Just because I'm skinny...
... does not mean it's okay to comment on my weight.
Can I tell you something about chronic illness? I fight and battle and feel like I'm winning and in that brief moment of respite where I stop to breathe and do all the fun things that everyone does and feel just a little bit normal... I forget that I'm sick. I hide it. It's so much easier to move on with life and ignore it then it is to consistently battle it every damn day.
Even more significantly, it's easier to hide it from the world because, for some reason, everyone feels like they can fix it (as if they know better than the person living with it).
For example... (excuse the profanity in this link):
http://invisiblyill.tumblr.com/post/47321767080/psa-if-you-dont-have-the-illness-dont-fucking-tell
Yeah, I will suffer and not say anything about it because I want you to bugger off and leave me alone. You're not helping. Unsolicited advice on something you don't understand is rude, not helpful. For the record, me saying this is not rude and if you get angry that I ask you to respect my boundaries and not fix me, then you're the one who has no social graces. Ignoring what people ask for because you know better is pretentious, not compassionate.
SO... on that note, the scary thing when I go into "mask mode" (where my falsely happy, untroubled self comes out to play) is that I don't even notice my descent into illness again. A wall of pain hits me one night when I wake up from the feeling that *thud* my shoulders just disconnected and more aligned with the headboard than my spine. And nothing I do will make me comfortable. I put cayenne and arnica rub on and down ibuprofen and so much for sleeping... sigh. The next morning, I know better than to kneel at my bedside for prayer (I actually never do anymore) because putting my knees on a hard surface would remind me sharply that it feels like there's broken glass inside of them. So I drag myself into a kind of slumped fetal position and plead with God to have the strength for today. And then when I finally convince myself to get on with the day (post "I'm just really not ready to leave my bed yet" nap), I get to look in the mirror and see...
A gaunt face, not even my face. Who is this woman? She is so ugly. Her face is bloodless and all her bones are apparent. Her skin looks mottled and tired.
Heaven forbid that I look in the full length mirror on a day like this. I'm haunted by words. Boyish, bean pole, skinny, bony, anorexic. How does that make me feel about my femininity? Well, ask my too-big skinny jeans and my padded "skinny day" bra. How about all of the mental health interventions about my body image and how I needed to eat? Um, I can't even feel hunger today because I feel like there's a black hole between my shoulder blades, sucking the life and energy out of my surrounding muscles and joints.
I threw up because I lost control of the resolve to bury the pain. It hit me and I got nauseous.
If you hang out with me on a regular day... you know that I love ice cream and could snarf a good half gallon in pretty short order. And I suppose this could qualify as binging, but I don't know who I'm going to see in the mirror in the morning... and I'm doing everything I can to avoid that ugly sick lady.
Don't call me skinny.
You can call me a lot of less offensive things than that. Despite my general aversion to the term, I'd rather be called sexy than skinny.
"You've lost weight," is not a compliment.
You're beautiful is a compliment.
You're kind is a compliment.
You're brave is a compliment.
You're skinny is NOT a compliment.
Here's a picture of me on a day when I felt beautiful, sexy, happy and flirtatious. I take a selfie when I feel beautiful because I never know how long it will last and I want to think of myself as beautiful, not sick.
Can I tell you something about chronic illness? I fight and battle and feel like I'm winning and in that brief moment of respite where I stop to breathe and do all the fun things that everyone does and feel just a little bit normal... I forget that I'm sick. I hide it. It's so much easier to move on with life and ignore it then it is to consistently battle it every damn day.
Even more significantly, it's easier to hide it from the world because, for some reason, everyone feels like they can fix it (as if they know better than the person living with it).
For example... (excuse the profanity in this link):
http://invisiblyill.tumblr.com/post/47321767080/psa-if-you-dont-have-the-illness-dont-fucking-tell
Yeah, I will suffer and not say anything about it because I want you to bugger off and leave me alone. You're not helping. Unsolicited advice on something you don't understand is rude, not helpful. For the record, me saying this is not rude and if you get angry that I ask you to respect my boundaries and not fix me, then you're the one who has no social graces. Ignoring what people ask for because you know better is pretentious, not compassionate.
SO... on that note, the scary thing when I go into "mask mode" (where my falsely happy, untroubled self comes out to play) is that I don't even notice my descent into illness again. A wall of pain hits me one night when I wake up from the feeling that *thud* my shoulders just disconnected and more aligned with the headboard than my spine. And nothing I do will make me comfortable. I put cayenne and arnica rub on and down ibuprofen and so much for sleeping... sigh. The next morning, I know better than to kneel at my bedside for prayer (I actually never do anymore) because putting my knees on a hard surface would remind me sharply that it feels like there's broken glass inside of them. So I drag myself into a kind of slumped fetal position and plead with God to have the strength for today. And then when I finally convince myself to get on with the day (post "I'm just really not ready to leave my bed yet" nap), I get to look in the mirror and see...
A gaunt face, not even my face. Who is this woman? She is so ugly. Her face is bloodless and all her bones are apparent. Her skin looks mottled and tired.
Heaven forbid that I look in the full length mirror on a day like this. I'm haunted by words. Boyish, bean pole, skinny, bony, anorexic. How does that make me feel about my femininity? Well, ask my too-big skinny jeans and my padded "skinny day" bra. How about all of the mental health interventions about my body image and how I needed to eat? Um, I can't even feel hunger today because I feel like there's a black hole between my shoulder blades, sucking the life and energy out of my surrounding muscles and joints.
I threw up because I lost control of the resolve to bury the pain. It hit me and I got nauseous.
If you hang out with me on a regular day... you know that I love ice cream and could snarf a good half gallon in pretty short order. And I suppose this could qualify as binging, but I don't know who I'm going to see in the mirror in the morning... and I'm doing everything I can to avoid that ugly sick lady.
Don't call me skinny.
You can call me a lot of less offensive things than that. Despite my general aversion to the term, I'd rather be called sexy than skinny.
"You've lost weight," is not a compliment.
You're beautiful is a compliment.
You're kind is a compliment.
You're brave is a compliment.
You're skinny is NOT a compliment.
Here's a picture of me on a day when I felt beautiful, sexy, happy and flirtatious. I take a selfie when I feel beautiful because I never know how long it will last and I want to think of myself as beautiful, not sick.
I don't post it for you, it's because this is me and I want to have reminders of that.
Love and admiration,
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