Those foods always made me feel smaller. Candy was never a good choice, no matter how starved I might have been. I gave the rest of the candy to the three of them while Ann rolled her eyes at me.
They bounced off to take a few more runs down the slide. I sat covered up on the side lines waiting for our ride home, claiming that I didn’t feel well enough to go up the steps, but knowing that my candy-filled size 11 self was far too fat to expose to the world.
Sadly this was not the first time I chose to starve myself. Nor was it the last. This was not the last time I would hide on the sidelines and watch my friends have fun or the world just pass me by. This day was only one of the innumerable days I spent hiding behind food and body issues, only one of the thousands of days I let an eating disorder control my life. I recall moments of body shame as early as Kindergarten and I didn’t name this eating disorder and seek treatment until I was 31 years old. That is far too many years to have spent hiding, obsessing and shaming myself, all the while thinking that it was normal, even appropriate, behavior.
I see myself in girls every day. They are graciously saying “no thanks” to an ice cream cone, walking with their arms crossed tightly over their stomachs or wearing a two layers of clothing in the heat. I can imagine their self-talk and I want to shush those voices for them. But I know they need more than that. They need support, love and loud voices of people like Ann to tell them they are worth peanut candies over and over until they finally hear it. My shame was not my fat. My eating disorder disguised it as fat. With support, love and treatment I learned what things I was really hiding from.
I’m still fat. But I don’t hide from anything anymore.