Tag: eating disorders

Should I fast for Lent if I have a history of EDs?, Part Two

February 13th, 2026

And now it’s almost Lent again, and, as always when a penitential season comes around, I am once again asking myself: what should I, as someone with a long history of EDs, do about the whole fasting thing?

I addressed this in a previous post, the tl;dr of which is: most people say that, if you have an ED, you shouldn’t fast from food, but find a different way to fast; to which the voice in my head replies: why? Isn’t it wimpy for me, as someone who struggled for 15+ years but is currently physically fine and in maintenance mode, to claim exemption from fasting? Isn’t that cheating? Wouldn’t the great ascetic saints, the ones who subsisted off Holy Communion alone, scoff at me? Wouldn’t the desert fathers laugh and roll their eyes? “My poor wittle mental health!, fasting might hurt my feewings!, I don’t wike myself, wah wah 🥺”, isn’t that pathetic of me?

(And for the record, as I’m sure anyone with an ED will understand: the voice in my head is only this critical with me — it is not talking about you (it’s like, “other people are allowed to exist, eat, feel, and be vulnerable, but NOT you!!, it’s lame and gross when you do it!”, etc., etc.; we’re all familiar with its double standard, aren’t we?). So I’m not making fun of anyone else, or calling anyone else pathetic — just narrating my own little weird mental process, which maybe some of you can relate to. If you have an ED history, I do NOT think that YOU should fast from food — you are obviously exempt. It’s only me who’s the fat pathetic loser, according to the inner voice.)

So: I’m always wondering: should I fast or no? Am I being hard on myself, or being too soft? What do I do??

Thankfully, I heard a really great sermon on Lenten practices recently, which shed some light on the matter. So here I am to write a follow-up to the post linked above, and to hopefully put this Question That Keeps Me Up At Night to rest once and for all.

In his sermon, this priest clarified some things about Lenten practices. For most of you Catholic readers, these will probably not be news, but I am an idiot and a bad Catholic who needs things boiled down to the basics and spelled out and at like a fourth grade reading level, so for me it was groundbreaking. I had never heard it explained this succinctly before.

Penance and mortification: both are things we resolve to do during Lent. Up until now, I’ve had a pretty nebulous idea of what these were. I thought that they were the same thing, essentially, and tbh never considered that that might not be true.

But actually, if I understood this priest correctly, there are differences between “penance” and “mortification.” The former is a work that we do to atone for past sins. The latter is a discomfort or inconvenience that we voluntarily take on in order to fight ongoing sin/temptation — to counteract a disordered tendency in our current life.

And he went on to explain that, to really have a fruitful Lent, we should practice these in a targeted, specific way, unique to our own personal situation. It’s not just “oh, I’m a sinner so I’ll give up sugar to make myself uncomfortable.” Lent is not about just being uncomfortable for the sake of being uncomfortable. It’s about removing obstacles to God’s grace. Which means that it’s much more useful if we look at our unique sins, imperfections, and bad habits, and tailor our Lenten practices to work against those.

Wow! No one had ever explained it to me like this before. W/r/t Lent, I’d always just been told “prayer, fasting, almsgiving.” Which is obviously good advice. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are things we should do more of, especially during Lent. But, this priest explained in his sermon, for maximum spiritual benefit, each individual should practice them in an intentional, specific, targeted way.

I’m just a stupid layperson, so what do I know, but: I feel like that’s a really important addendum.

It’s not necessarily a great idea to just tell everyone, in general: “you should fast.” Because what if someone is breastfeeding, or has a history of EDs (it’s me, I am both), or something else like that. “Just fast” is not good advice for that person. Similarly, “just give alms” might not be the best advice for someone with no money to give. Obviously we are all obligated to give money, but “just give more” isn’t always an option for everyone. Some people have to find other ways to be charitable. Humans are messy creatures and life is weird. So it’s complicated sometimes.

Which is why I asked in my previous post: what should someone in my situation do for Lent?

Thanks to this good priest, I see now that our penances and mortifications not only may, but should be tailored to our unique spiritual state, our unique weaknesses.

Maybe not every mortification is equally spiritually beneficial for every person. Someone who struggles with sloth might want to try waking up early and being productive every morning; someone who struggles to sit still in silence and solitude might want to schedule a block of quiet prayer time daily.

Fasting from food is a good practice for someone who has trouble practicing self-control with food. But if someone has the opposite problem, and has trouble letting go of control around food — well, it probably wouldn’t be spiritually beneficial for that person to fast from food, would it?

Which is not to say that I personally intend never to fast from food again. One day when I’m not pregnant or nursing, I look forward to fasting from food in some kind of way (a part of me looks forward to it a little too eagerly, if we’re being honest). But as it is right now, nursing a baby who has a sensitive gut, while also trying to sort of normalize after pregnancy, my diet and body image and mental health are such a touchy balancing act, which I am managing very carefully by only eating safe things at safe times — it’s just a real precarious tower of cards situation, right now — that I wonder if fasting from food just isn’t the wisest idea.

So what will I do then? Well, that will require me to look at myself and my life and figure it out.

But I’m glad that I can stop stressing about this particular question — at least, for this Lent. You’ll probably catch me yakking about it again come Advent.
Why Would You Say That?

April 23rd, 2025

Why would you comment on a complete stranger’s food choices?

This is a pet peeve of mine. I guess it’s a layover from my eating disorder days. I’m really self-conscious about food and eating. As you may know if you read this blog, I don’t like to be seen or touched while eating, or asked about my food, even by my close family members; I even feel self-conscious about the cashier handling and checking out my groceries at the grocery store. Everything feels like a criticism, and every word and glance seems to me to be a very-thinly-veiled “you’re fat.”

In fact, I have a long history of overreacting, sometimes disastrously, to remarks about food. One time, when I was a senior in high school and in the early days of recovery from a severe restriction phase, working on gaining weight, this got me in some of the most mortifying trouble of my life. Story time!

The nutritionist that I was working with had prescribed me a snack every 2-3 hours, and I was following this plan diligently, even when I was at my part-time job as a cashier at a grocery store. Eating so often tended to upset my stomach, which was not used to normal quantities of food, so, I’d also munch on strips of crystallized ginger to settle my stomach, often while standing at the cash register, in between customers. Well, one time, a lady who was a regular customer came up to my register, and, seeing me wrapping up a snack and setting it discreetly away on the shelf under my register, responded to my friendly hi, how are you with an annoyed, even accusatory: “You’re always eating!!!”

Which, as you can imagine, absolutely got under my skin, as someone recovering physically but mentally still very sick with an ED. What my brain heard, when she said that, was: “who the hell do you think you are, you fat fucking loser? You’re sickening to even look at! Look at your fat face chewing! Your jowls all ajiggle! You seriously think your stupid loser ass deserves to just eat snacks all the time? You giant fucking fatass? You think you deserve to take up space on earth?? Go die in a hole, you disgusting waste of oxygen!”

Thems was fighting words, for sure. But did I lash out at her? Nope. Did I do anything at all? Nope. Instead, my whiny pathetic ass just politely chuckled, rang up her groceries, then went out to my car and phoned the Rant Line: a now-defunct (I wonder why, lol) phone line in the local weekly free newspaper, which people could call and scream into a voicemail box about things around town that pissed them off, such as idiots in traffic or off-leash dogs at the park or whatever, and the juiciest Rants would then be printed in the back page of this paper each week.

Well, I pretty obviously named the grocery store I worked at (which was an established and well-respected boutique store, not a chain); so, even though the newspaper blanked out all but the first letter of each word in the name, it was extremely obvious to any local person which store I was talking about. And, without naming her, but still managing to be pretty specific, I ranted pretty furiously at this customer (who, btw, spent a ton of money at this store on the regular), calling her some pretty hateful names, if I remember correctly. (If this lady ever happens to see this blog post: I’m sorry, I take it all back.)

Well, the day after the newspaper printed, I went into work, oblivious, unsuspecting, smiling and waving at my coworkers, and was met with a complete kerfluffle. The week’s Rant was the talk of the store. Everyone was in shock! “Have you seen it?!” “OMG, do you know who did it?!” “Whoever it was is gonna get so fired!” Worst of all, “[Store manager’s name] is so mad!”

Words cannot describe the sheer terror and humiliation and misery that I experienced that day, lol. Obviously I was at fault, there. I should have known better. I don’t know what I was expecting, or why I thought it would be okay to leave such an obvious and specific Rant about this lady. I guess I was just blind with rage, lol.

I somehow survived that four-hour shift, but have no memory of how. I was physically ill, shaking, sick to my stomach. Not even for fear of losing the job. I just hate getting in trouble, hate other people knowing that I have this ugly side. That night, I confessed to my supervisor and manager in the office, and they kindly seemed to understand, and did not fire me, but said that I was a good employee otherwise so I was allowed to stay as long as I didn’t do that again.

Yes, I was at fault, completely; but still: “you’re always eating”? Why would you say something like that to someone?

Anyway, that was one of the first times this oversensitivity led to disaster in my life. The next time that I can remember, it was less mortifying – actually pretty funny, in retrospect.

I was a freshman in college, and well into what I now refer to as my “revenge fat” phase, by that point. I had gained a lot of weight in recovery with that nutritionist I mentioned (whose methods, I think, were questionable, but that’s another story). Now, I was away at college and had lost touch with her, but was still fat, and doing my best to cope with this fatness by trying to convince myself that I was okay with it, which I very much was not. I was pretty much the chubbiest girl on campus (this was a campus full of skinny rich kids), which did not help with the feelings of alienation that I was already experiencing as one of the only weird/alt kids, and one of the only poor kids, and one of the only non-“Greek” kids, at that school. So, I’d often bury my feelings in food. I’d go to the dining hall alone with a book or a crossword and get these massive, heaping bowls of breakfast cereal. One time, I was carrying my tray, laden with my bowl that was absolutely overflowing with granola and Cracklin’ Oat Bran and all manner of delicious breakfasty carbs, when one of the dining hall employees walked by me going the opposite direction, and commented casually: “That’s a lot of cereal.”

Which, it absolutely was! But, being me, I dissolved into an absolute crisis over this, lol. In fact, it was one of the events that triggered my subsequent descent into another long, intense restricting/purging phase and the loss of about half my body weight.

Yes, it was a lot of cereal! And by this point you may be thinking that I’m simply crazy (which is not untrue). But still: honestly: why would you say that to someone you don’t know? Seriously, why would you think that’s an okay thing to do? And what’s even the point?

.

Those two events were, respectively, seventeen and fifteen years ago. I like to think that I’ve matured somewhat since then, and developed a little bit of a thicker skin. I still don’t like to be seen eating, or asked about what I’m eating – but, if it’s someone I know and love, I’ll just bristle a bit and quickly get over it.

But just the other day, at a local grocery store, I had an encounter that kind of dredged some of these old thoughts and feelings up again.

I was with my three-year-old daughter, buying bananas. We had just quickly run into the store for bananas, while my other daughter was at ballet class and my son was home with his dad; we were out of bananas, which is a food that we go through a lot of, because they are cheap and healthy and everyone in the family likes them. Because there are five of us (plus the one currently in my belly), and we go through so many, I was like: hmm, better grab a few extra bananas. I chose one bunch that had five bananas, then a second, smaller bunch that had three. Because I was only shopping for bananas, and nothing else, I didn’t have a basket, but just carried the bananas in my folded arm while holding my daughter’s hand with my other hand. And as I was standing there in the produce section with my daughter, holding exactly eight bananas, some random lady walks by us in a hurry and goes: “You must really like bananas!”

Um… excuse me? Yeah? So what? Why do you feel the need to point that out? I don’t even know you, and we’re both busy, like, you’re not even a cashier here or anything, like, you have nothing to do with me or my eight bananas; why would you think that’s necessary to say, or even worth the energy that it would take to open your mouth and expel the oxygen and flap your little tongue to utter those words? To a complete stranger? How is it going to serve you, or me, or anyone?! Are you high?! I mean, if I’d had a cart full of like 30+ bananas, then I’d kind of understand. But this? “You must really like bananas”?! I just don’t understand it!

Why would you say that?! Yes, I am a weird person, but my own reactions aside: why would any of these people say any of these things?! Truly, truly, I cannot begin to understand what it must be like to possess the sort of brain that thinks you should just comment on a stranger’s food.

Can anyone out there enlighten me? Perhaps someone reading this is the sort of person who says such things to people. Please! I beseech thee: I’d love to understand your rationale. What goes through your head, when you comment on a complete stranger’s food choices? Do you think you are helping them in some way? Are you trying to be friendly? Do you just have literally zero control over what words come out of your mouth as you’re moving around in the world? I’m genuinely, sincerely curious.

I didn’t say anything, to the banana lady. I just kind of chuckled in shock, as I typically do when a stranger says anything to me. I wasn’t even that triggered or offended –even if the Rant Line still existed, I wouldn’t have called it – I mean, bananas are a pretty benign thing to like, aren’t they? It would have been a totally different thing, if she’d said “you must really like chocolate pudding,” or something. But bananas? It was honestly just so weird and strange, is all.

Maybe it’s that I live in the South, where people seem to like to make small talk with strangers, and assume we’re all, like, “neighborly” or whatever. Maybe, with my AvPD, I should move to NYC or Boston or some other big city, where people will just ignore me and leave me the heck alone. Although, I probably wouldn’t thrive in such a cutthroat, fast-paced environment like that, either, haha. I’m just not cut out for human society, it’s true.

But, as I keep saying: even if I didn’t have a weird, baggage-laden reaction to comments about food – even then, why is it something worth commenting on? I just don’t understand. I can kind of understand commenting on a stranger’s clothes or hair, especially if it really merits comment – like, “oh, wow, your hair is so pretty” or “wow, your hair’s really purple” or “I love that dress” or “where did you get that shirt?”, those are all fine.

I can even kind of understand a snide remark about someone’s appearance, if they seem to be asking for it. Like, that stuffy older gentleman who, walking by, sarcastically told me and my high school BFF “wow, you two just look great” when we were parading around in public in broad daylight in fishnets and miniskirts and crop tops, just for kicks. We were definitely asking for it. Or, the random kid at college who asked me, at my work study job, while I was ringing up his bagel sandwich: “what, did you lose a fight with a stapler?” because I had a pierced eyebrow (and was one of the only people, maybe the only person, on that campus with visible non-ear piercings). Or when strangers comment on my tattoos, to this day, even though I hate that. In all of these cases, I was/am asking for it, by dressing in a way that deserves to be made fun of. Social norms exist for a reason. If you can’t handle getting made fun of, then don’t dress weird.

So I can understand these types of comments from strangers. But I cannot, for the life of me, understand commenting on a total stranger’s food. What purpose does it serve? It’s not social. It’s not going to help anyone. It’s just completely random. Do some people really not filter their thoughts at all? Is it just me, or is this completely unhinged psychopath behavior? Can someone enlighten me? Please! Broaden my perspective here. I would love to understand.

Don’t people stop to think, in this woke day and age when we have “awareness” of every condition under the sun, that food can be a sensitive subject for some people? And even if not, even if they’re completely ignorant about food intolerances or neurodiversity or eating disorders: why? Why, what is the point? Or, are you fully aware and you’re just trying to start beef? What are you trying to accomplish?

In conclusion: I’ll ask one last time: why?? Why, why, why would you comment on a complete stranger’s food? Seriously – why would you? This is truly more mystifying to me than the meaning of life, than the width and breadth of outer space. Someone, please! Please, if you can, explain. Why, just why, would you comment on a complete stranger’s food?
April Eighth

April 8th, 2025

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite restaurant?
View all responses

My favorite restaurant – this is not really about the restaurant at all, though. Restaurants aren’t really as much about the food as they are about the experience, are they?

I don’t go out to eat that much – hardly ever, actually. I have a 5, a 3, and a 2 year old, and my family’s on a single income, so restaurants aren’t really a part of our life unless it’s a special occasion.

Which is completely fine with me. I don’t even honestly really like eating at restaurants. One of my ED-related quirks is that I’m self-conscious about eating in front of other people. Even people I know well. I feel awkward asking the waiter for what I want to eat – it feels like such a personal question, “what do you want to eat?” Ugh, cringe.

And I’m vegetarian, and just generally particular about what I will and will not eat. Also, I kind of hate eating at the standard dinner hour, anymore. I can do breakfast – but when the heck am I ever out to eat at breakfast time? The idea is pretty laughable, lol. Lunch is okay if it’s light, like a salad or something, so if you’re planning on inviting me out to eat, please make it a lunch. I honestly hate “dinner.”

So when I think about my “favorite restaurant,” I don’t really think about places that I actively go. In fact, the one place that really comes to mind is a place I went one time, over twenty years ago, with my family.

It wasn’t even memorable for the food – I wasn’t even hungry, I think, when we went there; I was still basically a child, with a very intuitive, unworried, even bored perspective on food. My ED didn’t start to kick in until a few months later, early eighth grade.

It was evening, April 7^th, 2003, and the first night of a family mini-vacation that we were taking to Washington, DC, three hours from home. For whatever reason, that three-day, two-night trip is sealed in my memory bank as three of the best days of my life.

But why was it so great? It shouldn’t have been, actually. Things were hectic. My family was in the middle of buying a new house, back home. We had come to this vacation straight from the home inspection on the house that we were buying, and the inspection had been abysmal. I remember in one room my father could literally poke his finger straight through the floor, that’s how rotted it was. So, my parents were stressed, but doing their best to have a happy family vacation (I remember my dad getting the drunkest I’d ever seen him at the hotel bar that evening; he wasn’t incoherent or wobbly or anything, but he was noticeably goofy and his eyes were glassy). My older sister was pretty miserable the whole time, and seemed like she very much didn’t want to be there with her parents and dorky little sister; normally, I was very influenced by her moods, and kind of took my cue from her as to how I should feel or act. But I, age 13, was not at school, was on vacation, and felt cute in my new little red Marvin the Martian t-shirt from Kohl’s, was just having a great freaking time in my own little world.

I think it’s because I was in a good mental place, that spring. That was the spring that I first began writing about my four characters, whom you may know from this blog if you’re a regular. I’d just written or was just about to write the first story I ever wrote about them; about 20 or 30k words, I wrote it by hand on notebook paper, sitting on my bed in my childhood bedroom, listening to my Walkman. Doing this was like discovering a new drug. I was feeling pretty on top of the world about it. And, in a sort of childlike way, I felt like those characters were on that trip with me, and even kind of wove it into my little headcanon, telling myself that two of them actually met that very day, April eighth, at the same FYE where I went shopping at the mall there in DC. (Millennial moment: I so miss CD stores!)

There are so many memories of that trip that you’d think would be lame or even shitty, but they are all colored by the mood/headspace that I was in at the time, so they are wonderful: like, we’d booked a hotel online without knowing anything about it, and that hotel turned out to be, to my father’s horror, “extremely gay,” i.e. all decked out in art deco style, and he swore that the bartender was hitting on him (I don’t remember much about this, and did not have much of a concept of “gay” at the time, but did think the pink-and-black, 1920s-ish décor was pretty funky). Also, it rained. We got stranded in the rain, walking around the city, a few times. My poor sister, who was very goth at the time and had a ton of metal accessories all over her, got stopped a million times in the metal detector as we were entering the Washington Monument. I don’t think she even ended up coming in. I don’t remember. Stuff like that.

There are certain songs that I associate very much with that trip, too. At the FYE on April 8^th, there were three CDs that I bought: The Exies’ first, self-titled CD; “Faceless” by Godsmack (which had, apparently, just come out that same day; I was so hooked on the song “Straight Out of Line,” and tbh it still slaps); and, you’ll laugh, but the self-titled album from Trapt (“back off, we’ll take you on!!!” I thought that song was so freaking hardcore, when I was 13, and my besties and I used to like to “mosh” to it at school dances, lololl). But, most of all, the songs that I associate with that trip are by the band Stage. My sister, who was extremely uninterested in everything else about that trip, requested that my parents drop her off so she could stop in this weird, funky, punk-rockish little shop before we left, on our last day of the trip, which I guess she’d read about online or heard of from friends, and was eager to check out; and while in there, at the register, she picked up a free EP from this band we’d never heard of, called Stage. And on the way home, she let me listen to it on my Walkman. It was only three songs, but they were all straight fire, especially the second one, “The World Has Come Between Us.” To this day, that song affects me really strongly. It made me nostalgic, even at the time. I kind of think of it as one of the anthems of my life.

But, all of this to say that this whole awkward trip is weirdly idyllic in my memory. Back to the restaurant thing. On night one of this trip, my tired parents decided that they wanted Mexican food, which I was not interested in. I wasn’t even hungry, but it was whatever. So they found this restaurant – I can’t remember what it was called, but it was a really big restaurant with covered rooftop seating. And we got to sit up there on the roof.

I think I ordered a couple of soft tacos with no meat. Weird, I know, but when I was younger that was my go-to order, whenever I got taken to a Mexican restaurant. I wasn’t interested in spicy meat, so I would literally get flour tortillas with lettuce and cheese, and I thought it was freaking delicious. So I was pretty pleased with the food, but the best part was that it came with this little green plastic sword.

I was still a kid, at 13. I loved the little plastic sword. It delighted me. I was playing with it, goofing around with it, I don’t even remember. Then at some point I dropped it, and it fell between the planks on the floor and was gone. I was bummed, but, true to form, too shy to ask for a second one. So, without my permission and to my great embarrassment (I was still a kid, but enough of a teenager to be mortified), my sweet Dad asked the waiter for me if he would bring another green plastic sword.

I can’t remember, exactly, if the waiter brought me one and I managed to miraculously recover the original, or if the waiter, in a display of generosity, brought me two. I think the latter. I remember sitting there being like I HAVE TWO OF THEM NOW!! and just being over the moon. I didn’t even finish my tortillas; and not because I was watching my weight, that hadn’t happened to me yet. I was okay with my body! The food was fine but uninteresting. I was happy. It was the best dinner ever.

I still have those two green plastic swords, in a little box in my closet.

I’ve mentioned on this blog before that AvPD is not a death sentence. Some aspects of it are not all bad. Living in the company of your made-up people that you came up with as a coping mechanism, can fill you with so much joy and delight, and it’s a happiness that nothing and no one can take away from you. It’s a happiness that can turn even the most basic circumstances into a fairytale. At least, that’s been my experience. Probably I also feel that way because, in addition to having AvPD, I have in the past been a true maladaptive daydreamer, and I enjoy writing and doodling very much – so that was pretty much the defining trifecta of my formative years. I wrote myself this little world to escape into. And, tbh, it still works for me, a lot of the time. I actually feel lucky and grateful to have had this trifecta of weirdness, because it gave me this made-up world that brings me so much joy. I used to think I would outgrow it one day, but here I am, 35 and a married mom and it’s still a huge part of me. I’m sure I will keep it forever.

It’s funny: almost all of my other memories of seventh and eighth grade are miserable and bleak, or are at least colored by that feeling of discomfort and awkwardness and loneliness. But this one silly little trip, which was not even objectively that great, remains logged in my memory as a golden time of pure joy. And that dinner, as one of the most memorable meals. May that generous waiter be abundantly blessed! Like my made-up people in my head, I will keep those green plastic swords forever.
Stop Commenting On Pregnant Women’s Bodies

April 7th, 2025

Let’s stop commenting on people’s body size. Pregnant or not.

As a mom who’s currently 26 weeks and change with my fourth baby, this has become a serious pet peeve of mine. You wouldn’t comment on a woman’s body size in casual conversation if she’s not pregnant (unless you’re a complete asshole); so why do we assume it’s okay to do to a pregnant lady?

The comment I get most frequently – from strangers, acquaintances, and even from doctors and midwives, who you would think would know better – is: “You’re barely showing! You’re so small! You’re tiny!” And, I hate that shit. I don’t know if these people think they’re giving me a compliment, but I wish they’d just stop.

I hate being told I’m tiny and barely showing, because it makes me self-conscious about my general, non-pregnant body size. When someone says “you’re tiny,” what I hear is, “you’re such a fat fucking tank of a person that your body hides the entire pregnancy inside its great bulk, and we can’t even tell, like, compared to a normal, attractive, stick-thin mom with an actual waistline, who would already have a round visible bump at like 8 weeks along.”

(Which, is actually not even true of me. Objectively, I’m a medium-sized person with a very “normal” BMI (not that the BMI scale is at all meaningful w/r/t a person’s health or appearance – it’s definitely not, in fact it’s BS, but that’s a rant for another day). I unfortunately just have the sort of wide, sturdy body frame that carries babies really comfortably. Big hands, big feet, no waist, thick ankles: built like a freaking tree trunk. But, on the plus side, I never get serious back pain or groin pain or swelling or anything like that, during pregnancy, and have worked out daily, with relative ease, right up until delivery, every single time. I’ve never needed a pregnancy pillow for my bed or a support band for my belly. I also don’t get stretch marks at all, and bounce back to my normal size pretty much immediately after birth every time. So, you win some, you lose some.)

It’s also triggering because, for many years, I never knew if I’d be able to get pregnant, and always dreamed of being visibly pregnant, so that people would look at me and know. I wanted to need a pregnancy pillow and a support band; I wanted to complain about back pain. And in reality I pretty much don’t get to have that experience – which, I’m lucky that this is the thing I get to complain about; I ended up having no trouble conceiving or giving birth, unlike many women out there, and in the grand scheme of things this is not that big a deal; but, it definitely makes me feel like less of a mom, less of a pregnant woman, less of a woman in general, when people say “you’re due so soon?! But you’re barely showing, I never would have guessed!”

Maybe these people really mean well, with the “you’re barely showing” comments, and it’s just my ED history piping up, making me take their words the wrong way. But even if that’s the case, I don’t think that makes it appropriate at all to comment on someone’s body size.

And I’ve been guilty of this myself, in the past. I hate that. I remember, back before I ever had kids of my own, a coworker of mine was pregnant, and all of us at the salon, including myself, were constantly playfully teasing her like “oh my gosh, you’re huge! You’re only in the second trimester?! Are you sure it’s not twins? How could you possibly get any bigger?!” and other such horrible, insensitive nonsense. I wish I could go back in time and smack myself, and apologize to that poor girl, who was having a hard enough time already.

But then, a couple years later, I had my first pregnancy, and quickly realized how awful it is that suddenly everyone in the world thinks it’s okay to shamelessly judge your body, out loud, in public, as if you’re on freaking America’s Next Top Model or something. It’s hard enough being a female and a mom, in this world. Leave pregnant ladies alone.

The rules are pretty simple. I will spell it out in two steps. If you see a woman who looks pregnant, step one is: don’t assume that she is pregnant! No matter how obvious it seems! She might have painful inflammation, or bloat, or a tumor. You truly do not know. Don’t assume, and don’t ask. Step two is: once she tells you that she is pregnant, there is only one (1) acceptable thing that you can say about her physical appearance, and that is: “you look great!”

Never comment on someone’s body size. This includes complimenting someone’s weight loss. Never compliment someone for losing weight. This is another rule that everyone should live by. I can’t tell you how horrible it was for me, during the days of my active ED, for people to tell me: “wow, you’re so skinny! I wish I looked like you.” “Wow, you’ve really lost weight!” “You’re so lucky you’re skinny.” That absolutely fucked me up, when I was in the thick of it. Even a friendly, innocuous-seeming “congrats, you’ve lost weight, you look great” can make a person think to themselves: “oh, so I looked awful before?” It really feeds a disordered mindset. Also, a person might be losing weight due to depression, a personal crisis, or cancer. You don’t know. Just don’t comment on someone’s body size.

Even if you think you’re giving a compliment and it’s not about weight loss – just don’t comment on someone’s body size! “You’re so thin, I wish I looked like you:” that person might be super insecure about their small body, maybe they were picked on for it as a kid, or maybe they’re very sick. “You’re so pretty, your body is perfect:” that would easily make someone feel objectified, to know that people are looking at their body and rating it on some weird scale. Or worry that if they change anything or gain a single pound or age a few years, they won’t be “perfect” anymore. Just don’t comment on someone’s body size. It’s simple.

“But Mith,” you might be arguing: “not everyone is as oversensitive and paranoid as you are! Most people in the world are normal, and can take a compliment or a benign remark without it causing a whole mental breakdown.”

Maybe so, but I daresay even normies are vulnerable to developing an eating disorder or exercise addiction, if they hear these kinds of comments enough. And even normies would probably be pretty bothered if someone complimented their weight loss and it was the result of their going through a nasty divorce, or losing a loved one, or undergoing major surgery. And, even if “most people” wouldn’t be bothered, that doesn’t mean it’s okay to just disregard that lesser percentage of people who would be injured by such comments. You don’t know if you’re dealing with someone who has an ED or any kind of mental/emotional baggage about their body. If you’re a decent person, you don’t want to risk harming someone.

And it’s not even hard to do. I’m not asking you to do any mental gymnastics or make any great allowances when it comes to interacting with pregnant women. I’m not asking you to go out of your way. It literally requires no additional mental or physical effort on your behalf to simply not comment on someone’s body size or shape.

In conclusion: I will say it again: just don’t comment on someone’s body! It’s seriously not that hard! Thanks for reading.
Should I fast for Lent if I have a history of EDs?

January 26th, 2025

I’m not here to quote the Catechism or any authority on this, since, as far as I have been able to tell, there is no authoritative advice on this particular question – if there were, I wouldn’t be here writing this speculative little blog post, would I?

I know that those with physical health concerns are exempt from fasting, so, obviously, if you’re in early ED recovery and were underweight and are actively trying to restore weight, definitely don’t fast. But what about those of us who have been physically healthy for a while?

For those who aren’t aware (although, I’m assuming that, if you clicked on this post, you probably have some familiarity with EDs), an ED is not the type of problem that once you’re eating well again, you’re fine. It’s like an addiction in that it is very much a mental/emotional problem, and it is permanent, it stays with you your whole life, and “being in recovery” is always an ongoing, active process. You have to choose it every day. Even those who are doing really well are always at risk of relapse. Also, just because someone looks healthy on the outside does not mean they are healthy. Many, many people with terrible, life-ruining EDs might actually be normal-sized or heavy. Hope that clears up any potential misunderstandings.

Lent will be here soon, and so I am once again asking myself: what is a person in recovery from an ED supposed to do?

(I should specify here: someone with a history of ED who, like me, is not yet very advanced in the spiritual life. If you’re super advanced spiritually, to the point where worldly concerns no longer seriously bother you at all, and the ED stuff no longer has any kind of hold on your mind (except, maybe, in the form of fleeting temptation), then this whole post probably doesn’t apply to you. I’m talking about those of us who are still in what St. Teresa of Avila would call the first two to three Mansions of the soul – those of us who are still at all bothered by things of the world. St. Teresa compares these worldly concerns to rodents, snakes, and vermin that sneak in the doors of the Mansion. I feel like, for someone in these outer rooms, it’s probably not a good idea to pick up these vermin and play with them and try to befriend them — which is, basically, what fasting from food when you have a history of ED actually constitutes.)

You may think it’s a simple answer: just don’t fast from food. Find some other way to fast, such as from caffeine, alcohol, social media, online shopping, or what have you. This seems to be the prevailing opinion in online Catholic places I’ve visited.

However, I’m not sure if the great saints would agree. I’m thinking of such saints as Augustine, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom, who stressed the importance of subjugating the flesh rather than being subject to it – referring to food and hunger, not to anything else. I can’t help but wonder if these great saints would think it’s a lazy cop-out on our behalf to say that we can’t fast because it affects our mental health adversely.

Throughout history, you see great saints who barely ate anything at all, or fasted on bread and water only, and who nevertheless were healthy and well and thrived until very old age. Look at the monks on Mt. Athos, always strictly fasting, yet some of the healthiest people on earth! So, doesn’t that prove that it’s just weak and lame of us, to claim that we can’t fast because it would “harm our emotional health?” I feel like, by playing this card, we out ourselves as just pampered, wimpy 21st century Westerners with no real problems.

Of course, you might argue that, well, fasting, in our case, could likely put us in a state of mind that’s vulnerable to relapse, and if that happens, then our physical health would suffer too, which perhaps feels less wimpy than complaining about our feelings. But, for counterpoint, see previous paragraph. We shouldn’t worry so much about our physical health, right, because the great saints have shown us that, if we truly fast for God, He won’t let it actually harm us.

But therein lies the problem, I think. Is someone with an ED even capable of fasting for God? I kind of don’t think so. I know in my case, whenever I even think about restricting food, it lights up the “yes, weight loss!” and/or the “I will be so perfect!” centers in my brain, out of which practically nothing good ever proceeds. I imagine it’s the same for anyone who’s had a serious or long-lasting ED. It seems impossible for us to fast without it being selfish (which an ED very much is, essentially). Even if we think we’re doing it for God, we’re probably actually getting some addictive, ego-pleasing little hit out of it. Heck, I think even if we yielded control to someone else, did it someone else’s way, let someone else prescribe us a specific plan with exact instructions what to eat and what not to, it would still light up all those disordered centers in our brains, because we would follow instructions the best, following the instructions would make us morally unimpeachable, etc. These processes are immediate, emotional reactions, not a conscious thought process that we can choose to interrupt.

I guess we could, with constant effort, work on fasting while also working on overcoming this disordered connection. But let’s be real, if fixing that broken connection were actually possible, EDs wouldn’t be such a cruelly persistent problem. As I said earlier, there is no cure. And the mental burden placed on an ED recoverer trying to fast, could be likened to that of a bona fide alcoholic trying to practice drinking in moderation. It simply does not work. Alcohol in any quantity is bad for the alcoholic.

So does it follow that restricting food, to any degree, is always bad for an ED recoverer?

I’m not sure. From my own experience, I know that, at times, as a recovered person, I realize how much physically better I feel when I eat lightly and get some exercise. Not even in a way that’s related to my size (not consciously, anyway); I simply feel physically better, and realizing that, as a recovered person, is a very liberating feeling, because it’s like, hey, I can eat salads and drink water without it being sad and disordered! I can actually choose between light and heavy foods according to my preferences! How novel!

But, at the same time, I’ve realized I have to be really careful when I feel that feeling. Feeling healthy and feather-light is super addictive to me, and pretty soon, if I’m not careful, there’s a law set in stone, and it’s all raw veg all day long whether I like it or not, and this becomes really hard to break out of.

So, is restricting always bad for someone with an ED? No, and yes. It’s slippery.

That’s why I think mandatory fasting from food for a predetermined length of time, is probably a bad idea for anyone with a history of serious ED. Our brains are broken. We just can’t fast like normies can.

But then what are we supposed to do for Lent? Should we just give up social media? That’s a good one, but IMO it doesn’t subjugate the flesh the same way fasting from food does (we who have been chronic restricters are already masters at subjugating the flesh that way, frankly; if you have ever been diagnosed with anorexia, suffice it to say that you’ve already earned an A+ in not yielding to the whims of your stomach). Should we perhaps give up a particular food or kind of food, and replace it with something equally nourishing that we enjoy less? Like, in my case, I might consider replacing my nightly chocolate protein smoothie with, like, a bowl of plain scrambled eggs, or something?

But tbh even the thought of that is lighting up my ED centers again. “Yes, I will be so good, I can do without pleasure!” “I can be so pure!” “I will only consume healthy proteins, I will cut out so much sugar!” To someone who’s never had an ED, these probably sound like great and healthy thoughts – but, if you’re prone to EDs, you get why they are not.

So, I’m inclined to think that any kind of “food law” is a bad idea, for us. We have something of an allergy to food laws.

One of my best, and hardest, Lenten fasts was actually the year I made myself sit down to eat meals with my family three times a day, hahaha. Normally I hate eating meals, and prefer quick, solitary snacks at random times throughout the day, staying pretty hungry until my one “large snack” right before bed. (Don’t talk to me about how unhealthy this pattern is, I already know. Trust me, I’ve spent decades trying to figure out how to manage food in my life, and I finally have a sustainable system that works decently well for me, so I’m not gonna fuck with it.) That Lent was really challenging, especially at first.

But honestly I don’t know if I’d repeat it, because I realized after the fact that any dietary law change like that kind of screws with my head, like, I found myself expecting to lose weight or achieve some higher level of perfection or familial bliss or something, like I’d win some Great Mom award for being so wholesome (“Look at me, I always make sure my family sits down to eat together three times a day, get on my level!”); and, like, I became slightly neurotic and puritanical about it, getting twitchy if my kids were out somewhere and I had to eat alone. It just didn’t feel entirely Lenten, that way, but more like a personal improvement exercise (not necessarily a bad thing, and perhaps I should try it again, but not as a Lenten fast). Self-improvement is not supposed to be the point of Lent at all.

And that’s the thing. It’s not even that fasting is bad for an ED recoverer’s health. It’s that, coming from us, fasting is not a good sacrifice for God.

So what will I do for Lent, then? I must find some way to subjugate the flesh without imposing food laws. Cold showers? Yikes, maybe. Exercise? Risky, as exercise addiction is a very real part of ED for many of us, including me. Waking up early? Extra chores? Yikes, might be a good idea. Will have to give it some prayerful consideration.

“But wait, Mith,” you may be saying, “you say no food laws, but aren’t you a vegetarian?”

I am, indeed, seven days a week. But at this point I’m literally vegetarian out of personal taste. I spent so many years avoiding meat for ethical/ED reasons, that I have developed an aversion to it; nowadays I simply find meat gross. I honestly wish I could go back to eating it, because I struggle with protein intake (see my post about my shitty hair). But when I eat meat I can’t get past the idea that I’m chewing on a carcass, that my stomach has become a graveyard, and it gives me the major ick. Although, I’m not a hardass about it, like, when I was pregnant with my son and randomly craved meat, I honored that and ate what I was craving (Arby’s roast beef sandwiches, and, a real nostalgia flavor for me, Fischer’s pickled bologna).

So would the great saints tell me I’m a wimp, for claiming exemption from fasting? Maybe. But they didn’t live in 21st century America, where EDs are a serious epidemic, so they probably wouldn’t understand. It’s a different world these days. New environments breed new diseases. I’m sure they understand now in Heaven.

After all, there’s nothing great about fasting in and of itself. Just like any suffering, it only has value if you do it for love of God. Which ED folks cannot. So, if we can find other ways to subjugate our flesh for love of God, I don’t know if God will really care that we did it some other way instead of by restricting food. He might even prefer that. At least, I hope so.

ETA: Part Two of this post is now available here!

Tag: eating disorders

Should I fast for Lent if I have a history of EDs?, Part Two

Why Would You Say That?

April Eighth

Stop Commenting On Pregnant Women’s Bodies

Should I fast for Lent if I have a history of EDs?