So I Can Say This is the Way That I Used to Be

I used to read magazines…

When I was in middle school and high school, I began a tradition every August. When my family spent a week at the beach, I would buy all the teen magazines I could find and study them like a guide while I sat on a beach towel hoping to get even a little tan.

Back then, I went to a very poor religious private school and was used to khaki and navy pleated skirts and white polos. This was not the cute sexy uniform that most people imagine on private schoolers. It was unflattering, and the rules regarding accessories were so strict, you were lucky if the hoop earrings you wore were allowed (big ones were banned because a girl had ripped her earlobe on the playground one year, or so they told us).

Because of this, I had absolutely no knowledge of fashion, or even much of a wardrobe of my own, besides ugly long skirts which I wore on Fridays, which were “dress up” days at school.

So when August rolled around, I would sit on the beach, memorizing every page of Seventeen and Teen Vogue and Cosmo Girl and dreaming about the day when I would be stylish and confident and popular. The pages of those magazines held another world, the world of public school, a world without uniforms. Every year I would read those magazines and promise myself that THIS year would be different. That THIS year I would fit the personality profile outlined in Elle Girl, the “How to Be Friends with Everyone” or “How to Get the Guy.” But every year I would fall just short and repeat the cycle the next year.

Now I look back on my sheltered mindset and laugh. I guess those fantasies were wonderful while they lasted, but I would never be like one of the girls in those magazines. Mostly because they don’t really exist. Everyone is insecure, and most girls look past the editorials of Teen Vogue and settle for Northface jackets, ugg boots, and messy buns.

But I would never even reach that point. And today, I look back and smile a bit, thinking about how crazy I was to not embrace myself for who I was. Because it was fun to pretend, but I wouldn’t really want to be that girl. I’d much rather be the unique and quirky person I am today.

The magazine industry is beginning to fail, and I don’t wonder why. Of course the internet age has ushered in some serious competition, but also maybe girls of the most impressionable age are getting wise and realizing that magazines are nothing but one long ad, dedicated to making you feel like you need to consume more and look prettier to be worth anything. And that’s something I think we’re all tired of.

Cheers,

<3Elle

(Of course I can’t discount magazines in their entirety. After all, they DID teach me to use baby powder for greasy hair, and that pantyhose gets out deodorant stains, and that eyeshadow primer is absolutely necessary…but all the same, I think I’m done for good. There’s only so many times that you can read about the dangers of too much tanning.)

The evils of cupcakes

A sure way to make yourself obsessive? Label foods bad.

I haven’t had a cupcake in almost a year. For the last 3 months it’s been because of food sensitivities, but before that it was because I was so scared of the calories.

The restaurant I worked at sold mini cupcakes. I always desperately wanted one, but I wasn’t willing to spend the 300 calories that one was. I thought eating one was weakness. And I was SHOCKED when coworkers would eat TWO. It seemed like this crazy overindulgence that would lead to obesity.

Now I look back and roll my eyes at myself. I lived with this black cloud over my head when it came to food, because I wasn’t allowed to ever eat the things I liked and if I did I would condemn myself for a week.

I remember one night when I sobbed in the bathroom to my mom. I remember telling her how all I could ever think about was food: when my next meal was, what it was, how much I would have to work out to lose weight, how much of a pig I was because all I could think about was food. And I could never enjoy food when I ate it because the entire time I focused on the calories in it or how much everyone around me was judging me for eating. 

Now I realize that one of the most detrimental things you can do to yourself is cut out foods completely. You HAVE to allow yourself the things you like, or you will set yourself up for a binge, for obsessiveness, for self-hatred.

Cupcakes aren’t evil. And if you want one, enjoy it. 

I for one can’t wait til I can eat them again.

<3elle

I’ve stopped looking at thinspo.

I used to really support it. In fact this used to be a thinspo tumblr. But i realized that the more time I spent on it the more depressed I got. The more I focused on my thighs in comparison with some coked out baby doll pixie teenager photoshopped beyond recognition, the more I slipped into an altered reality where the most important thing was eating less to feel more powerful. To feel accomplished.

Because for some reason the girls in the thinspo pics wield so much power. 

Even though most of them are 15-16 year old girls taking pictures of themselves in front of mirrors and pretending to look candid and bored and “so over it.” I am so tired of wistful waifish things smoking or looking through the camera, with “you are not adequate” stares. Like somehow these girls hold the answers when really they’re just as fucked up as the rest of us.

Stop spending all your time looking at thinspo. Like it will help you. Like you’re doing yourself a favor by looking at it and bemoaning how “less than” you are and how SOMEDAY you will be JUST LIKE one of these girls.

Not gonna happen. I’m sorry, it just won’t. Because whatever a picture may capture, it’s just a single frame of one girl’s life, whether she is cheesing in a bikini or strutting down a runway. A person’s weight is not a measure of how “together” they are.

thereluctantrawfoodist asked: I am not sure how I came not to be following you again .. Tumblr moment I guess. How are you doing? x

Haha no worries. I am doing alright. I have lost a lot of weight but it’s mostly due to the health problems I’ve been dealing with for the past 6 months. 

Tell you what, an eating disorder is the last thing on my mind right now.

Friends, be thankful that you CAN eat. I am currently battling (and winning) a complicated health issue which has limited my diet to brown rice, steamed vegetables, and fruit. I’m currently adding potatoes and other sources of protein, but it’s trial and error, and I’ve done a lot of “why me”-ing over the past few months.

Now I’m just in the stages of healing and realizing that the stress I’ve put on myself is part of what got me into this mess.

I’m learning that I can control my mood and that my thoughts can be very very powerful. While before I was in a downward spiral of health issues compounded by anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder, now I would say that I’m starting to heal the health issue and am daily learning how to combat the anxiety and depression. 

So how am I doing? 

Well, it’s hard to eat things. And some nights I cry when I’m in pain. But I’ve felt happiness again for the first time in months. And I have felt it daily. I can watch movies and read books and focus on them. I’m not incredibly fatigued every day. My passion for life is coming back. And I feel more centered spiritually. 

I guess I’m taking it one day at a time, learning to love and care for myself, and in doing that, healing.

How are you? :)

<3elle