Blushing Pride

Embarrassment. When we undergo an experience that we believe will be judged by others in a negative way and will hinder our appearance to others, we feel a rush of shame course through us. More often than not, it is our own fears of how we are perceived by the public that causes this emotion rather than how people would generally react to such a situation. Our discomfort can take on a physical form, flooding our faces with a noticeable blush making matters somewhat worse. However, in many cases our mortification can remain internal eating away at us by telling us that everyone will laugh or use this against us to make us seem weaker. It is our pride that will encourage us to avoid humiliation and internalise a lot of the thoughts and feelings we believe to be too shameful to reveal to others. As a recovering Anorexia sufferer, I find myself often ashamed of admitting that I have suffered from an eating disorder which is wrongly regarded by many as a bid to lose weight or demand for attention. I would rather not draw attention to my disorder, as I constantly fear that it will highlight the issues I still have with eating certain foods or the way I eat particular things. It is however, in admitting that I have this weakness that I can empower others to seek help and recover themselves from this vicious mental disease.

The past couple of months for me have been host to some highs in my recovery as well as some lows. Before the start of the month long Easter holidays, I was remaining stuck inside my university room fearing eating outside of the comforts of the four walls I knew to be safe in. I became embarrassed of the way I ate or the length of time it took and I therefore avoided eating my home cooked food in public (I oddly seem to not have an issue with restaurant food). I believe that that this irrational feeling was borne from the fact that, at home, I feel I should be able to eat the way I want to without the feeling of pressure to eat a certain way so as not to be judged. The ridiculousness of the situation arises when I realise just how supportive everyone I live with is and so it is my mission to regain confidence in myself again and eat out. I still feel that a lot of the choices I make in my social life do revolve around me making time to eat and giving myself plenty of leeway in which to do so, this clearly hinders me a lot. I am therefore forcing myself to be a lot more spontaneous in my plans and realise that my life does NOT revolve around food. This is why, just before I left university for my time off I started to really push myself to go out with friends and stop looking for pointless excuses to avoid it no matter how understanding I knew they would be about it. I was harming only myself.

Having been given the opportunity to try again for Dentistry last month by being awarded an interview, I really built up my hopes that I would finally achieve my dream and I was proud of myself after my tough year. I foolishly decided to share my pride with many people so that they could share in my happiness, as they are all aware of just how ambitious I am to make it in the dental profession. Unfortunately I was, yet again, turned down. At first, came the despair that I had yet again had my hopes raised only to be dashed so cruelly at such a close stage. Yet, this soon gave way to the humiliation that I had been so confident in my abilities that I had led others to believe that I was capable of becoming a dentist. The admission of failure does not come easy to anyone, so to have to explain to every person who was rooting for me that I was unable to live up my own expectations has been mortifying. In a way I am proud of how far I managed to get and that I was selected to even have an interview, but when this amounts to nothing I realise that I have not really achieved anything.

 

Being so hard on myself through my failure to fulfil my aspirations, my second ski trip of the year could not have come at a better time. I have always found skiing to be a way to clear my mind of all my troubles and so given the opportunity to go with my university for a week over Easter, I jumped at the chance. Obviously the food issue crossed my mind more than once in the run up to this holiday. I would be going with people who, although knew my situation, did not really know the extent to which I was still suffering from anxiety with food. I need not have worried however, as I was so comfortable around everyone that the embarrassment I had been harbouring for so long dissipated and I was able to thoroughly enjoy the food I was eating. Every lunch time we ate on the slopes at various restaurants and so having no idea of the foods that would be available for me to eat and aware that mountain food quantities are somewhat large (verging on stateside) doused in rich cheese, I really had to challenge myself. Looking through the menu took me a long time, as in my mind I debated taking my Anorexia’s choice of what I knew to be the least calorific option against the food I really craved to eat. Most of the time I won over and I truly ate decadent food with little discomfort, as I knew the others around me were eating similar quantities and I had been exercising whilst skiing all day.

I however, must dedicate a paragraph to the pizza I ate whilst I was in the French Alpes and the pizza, as everyone is aware, is based around bread and cheese- my biggest ‘no-go’ foods. I had my first taste of a pizza since becoming ill back in February on my ski holiday with the family and so I had been able to enjoy it in the comfort of my own family. The pizza had been my choice despite there being other foods available on the menu that I would have felt more comfortable eating. When with the university however, on the last day my group of friends and I decided on a pizza for lunch before the long road back home and to reality. Walking around we could not find any pizzerias and so, the rest of the group decided that they would like to go for a takeaway pizza instead at one of the small stands we had found. I was initially very reluctant and tried to find any restaurant that might serve pizzas as I wanted the pizza I ate to be my own choice and if I chickened out I would have plenty of other options to choose from. I abated my own need for control of the situation so that my peers could enjoy what THEY wanted. Without thinking, upon ordering my pizza, I chose the 6 cheese pizza. I regret my decision to this day. The pizza base though very thin, was laden with a thick layer of cheese, which everyone hastened to notice when I began eating. I am embarrassed to admit I actually enjoyed it but I have thought about that choice with much discomfort ever since. Why was I so foolish to go for the pizza with so much cheese when I KNOW I do not eat it? Though, being one pizza, it obviously had no effect on my weight whatsoever, it is the fact I felt so weak as to actually eat so much cheese with ease that fills me with shame.

My dad recently admitted to me that he was unaware that I was still so concerned with the number of calories within food. I have never knowingly given off the impression that I was more recovered that I really am, but it embarrassed me to have to confess that the thoughts are still very much there and always have been. Having also recently been to visit my therapist for the first time since being discharged, I was afraid that she would be disappointed that I might not have come as far as she might have hoped since we ended our therapy sessions. Hand on my heart; I acknowledge that I am still in recovery despite being a lot healthier and in a better place than I was many months ago.  It is not easy for me to tell people that I am still afraid of certain foods or eating at particularly fast speeds, as I feel it makes me feel I’m being childish or even fussy by trying to draw attention to myself. Fortunately, I have come a long way in the recovery that the shame is waning, as I slowly get closer and closer to truly being better.