Breached Boundaries: You’d be prettier if you lost weight!
“She’s lost weight, hasn’t she? You can tell, right?”
I was mortified. For myself, but more so for the 18-year-old who was the object of that comment. Everything felt awkward. The position of an older, male authority figure commenting on a shy young girl’s appearance made me want to punch the fucker in the mouth. My very being there — I felt as if I had no right to hear such things. I wished the ground would swallow me whole.
I said nothing, though perhaps I should have, and pretty much forgot about the incident, until last week, when I received this comment on one of my posts:
diet will make you more beautiful!
It was a cheap, spammy sort of message, but it got me thinking. About the carelessness with which we sling such comments around. I thought how easily a simple, spammy comment could’ve, in different circumstances, unravelled me. To someone struggling with an eating disorder, such a mindless, impersonal comment can have disastrous consequences.
I wondered, would the OP still have made that comment if they knew the person on the other end was bulimic? Or perhaps if she had parents who, under guise of affectionate teasing, had bullied her about her weight for decades?
(not my situation, merely examples.)
And if, knowing these circumstances, one would refrain from leaving stupid comments online, then why comment in the first place? Why risk your comment splitting open the cheek of an innocent stranger?
Losing weight as shedding my former self
For a while, I harboured this almost mantra-like belief that the weight I was losing was a way of moving out of my former self, and into a new existence. A dietary shift, coupled with some massive changes in my personal life lead to this belief, and I embraced it. I assessed it as healthy, and conductive of new beginnings.
Yet it’s a belief I closely monitor on a daily basis.
See, I know that what began as a healthy, if skewed idea yesterday, can easily shift into radical compulsion tomorrow. Which only leaves me today to prevent it.
And in keeping an eye on my own relationship with weight, I realized it sneaks up on you. That the impervious self-doubt that lies at the foundation of our psyche is volatile, and pervasive. At the drop of a hat (or more aptly, a size), one can go from healthy weight management to fragility and obsession.
In my idealization of a gaunt, rib-through-skin appearance, I’d lost sight of my personal changes, and was slipping into my former self. The needy, self-doubtful, at-times-terrified person who craved constant reassurance, and even more so, the tenderness that a skinny frame would afford her.
Because in my head, skinny meant delicate, meant vulnerable, in need of tenderness, of help. Meant people move differently around you, with more care. Like a porcelain doll that might break.
At the time, I was reading Jungian analyst Marion Woodman’s Addiction to Perfection. Having struggled with eating disorder for twenty years, Woodman spoke of a voice, the voice of the mythical Medusa lodged in our own psyche, whose aim was to bring us down, to keep our true self chained to a rock, and doomed forever.
The funny thing was, I’d picked up the book out of general psychological interest and regard for the author. I had no relation, I felt, with eating disorders. Yet when I read that, the proverbial penny dropped, and I recognized that voice in my own head as a Medusa.
One that could be easily triggered into action by comments like “you’d be prettier if you lost weight”. One that’s lurking in the shadows, just waiting for such careless comments to latch onto, and turn into cannons against me.
Dealing with rudeness starts with keeping your own Medusa in check.
Researching for this piece, I’ve found dozens of helpful articles discussing “how to react when people comment on your weight”. From giving them the finger to flat-out ignoring the question, these are all useful ideas, yet none addressing the main issue.
See, people making unsolicited weight remarks is, indeed, a matter of rudeness that can be addressed on a societal level.
Yet, if nobody commented on my weight, that wouldn’t by default slay my own demon. Only I get to attempt that. Even in a mute world, my Medusa would find something to show me as proof of my flaws.
So maybe it’s more important that we address the dirty voice inside our own heads attempting self-sabotage. In Woodman’s own vision, that begins with calling out the demon on its bullsh!t. It starts with saying “I see you” when a sneaky, self-doubting thought trickles out. It can be a voice trying to starve you out, just as it can be a voice trying to force-feed you. Or do so many other things you do not actually want to do.
As you go, you’ll find the voice is shiftier than you’d imagine. As soon as realization hits, it’ll try to distract you. Your own mind, can there be higher treason?
I don’t know, but it will. It’ll shift focus to other, seemingly much more important matters. Why take a moment to acknowledge this tender spot where things and thoughts hurt right now, when you can remember someone who betrayed you ten years ago? Or decide where you’re going on holiday next year?
Self-sabotage is seldom an all-activity-ceasing endeavour. Much more often, it will render itself functional, allowing you to move through life almost oblivious to its very existence. So you’ve got to keep that monster in check. Or let it eat you (and you, like many a-child in the stories of old, do not deserve to be eaten).
So much changes when you acknowledge that (a) this is a problem, (b) it’s a problem my own thinking and behaviour is permeating, and (c ) I’m capable of a gear shift.
Of course, that wouldn’t make other people’s rude, unnecessary comments any more palatable, but what it would make you is strong. Able to recognize the trigger in that loaded remark, and brush it off like a bothersome fly. Or call out the person while the comment itself just slides off. And to me, that’s far more appealing.
I can only speak from and of my own experience with weight loss/gain, and weight-related comments. This post doesn’t pretend to speak for anyone else, or offer universal truths. There are none.
I find, as I move through life, that often, when speaking of themselves or their own experiences, people aren’t setting out to hurt others. It’s less a matter of hurting you, as it is of getting you to see me. :)
Thank you for reading! I’m fairly scatterbrained, and this was one of the many random subjects that pique my interest.
I recently put out my first book (the first in a fantasy trilogy), and am working on the next two. So there’s a chance I’ll be talking about that, sometimes.
So if you’re someone who enjoys that kinda writing, well, why not subscribe? It’s free. And I’m desperate. So there, honesty.
