National Eating Disorders Awareness February 24 – March 1, 2020
None of us are perfect, but accepting our humanness teaches us where our talents and strong abilities are, which allow us to live with those attributes we aren't totally comfortable with.
Many of us admit that there are things we'd like to change in our personalities. Perhaps we tend to be selfish or inpatient; lack drive or have a sense of entitlement. Some behaviors are learned and can be changed through self-discipline and desire is there.
Other flaws in our psyche seem to be ingrained within our DNA. As much as we desire to change, we just keep slipping back and wasting years of living.
Addiction is insidious and destructive. There are more than we can ever discuss here; suffice to say that the hardest corrective behavior is staying away from what we are addicted to!
We all suffer from one form of addiction or another. Whether it be bad habits, OCD tendencies, or full-blown drug, alcohol, sex and various other addictions. What if the addiction is a necessity to live... a life source? Ever really think about that?
Can you stop breathing, sleeping, eating? Disordered eating torments its host on a moment-to-moment routine. Can you ever know what it's like to NEVER feel comfortable in your own skin? To be plagued with the constant urge to want to crawl out of it?
Mirrors, compliments and words of reason have absolutely NO audience, because they are emotionally filtered and shut down before they can ever get to the intelligent brain. The emotional anguish overrides any sense of reality.
I grew up in the 1960's where not a lot of focus was placed on weight as much as it is today. The light was shone more on family, work ethic, the positions we held in community, making a good living and education. People took more pride in a manicured lawn then manicured fingernails and pedicures. Girls were often sewing their own clothes and 'designers' were fairly unknown to the average person.
We had family role models like 'Father Knows Best" and "Leave it to Beaver." Jackie Kennedy was our vision of fashion and John Wayne our idea of strength.
As the decade rocked on, we were surrounded with artists, musicians, actors, new wave ways of thinking that included meditation, free love, freedom of expression and drugs. The British invasion started in music with the Dave Clark Five, The Beatles and The Doors and Rolling Stones.
It was during this time when the most influential change in American beauty since Greta Garbo, May West and Marilyn Monroe took place. Twiggy, also known as Leslie Lawson, an English model, came on the scene. Her big eyes, short hair, and ulta-thin, gaunt look made her the first supermodel. Society was mesmerized by Twiggy's sunken abdomen, lanky legs and gaunt face. Within weeks, the media changed the entire look of fashion, and with it womens' idea of beauty. The fashion industry started making clothes for an anorexic body, which in turn made women feel fat even though most were perfectly normal weight. She became the model of what the new healthy was.
We were entering the 'me' generation, and suddenly focus shifted not to shining the light on ourselves for improvement as much as putting the microscope on any and all perceived flaws we thought we had! Women young and old wanted to emulate Twiggy and so they started starving and depriving themselves. If they couldn't get thin by less food and excessive exercise, they started purging or literally starving themselves. No one had a label for this new disordered way of eating.
I myself, suffered from an eating disorder, but in the 60's and 70's there was no label, therefore no such disease. In medicine, eating disorders didn't exist, and mental health therapy still carried a stigma that discouraged many from seeking help. I went from doctor to doctor to be told I had an ulcer! Years, decades went by before anyone had a clue it could be something else.
Today, young girls start out with what is innocently sharing clothes with friends, sleep overs, and watching television. They soon begin to question why they can't fit into their girlfriend's pants. One television commercial after another show happiness and love to thin, beautiful woman and they secretly believe that if they could look like them, they'd have their life.
Innocent moms striving to get to their own level of thinness, always dieting, talking about weight, trying on dress after dress, stepping on the scale frequently inadvertently role model to their daughters that they are not okay being the way they are. Naturally the daughter wonders about herself.
I can go on and on, but the bottom line is that we, as a society, need to take responsibilty for what is in our immediate world. Perhaps we can't control what the media swamps us with, but we can expose the truth. Let our daughters know that magazine ads are airbrushed photos, not reality. Point out the hollowness behind the eyes of the supermodel; the fact that some have even been caught eating paper just to saciate their hunger pangs. We must teach them to see the beauty inside themselves and nourish those talents and gifts that are unique to each.
For me, I run. I have found my JOY through my body movement. Running is an outlet that allows me to crawl out of my skin, and for a brief moment in time, be FREE from the confines of my physical form. I am not encumbered; I am limitless, ageless and timeless!
Stay tune for Dawn's follow-up article: "Run Yourself Happy;" one woman's desperate flight to escape pain turns into her JOY.
Dawn Ciccone counsels girls with disordered eating, dysmorphia and life changes such as menopause, that seem to take control away from the person suffering. She offers hope, tools and the life experience that only one who has lived it can. Ownyourshero.com