83 Images
In January of this year, I began a project for a class that challenged us to take an unfamiliar subject matter, learn about it, and somehow transform the results into a finished piece (for me, that meant no cartoons, music, treasure maps or interactive stuff).
The thinking process took me back to a series of experiences with a close friend; a time where I felt completely helpless. She began to tell me about how she threw up after eating. These incidents were sporadic, but when they did happen, I didn't know what to do or how to react. No matter how many times I honestly told her she was beautiful, it didn't seem to matter. The numbers on the scale and the figure in the mirror were her definitions of beauty. I tried to be supportive, but after it happened a few times, my emotions unfortunately turned to frustration and anger instead.
It took a few years to realize that she wasn't alone in her daily struggles with self-image...and how disproportionate the impact was towards women. Research shows that 75% of average/healthy weight women think that they are overweight, and that women account for 90% of all eating disorders. So, mostly out of guilt, female self-image became the focus of the project. You might remember the process with the magazine, envelopes and story submissions. But then the New York thing happened and cut everything short.
Luckily, the project was picked back up as an independent study this quarter. To date, 83 women have sent in stories through the anonymous form (no longer active). The honest, realistic glimpses into these diverse lives are all equally amazing. Now I have to figure out how to do them justice and present them in the most meaningful way (in other words, not a Dr. Phil book or any cheesy "beauty is really on the inside!" crap). Well, it's getting there, and by the end of this month all the stories will be put online.
Hank always says that we remember things better when there's a story attached to them. An acre is just an abstract number until you're told it's roughly the size of a football field, endzone to endzone...and then you'll never forget it. There's something to be said for 83 women taking the time to share their personal stories with some complete stranger. These aren't fictional characters. These are our friends, family, and the people we walk or drive by every day...and their lives are consistently impacted in a negative way by self-image.
More is to come, but here are three sample stories that affected me.
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I'm a 25 year old anorexic. They say it's like alcoholism, you never fully recover, you just have good days, and when they pile up you have good weeks, good months, good years. I got my undergrad degree in May 2002, right on time and I wasn't so prepared for the fast loss of identity that was graduation. I come from the great American success story, my dad was raised poor, my sisters and I have been raised wealthy. He pulled himself up by the bootstraps and I felt I would do the same, catapult myself even further into success, international fame, ostentatious wealth, famous hubby, etc. When I graduated and no longer had the student label to explain my unexceptional identity, I panicked. I was not brave enough to risk failure if I did go out on a limb and try to be successful at doing what I loved. Instead I decided to build my identity as a runner, then as a thin girl, then as a super thin girl, then as a sick girl.
That brilliant decision landed me in a mental hospital in September 2002. The bottom had come and I was 30 lbs underweight, forcibly removed from my adult life and living at home with my parents, bedridden due to high risk of heart failure, and still thinking I was superior, strong, and in control. A long two years later I know I was weak, totally lost and out of control. I was looking for some standard to be judged against, and it brought me to war against my body. Popular imagery in the media impresses on women an inaccurate idea of beauty, and society, at least that in which I was raised, pressures all of us to have an identity that is built on a comparison with the accepted notions of beauty, intelligence, wealth, etc. I'm in recovery now because I have met women who are strong, noble, beautifully exceptional and now I know what that looks like. Generally, it doesn't look too thin.
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I'm fat. I put up a good front, pretend that my size is not always hovering in the back of my mind when I'm out in public, but it is. Oh, I'm a lot of other things, too - 31, an artist, married, shamelessly liberal.
I didn't used to be as self-conscious about it (at least after high school), or my memory is more selective than I realize. But now, it's with me everyday - the constant waiting for the nasty comments (they happen), feeling certain people are watching me as I pass. Recently at an IHOP, hanging with friends, I was on my way to the restroom and tripped over a turned-up corner of carpet. The table nearest just couldn't stop laughing. They giggled and smirked every time I passed by for the rest of the night.
I won't go out to eat by myself anymore. I won't go to movies by myself anymore. Sometimes it feels like nowhere in public is "safe". I walk quite a lot, and go to the gym pretty regularly. You'd think that people wouldn't make fat cracks when you're working out, but you'd be wrong. In fact, people seem to be nastier when it looks like you are trying to lose weight. My weight has been stable since I was eighteen. I look like every other woman in my family. I don't eat that much more than my skinny friends. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels and vital signs are perfect, always have been. I can walk five miles with no problem, ride the stationary bike for 45 minutes and still have the energy to walk home. I'm as healthy as I'm going to get.
But people persist in assuming I'm lazy, out of control, can't keep my mitts off the fried chicken. And it hurts and makes me angry. But yet, I find myself staying home, rather than telling these people to go screw themselves. And that makes me angry at myself. And sometimes it makes me cry.
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I am 55 and at this age you think about how changes are going in regards to how you look. I am an active, outgoing person. I exercise regularly and eat right. I have been married for 31 years to a great guy...and he still finds me attractive. But it is how I see myself...and it isnt really as a pretty or attractive person. I find myself not wanting to go certain places because of this aging process. I feel I just look so different than I did when I was 35...it does bother me. I have to be perfectly put together when I do go out and I have issues with the way my hair looks. I want to feel that freedom of when I could just jump up and go for a whole day without really thinking of how I looked.
I try not to say these things to anyone else because they don't really see what I see. It seems so shallow to focus on my looks when there is so many other phases to my life. I am at a good place in my life and I am a happy, satisfied person...except when I look in the mirror.
Saturday, September 10 at 9:14 PM
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