The Number

When I travel and first open the door to my hotel I'm always a little excited to see if I have a fabulous room. I love looking around to find anything special or unexpected. While recently traveling I found myself in a gorgeous suite in Las Vegas; amazing view, sunken living room area, phenomenal shower, and a scale. I don't have an exact date but I'd estimate I haven't stepped on a scale in roughly 7 years. Scales are deadly to me in all ways physical and emotional. 

I have an eating disorder that I'm purposefully vocal about both for my healing and the healing of others. A large part of my disorder is a preoccupation with numbers. If you know me well you'll know I actually hate dealing with numbers and it's certainly not my gift in life. When I'm deeply into my disorder my entire life revolves around numbers: weight, measurements, sizes, BMI, hours exercised, calories eaten, calories burned, steps taken, air breathed. At my worst I would weigh myself compulsively; when I woke up, after using the bathroom, after eating, and even in the middle of the night. I would check the sizing of my clothes repeatedly throughout the day and then try desperately to remember if that item of clothing ran large or small, how it fit the last time I wore it, what my weight was the last time I wore it, and endless other questions that I usually couldn't remember the answers to and still I kept asking. I've had times I've cut all the sizes out of my clothes only to still try to figure out what size I thought it was. I say jokingly but with full truth "If you hear me talking numbers then I'm not well."

I gasped when I saw the scale. It was a pretty glass one that complimented the bathroom well. I knew what was going to happen and didn't try and stop it. If I'd reached out to someone in recovery I would have been advised to put it somewhere I couldn't see it or ask the hotel to take it away while I was staying there. But I wanted to know that number. Felt terrified and at the same time excited. I controlled myself the first day but by the morning of the second I woke up thinking about it. I stood before it feeling hopeless as if I had no choice but to do this. I thought for a moment of what number would be acceptable and what number I figured it might be and then stepped on. It was worse that I'd anticipated. Double digits worse. I felt dizzy and held onto the wall as I tried to regulate my breathing. Reminded myself my clothes fit and nothing had actually changed other than I now knew what I weighed. As I got dressed everything felt tight and constricting. Tears welled up in my eyes and I simultaneously started to plan how to lose the weight while also completely defeated.

Eating disorders aren't about weight - they are about control. When life feels unmanageable it's the one thing we can do that no one can take from us. I can starve, over exercise, binge, abuse laxatives, take massive amounts of pills for "energy" or "metabolism" or straight up speed, go on a "detox" (for those of us with ED this is a cute way to restrict that you are praised for), and mistreat my body in ways you'll never know. We can hyper focus on something other than what we need to be dealing with in our lives. 

I'm home now and that number hangs in the air. I put on a pair of pants I wanted to wear yesterday and they were way too tight. My mind flashed to the number on the scale. Mind racing "Fuck! How am I going to lose this? What if I can't this time?" Thankfully I'm far along enough in my recovery that these moments dissipate quickly but the fear hangs in the air around me.

As part of my recovery I've had to accept I'm not going to be the weight I want to be. I've had to accept the body perfection my crazy mind desires would hurt me. But I am more than a number. My worth cannot be measured with a number. I define who I am.