gym. i was obsessed with restrictions and discipline. i don't remember how much i weighed before it all started-- i was regular with a little baby fat-- but by december of senior year, i weight 109, my lowest. i was so deeply depressed. i cried every day. i was starting to even scare myself, but i didn't know how to deal with it-- weighing more was not an option. my parents essentially ignored my problem, but then i found out from my sister they were thinking about sending me to a hospital to get help. what an effective and supportive way to deal with a dying daughter! to this day they haven't confronted the issue.
so, i let myself gain about 5 pounds over the next few months but i was pissed about it. i felt OBESE. in retrospect it's outrageous that i ever thought that, but something was telling me i was fat. after that i started to punish myself in other ways. it could have gotten way out of control-- i had already started having ocd tendencies too-- but real pain freaked me out so i stuck to general self-loathing which was fueled by the aftermath of a traumatic event a few years prior that was still eating at me (so to speak). suicide wasn't an option, either. i considered it for a hot second but i knew there was something to live for. i felt like i was stuck in this vicious routine, like someone or something was holding me there. (mom!) i couldn't get out of it and if i could, i didn't know how. i knew it wasn't how i was supposed to be! i'm a happy person! somewhere!
finally, i went to college, which gave me a lot of relief, but was also a huge change in terms of eating. our dining hall was buffet-style and had nooo vegan options, so i starved myself as well as i could, but also there was so much junk food and so much drinking. i gained the freshman 15, which i was FURIOUS about, and was having a harder time than ever losing it. duh, growing body!
sophomore year started out with another tragic event that sent me over the edge, but with the help of a healthy, happy friend, an epiphany was ignited and literally, as fast as it started, i said to myself, you're ok. stop doing this. i got happy! i still don't know where that came from but it saved my fucking life. i started doing normal things like drinking juice, using salad dressing, working out less, eating proper portions. then, over winter break my family and i went to italy. my mom told me in advance i had to start getting used to cheese again (my being vegan was always such a stressful inconvenience for her.) so i did. easy! the plague miraculously dissolved. i was able to go HOURS without even thinking about how i looked or what i had eaten. i knew i was gaining a bit more weight than i had to, but i felt like i was on my way to finding balance and having a healthy attitude toward food. all the while, my friend who had helped me also got me into political activism and i started dating this really great guy, so i really had something positive to channel my emotional energy into. activism soon became my life.
junior year was the first time i got to cook without a disorder and i was eating vegetarian with a goal of being healthy, cheap, and politically sound, so i was excited to get creative with MY food WHENEVER i wanted on MY terms. how liberating and empowering that felt. i started spending hours in the kitchen with my roommate, talking politics and observing her kneading technique and use of spices. i only got more radical as time went on. i got into dumpstering, buying local, buying seasonal-- essentially understanding the politics behind food more and more and more.
now, food is one of my greatest pleasures. i've graduated and don't have a job, so i can really devote time and emotional energy to cooking projects and things like this. it's liberating! it feels like my ED days were ages ago, but scrolling up makes me realize it was so recent and so fast that this all happened. i knew i had it in me.
when i was starting out as an activist, i began questioning all my previous beliefs. my mom had planted a staunch 2nd-wave seed that blossomed into something totally different that either of us expected. whereas she resents cooking, accuses my dad of expecting things of her, and gives men an all around hard time as some sort of revenge, i've taken a very different approach to domesticity, connecting many issues to one another. i believe that we CAN cook if it makes us happy, SOMEONE has to do the laundry... regardless of gender. we can't abandon our homes to make a point; we CAN make domestic activities gender equal, and move far beyond that into focusing also on reducing and rethinking our consumption. we have to apply the knowledge and skills that were handed down to us and not only share them with men so they won't rely on women or corporate boxed food for dinner, but also to see how we can improve them, make them more environmentally friendly, or throw them out altogether. there are a lot of social and ecological issues attached to the traditional household model, and i think some of us are on our way to questioning/reforming/revolutionizing our lifestyles, such as housing co-ops, intentional communities, etc. this blog is to show the ways i've been hoping to, planning to, trying to, and sometimes actually doing just that.
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