The Walking Wounded

Yesterday, on the way home from dinner (and a few assorted errands), Sam and I passed a girl on the street that I'm sure was anorexic.  There's a certain look that kind of girl has, and it's in the face.  There are naturally slender people, yes, and their faces look healthy.  But this girl on the street last night, her face was like skin stretched over a skull.  There was no softness in her face at all, and I'm nearly certain that that look belongs to eating disordered individuals.  She looked...unhealthy, to say the least.  Besides the skull-esque look of her face, her clothes looked...hollow.  They were probably the smallest adult size they sell, and it was almost as if there was nothing in them, no legs or arms of any substance.  It was scary as hell.  I'm not lying when I say I did a triple-take.

I don't know what to say about it exactly, except that I was walking home with a full stomach (a happy full stomach) and a bag containing some hummus leftovers (that I fully intend on eating at some point), and that I'm happy.  And that it's hard for me to imagine that girl was happy.  In fact, perhaps it was simply the look on her skeletal face (drawn, and sad) that made me feel something, but I really think she was miserable.  Maybe I just want her to be miserable, because I can't feeling even one moment of joy while looking like that.  Not even the briefest moment of joy.  She looked miserable.  The look on her face wasn't happy.  She looked scary. 

I don't know what the answer is, but the more I read, and the more I hear (I have a co-worker who is extremely fat-prejudiced, and I love her anyway, but still), the harder it is for me to imagine a world where we can all just eat.  Just give it all up and eat.  Just stop hating our thighs or our tummies or our arm flab and just love ourselves as we are.  I don't know one woman who unreservedly loves herself.  I don't know any woman who doesn't occasionally make a comment about how bad she is to be eating x food (where x equals something sweet or something fatty or something delicious).  I don't know any women that don't occasionally indulge in a self-bashing session, and that easily includes me. 

I guess there are just some people who take the self-bashing and turn it into physical bashing, because anorexia is the slow destruction of your body.  It's that psychological abuse turned frighteningly real.  And it seems like we're not even close to figuring out how to end the psychological abuse, which means we must be even farther from ending the physical stuff. 

I don't have any words I can possibly say to that girl on the street, the starving girl, but I want to.  I want to, but instead I'm just sad for her, just unspeakably sad (I'm not doing a very good job of expressing it here, after all). 

Comments

[Rita]

There was a woman who lived in my apartment building who was pretty much the same way. She used to ride her bike everywhere and, when she had that helmet on, she looked like the craziest human lollipop. That sounds funny at first, but it just made me so sad. It really looked like her little neck might just snap from the weight of that huge helmet.

She fed her cats regularly, but there is no way she was feeding herself. We are totally taught, from birth, that we have to control ourselves, and deny ourselves food. That eating is "bad," that being hungry is "good." Being strict and disciplined, starving yourself - or just denying yourself some really good foods - is good. Is what we should aim for. We're taught that whatever we are is not good enough, but also that if you take that notion too far and develope an eating disorder, that's bad too.

I'm terrified of having a daughter someday, because it seems an impossible task to allow a girl to grow up without learning these things.

[Fermi]

I enjoyed this post, and will be returning to your blog.

Eating Disorders (ED)take some form of mental distress. Usually it is not about food but about control (as Rita suggests.) While it is true that EDs are less prevalent in Muslim people (because their bodies are covered all the time) it is more about control.

If you feel out of control in other areas in your life, one thing you can control is your food intake.