ED Reflections, no. 5

So--yo yo dieting. That's where I last left off in this "ED Reflections" series. Essentially, this is how I spent my teen years--gaining weight and losing it, gaining weight and losing it, etc., etc.

Not surprisingly, weight became the thing to which I attributed almost all negative and/or positive consequences? i.e., "Was Heather R. popular? Yes. Well, it must be because she's thin." "Did that boy at school seem annoyed that I was assigned to be his science partner? Yes. Well, it must be because I'm a fat and disgusting girl." "Did Jen want to be Rachel's best friend more than my best friend? Yes. Well, that's because Rachel is thin and I'm fat and ugly."

I still have irrational thoughts like these to this day, though at least now I'm (mostly) aware of them and able to consciously question them. At the time, however, I didn't have the tools to reach this awareness, and instead I just felt extremely socially awkward, uncomfortable in my "fat" body, and alone. 

It's not that I didn't have friends or even boyfriends, though I was never confident that my friends really liked me and my boyfriends were always few and far between. I still think that I might've turned out completely differently had I really bonded closely with a girlfriend or a group of girls; instead I had girlfriends here and there but none that remained constant in my life--through elementary, middle, and high schools, college, etc.

This sense of being alone, of feeling like I wasn't really close to anyone, culminated in high school, when I found myself going to prom with a boy who didn't like me. Though we had been dating for a month or two, I knew that he didn't really care about me. I knew it. His behavior let me know in a million ways (which I won't divulge) that he wasn't interested in understanding me, that he didn't respect me, and that he thought I wasn't worth his time. 

And yet, it was for this guy, and for the sake of looking "thin" at prom with him, that I first started purging food. Duh duh duhhhhhhhhhhhh! (The plot thickens) (Like your Mom's thighs) (Boo-yah).

I'm not going for a cliffhanger--since, let's face it, there's nothing I could say that would really constitute a cliffhanger--but I only have an hour and a half before David and I leave to go visit my parents ... and I'd really like to watch an episode of Gavin and Stacey!

*Have you ever stayed with someone when you knew you shouldn't--even though you might be a feminist?!!