Exposed

It’s the stigma were exposed to. I met with a friend today to catch up. A long time friend from high school and running side kick back on track and cross country years ago. I spoke of my story. It’s no shit, an elephant in the room, and no matter how I need to catch up with people in my life it sadly must come up because it basically has impacted all aspects of my life within the past year. And I can admit it still goes on today. She’s a supportive girl and was really cool hearing everything and even shared her struggles. But what stood out in our conversation was when we are exposed to all of this weight and image stigma. I know in previous posts I can’t accurately define to you when my distorted image began….I think I really explain it as its always been there but I didn’t begin to control until college. Today my eyes opened to a whole other issue that I can discuss now for hours…but I wont bore you with that. Instead here is a brief overview.

 

What my friend I discussed today is this idea of exposure and when it led us to distorted image problems, anxiety or depression. We discussed how pretty much most of the girls we know on our cross country team had eating disorder, anxiety or depression and we were definitely victims to one of the above. We pinpointed an exact time when this was brought to our attention at like 15 years old on high school cross country. Our coach told us that every pound we gain is like getting 5 seconds slower in a race. And every second counts when youre running. OK honestly the more I think about it the more fucked it is. We are not professional athletes, we are young teenage girls at a very crtical part of our lives, sensitive to image just doing an after school activity at a public high school. It should be about hard work, motivation and most of all fun…and never the mention of weight especially in such a sensitive world we live in. In high school a team of 30, I can easily tell you multiple girls who walked away with eating disorders in high school alone, never mind the aftermath aka what i have been dealing with. I was exposed to weight having such meaning in my life at 15 at cross country practice. That’s scary.

 

We are exposed far too young to this idea of weight having a meaning. I mean it can relate back to my first post about the doctor confirming your “ok” BMI. Like why are you making me care so much every year of my life since as long as I can remember? I mean i get it there is a health aspect to it, but for student athletes at 15 being told to care so much…the seed was embedded in my head far too young and I carried it until I needed something to control in my life when I was feeling stressed and overwhelmed at BU. Today’s society is sensitive, its different and we are exposed to so much stigma especially with social media. Sports practice should be the last place we are stressing out at 15 years old. We already get so much societal pressure and its only becoming an increasing issue with eating disorders, male and females. It doesn’t stop with females let me tell ya.

 

I ran into a friend at the gym the other day. He is a wrestler. He described how much he weighed himself, eating habits, dangerous things and how controlling it is to his life. Like it is taking over his life and his thoughts like me. It made me sad to hear it because its so impactful in all types of people, male and female and a variety of sports. He told me how he has passed out and watched weight flucations of various pounds in a day and letting that control his mood. It is not ok to affect relationships, health, careers and well being over a number. Seriously there is so much that makes the package of life.  The exposure is young, the exposure continues and it truly affects our lives. What I want from this blog is happiness and self love. Self love is one of my values. You cant be successful in life, in relationships, jobs, etc if you cant first love your self. How can enjoy the package of life and all aspects to it if you cannot love yourself. Life is full of these different layers, not just your image and your weight. You cant base your life off of a number and your image, because your balance will fall, your layers will tumble, and it is sure hard as hell to put it all back together.