You Know Me As The Guy Who Painted My Dad's House On Acid And Pooped In The Pool — But I've Also Had Body Dysmorphia And Eating Disorders For As Long As I Can Remember
Since childhood, I have alway been hungry all the time. I've resorted to hiding food and eating in secret and don't actually recall a time when I didn't hate my body.
Hi beauties!
I have a lot to say, but I'm still reeling from the emotional roller coaster of yesterday's post. Thank you for riding it with me and then making each other laugh in the comments about the exhaustion and messy hair we all had to prove it. (Messy hair was just an allusion to the roller coaster thing. But mine was messy. And if I wore mascara, it would have been running at the end of reading that incredible saga.)
So I have an epic and hyper-revealing personal thing I'm writing for you for tomorrow. But for today, let's read Andy (I just love Andy more and more with everything he writes here) and see what support we can give him, and each other, in that lovely comment section.
I love you all!
-Jane
By Andy Finley
I’m hungry.
That’s nothing new. I’m hungry all the time. Wake up? Hungry. After I eat? Hungry. Working? Definitely hungry. When I go to bed? Hungry.
Over the course of my life, I’ve had to deal with the constant hum coming from my stomach. It’s more than just an empty feeling. It’s a sensation of lacking. The hunger mirrors my debilitating inadequacy and self-hatred. I imagine there are people who feel whole, but I’m not one of them. I can’t get away from it, no matter what I try.
There is no distraction—exercise, reading a book, playing with my dog—that will quiet the hunger hum enough for me to forget about it. It’s as present as the self-loathing I feel for wanting to give in to it.
When I was a kid, I would plow into the refrigerator and cupboards, buzz sawing through tortilla chips and salsa, saltine crackers, macaroni and cheese, yogurt, cookies, ice cream, peanut butter and jelly, on and on.
My mother would get home from work and ask me where all the food went, but she knew everything was in my gullet. “You need to stop eating so much. There are other people in this house, too, you know. Why don’t you go outside and play, instead of eating all the time?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
My brother, Rob, was merciless. “Hey, fatass, why do you have to be so fat? Go eat a cake or something. You need to wear a shirt that says ‘FAT’ and just own it.”
I tried controlling it. Whenever I was home alone, I would count the seconds until the next meal. Some days I could hold off, but most of the time I failed.
“I would cautiously approach my father like Oliver Twist and softly ask for five dollars to get lunch.”
It still haunts me as an adult. It won’t stop—no matter how much I eat, which makes it so demoralizing. I just ate lunch a few minutes ago. I had a sandwich with a couple of pickles and a large glass of water. I could go right back and eat it again.
The worst times as a child were those situations when I couldn’t eat in secrecy. I either had to tough it out or let someone know I needed food.