I didn’t know I had an eating disorder until I was 19. Maybe I avoided it all my life, but I don’t think I did. It started when I was very young, when I was about twelve. I was always bigger than the other girls in my class. I was taller, wider and looked older for my age. It’s hard to feel beautiful in a society that gains from playing on people’s insecurities, especially on young women. I was no exception.
Growing up in a traditional Taiwanese household, I was teased by my own family for being fat. It started with the pinching of my cheeks back when I was a baby, but it escalated into calling me ‘whale’ or ‘dumpling’ in front of my face. There was no mercy; my family was cruel, but they thought they were doing me a favor by telling me the truth.
Once, I was at my aunt’s house for the weekend. My aunts and uncles played mahjong, drank stinky beer and drawled obscenities in between drags of cigarettes. One of my aunts said to my mom, right when I was on the other side of the room watching a National Geographic documentary on cheetahs, with her daughter (whom they considered skinny), that I should be so ashamed of how I looked. She claimed that my weight was the reason I had no friends, and that I’d be alone and miserable for the rest of my life. I used to cry in the guest bathroom, pretending I had a stomachache to avoid seeing my family, and the gross concern they had over my body. My mother never suspected anything, but she always agreed with them and told me I needed to eat less. I never thought of talking back to my family, as it was considered disrespectful towards my elders. They also had very thin frames without even trying, and I was like the black sheep.
That Halloween, I donned a witch costume and took my little cousins trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. A classmate of mine laughed when he answered his door. “Witches aren’t supposed to be fat!” he shrieked, and my little cousins giggled too. I laughed nervously, but deep down I wanted to punch him in the face. The next day, I started avoiding my food.
It was easy to skip lunch in school, and study in the library instead. Since I didn’t have many friends, it’s not like anyone noticed. Soon I opted out of breakfast and dinner altogether. I felt light-headed most of the time, and sat out in gym as much as I could, claiming menstrual cramps to my male gym teacher, who just nodded at me and wrote my petty excuse down on his clipboard. I started wearing baggier clothes, hiding my frame in oversized hoodies and sweatpants. I would go two to three days without eating anything, sipping on water for sustenance. When I could no longer handle the hunger pangs that ebbed and flowed in the pits of my stomach, I caved. I tore my kitchen upside down and ate everything in sight that I could get my hands on. I ate like I hadn’t eaten in years. Even if a box of cookies were stale, I still managed to scarf the whole thing down. I washed it all with oolong tea, a staple in my household that I knew promoted fat loss.
In Chinese, losing weight roughly translates to cutting fat. My family would tell me I needed to cut the fat. Before I knew it, I started obsessing over labels, reading their fat contents and studying all I could about nutrition. I would go through this destructive cycle for almost three years. I was so used to eating only once a day, and then not eating at all for another two or three days. My stomach gradually adapted to it, and I started having food allergies. I couldn’t eat grapes or chocolate without having hives appear under my eyes. They were swollen and puffy, like I had been crying for days. Red dots would also appear randomly all over my face; it looked like I had been bitten by mosquitos even in the dead of February.
When I was in college, my roommate was bulimic. I felt nauseous each time I heard her in our bathroom, and finally told her she needed to get help. I just wanted to see her happy, but she told me she would only go if I went too, since she thought I had a binge-eating disorder. We cried in each other’s arms as we realized how poorly we had been treating our bodies, and I finally realized I had an eating disorder. Together, we sought help from the school’s therapists and started eating regularly, starting out with small portions and gradually increasing our food to plate ratios. It was difficult for me, since I never felt I was worthy of kindness, but my therapist assigned me activities and a journal for me to write my thoughts in. I also started creating a schedule, making sure I ate regularly, and wrote down what I ate, as well as any feelings associated with each meal. Although I’ve developed healthier habits since my days as a binge eater, I still wish I wasn’t so affected by my family’s comments. People at school I could handle, but I avoided all social situations regarding my family. It is hard to break out of that cultural shell, and reclaiming one’s body can take many years, but we all deserve to be good to our bodies.