I was fourteen or so when I started restricting my food intake. For me, being anorexic wasn’t about control, it was about pushing people away. My goal was to be as scary looking as possible, so that maybe people would be afraid of me and leave me alone. I fought with my eating disorder for 14 years, but this isn’t about that.
This is about what I noticed after I got better.
I say I got better, but that is not exactly true. I struggle every day with my weight. I had to relearn how to eat. I had no idea how to properly feed my son, and I had to learn that. I had to deal with going from the weight of a fifth grader to 30 lbs over what would be suitable for someone my height. I evened out, eventually.
People started chastising me for my food choices.
Well, ok. Maybe not me, specifically. But this is what I noticed:
“Milk is only for baby calves!” one friend lambasted her followers on Facebook. That’s true, I supposed, as I hid her from my feed. I don’t even like milk—I think it’s disgusting, and I only ever put it in coffee.
“I wish people would be as obsessed about animal rights as they are about bacon,” another person who fell victim to my delete button ranted. “There is nothing more selfish than eating meat.” Animal rights are important, I agree. But I love a side of bacon when I go out for breakfast.
“It is really not that hard or expensive to eat a plant-based diet.” I have, like, eighteen dollars in my bank account. I can’t even afford vitamins. Block, block, block.
“Once You See How Gummy Candy is Made, You’ll Never Eat It Again!” Spoiler alert: I will.
I do not believe in policing other people’s plates. I could not care less what other people eat or drink, because it is not my business. I do not believe in shame tactics to make people see things my way. I admire people who can become vegetarian or vegan, who can resist the siren song of cheeses of all types, who can turn down a finely cooked steak or a heaping plate of chicken picatta. I am not that person. Nor do I want to be.
For years I ate nothing. Now, I eat anything. Anything I want to. I eat meat. The rarer the steak, the better. I eat chicken. I run to Wendy’s on days I don’t want to cook. The day I graduated from grad school, I had a gourmet meal of diced rabbit, something I did not think I would ever try.
Every time someone posts about how others should be eating, my knee jerk reaction is to get rid of them. Of course, we see this most often on social media; I can’t remember ever really having a conversation about what I should or should not be eating, ethically, before Myspace became a thing. I have this reaction because I do not want to get into it with people who are concerned with who is drinking milk.
I do not want to tell them, I almost died, you know. I was a grown woman who weighed 72 lbs. Please, do not tell me I can’t eat this. Please do not tell me I am a bad person for living again.
