Body of Lies

The first thing my father said to me today was ::head nod::. The second thing he said was (in response to me asking if he was going into work today) "yeah." The Third thing he said to me, and his first full sentence of the day, was "you need to not eat."

And thus encapsulates my relationship with my father.

It wasn’t always that way. I was 5 once, and things were good then. High school was when the talk of weight started, when I switched from Shaolin to Aikido. Aikido is slow moving, and emphasizes internal exertion rather than the physical sort. You should be able to throw your opponent across the room with little more than a nudge in that direction. I suddenly switched from a high impact and fast paced martial art to one that requires you to move as little as possible. My body responded in kind, as I continued to eat the same things that my mother cooked.

Through high school, I was a large kid. I never “fit in” in the usual sense of the phrase, partly due to my mixed heritage and partly to do with my physique. Very long story short, I developed an eating disorder in senior year.

Anorexia nervosa.

Since then, I’ve managed to keep Ana in check. There was a stretch back when I was living with Justin that I toyed with the idea of starting up again, and pushed the boundaries of what is safe and sane. Of course being around taekwondo kids all the time hasn’t helped. I always feel worse about my body around cutting time, and everyone else being anorexic encourages me to go there too. I personally have refused to cut weight while competing for Cal, so that I might not jump back into the comfortable routine of starving myself. That is likely why I have been largely (pun intended) unsuccessful in my taekwondo competition career, having only won 1 fight as a black belt. All the other middle weights are so much taller than me! While my taekwondo years were my healthiest ever, I still had trouble every day with eating, and it’s probably a good thing that I’m no longer in that environment anymore.

I attribute the biggest portion of blame for my eating disorder on the media. Easy scapegoat, there. But, and it hurts to admit this, I know that the primary blame rests with my father. Through high school, his comments every day piled on top of one another until it became too much to carry. Just so that he would stop criticizing me, just so that he would look at me with love rather than disgust, I looked for a quick fix. If it weren’t for a couple great friends, I might have stuck with it for longer. I would very much like to say that I had some intervenors back then and it all went away, but once you date Ana, you can’t let her go.

Now that I have this cursed broken foot of mine, cardio is very much out of the question. I’m overweight, and the comments he makes are getting louder in my head. I live at home, and it is harder to tune him out when his room is right next to mine. My own personal body image has always been skewed and warped, and I am never sure if what I am seeing is what other people are seeing. When I was at top fighting condition, I still saw flaws in my body. Picture me then and picture me now and try to tell me that I haven’t changed that much. I don’t need my father’s disgust to wash over me when I have disgust of my own.

I would like to say that it’s not a problem anymore. I love food, and I love to eat, but there is still a twinge of guilt at the back of my neck every time I finish a meal. I’ve been able to ignore the itch for a while, but it’s an ever present reminder of the easy way out.

Last week’s episode of Glee (the one titled simply “Home”) made me cry. Christina Aguilera and Linkin Park got me through high school. My love for my friends keeps me going today.

I need to move out. All the negativity is eating away at me and my defenses. Slowly. Slowly.

Surely.