To battle this all-too-common beast, we've got to start talking, says columnist Zosia Mamet.
Do you have a secret? Is your secret something that could kill you, a silent gnawing feeling that's slowly melting you away, little by little, something deadly that nobody else can see? Mine is. And it is this: I've struggled with an eating disorder since I was a child. This struggle has been mostly a private one, a war nobody knew was raging inside me. I tried to fight it alone for a long time. And I nearly died.
But the truth is, I'm not alone. I have come to discover that 30 million other Americans share the same secret. In fact, I would venture to say it's a rarity to find a woman without body issues of some sort—not a full-fledged disorder, perhaps, but a skewed view of her body, a dislike of her shape, a desire to be thinner, bustier, taller, different. It's so common. And yet we're so ashamed of those feelings that we don't talk about them. And that's where we get into trouble.
THE HARD FACTS
Here's how I think of my eating disorder: I'm an addict in recovery. We've brought other addictions into the light; we've talked about them, dissected them, made them acceptable issues to discuss and work out. We need to treat eating disorders just as seriously. (What's different about eating disorders, of course, is that you can't just avoid food for the rest of your life. You have to eat to live.) Nobody is addressing the fact that so many women wake up in the morning, look at themselves in the mirror, and, out of habit, attack what they see. Maybe that's not an all-out disorder, but it's certainly the seed of one. I read a study once that said that more than a third of casual dieters develop pathological eating habits (and of those, up to 25 percent wind up with an eating disorder). Of course, not all of those people will end up deathly ill, but obsession—and doesn't every diet require some degree of obsessing?—is a slippery slope. Did you know that only one in 10 people who are suffering gets proper treatment? And that eating disorders have the highest death rate of any mental illness?
MY STORY
If you are lucky enough never to have battled this beast, let me tell you what it's like: I was told I was fat for the first time when I was eight. I'm not fat; I've never been fat. But ever since then, there has been a monster in my brain that tells me I am—that convinces me my clothes don't fit or that I've eaten too much. At times it has forced me to starve myself, to run extra miles, to abuse my body. As a teenager I used to stand in front of the refrigerator late at night staring into that white fluorescent light, debilitated by the war raging inside me: whether to give in to the pitted hunger in my stomach or close the door and go back to bed. I would stand there for hours, opening and closing the door, taking out a piece of food then putting it back in; taking it out, putting it in my mouth, and then spitting it into the garbage.
I was only 17, living in misery, waiting to die.
RECOVERY, DISCOVERY
My dad eventually got me into treatment. He came home one night from a party, took me by the shoulders, and said, "You're not allowed to die." It was the first time I realized this wasn't all about me. I didn't care if I died, but my family did. That's the thing about these kinds of disorders: They're consuming; they make you egocentric; they're all you can see.
But during treatment I discovered that my disorder has never really been about weight or food—that's just the way the monster manifests itself. Really these diseases are about control: control of your life and of your body. For me "recovery" was simply the flip side of the illness; everything was still focused on numbers and food. I was given a goal weight I had to reach by a certain date. Everything I ate was written down. And I did eat; I looked cured on the outside. But the monster inside wasn't brought to trial. So I was given permission to leave the hospital and enter back into the world as a "healthy" person. Then I went away for the summer and lost every pound I'd gained. Nobody had helped me dissect why I'd abused myself.
ANOTHER MONSTER
I can't talk about all of this without bringing up the world we live in. Our culture delivers a real one-two punch: You want to control something, and then society says, "Hey, how about controlling the way you look? Skinny is beautiful." Your obsession feels justified. It's no secret that we live in a country with a warped view of beauty. "Skinny" sells us everything, from vacations to underwear, effectively.
But we need to be brave and expose this body type for what it truly is: a figure naturally possessed by, let's say, a mere 5 percent of women. We must demand that our media figure out another way to sell things to us. It's not going to be easy. I recently saw an ad featuring a nearly naked, thin model with the words love yourself written across her. Even this attempt at encouraging women to accept themselves was accompanied by an image telling us the opposite! We have to change the ideal.
So how do we do something as enormous as that? The first step, I think, is for those of us who are suffering to start talking about it: people like me, who have been diagnosed, and people who live in that gray area of "food control issues." We all suffer in some small way; we are all a little bit ashamed of that second cupcake. Let's diminish the stigma. Let's remind one another that we're beautiful. Maybe you'll help a friend. Maybe you'll help yourself. And if you're reading this and you're suffering, please know you're not alone. Tell someone: The people who love you will listen, I promise. And you'll feel better.
I know I do. Today I'm at a healthy weight, though I realize that my obsession will always be with me in some way. For years the voice inside me has gotten louder or quieter at times. It may never disappear completely, but hopefully one day it'll be so quiet, it'll only be a whisper and I'll wonder, Was that just the wind?
*Columnist Zosia Mamet is an actress on *Girls. Follow her on Twitter @ZosiaRMamet, and catch her right here next month.