What Size?

As I was turning off the lights and climbing into bed tonight, I went through my ritual of examining (nay, critiquing) my reflection in the mirror. Without thought, I immediately pull the shirt up just enough to see my stomach. Rotate. Tighten the abs. Rotate. Sigh in frustration, guilt, defeat…

Tonight though, exhausted as I was at the time and still am, I noticed how large my shirt was and felt compelled to write. It isn’t because I’m shrinking down to nothing and my clothes are getting too big (although, quite honestly, I wish that was the case). I got this shirt at a camp when I was 14 years old. I weighed… probably 25-30 lbs less than I do now (oh, to be that size again!) and yet this shirt is a size large in adult sizes. It’s one of those standard retreat, volunteer, company, etc type shirts that are essentially sized to adult males. This one is a large and it occurred to me tonight that this shirt is too big and was definitely too big for a 14 yr old me, but it’s about perception.

Right now, I can look back and say, I *wish* I was that size again. But then, I wished I was smaller. I requested a large t-shirt because I viewed myself as large. I saw fat and weight and too big of boobs and all of that at 14 and told them, “I need a large.” I probably could have worn a small. I can say now, I wish I was that size again, but I know that if I reached that… when I reach that… I’ll have that same view that I had several years ago. I’m too big. I need to be smaller. I’m large, not small.

How can I change my mind frame? Where did my control go? Did I ever have it? When I have these tiny epiphanies, these realizations that this has been something that has been a “problem” for so much longer than I’d originally thought… I don’t know what to think. If someone were to ask me when this became a problem, I’d say my junior year of high school. The outward behaviors that others might recognize as eating disordered began at that time. I think. But the dieting? The feeling and belief that I was fat? The struggle and control and fear? That began much earlier than I’d like to believe. Sometimes I forget and moments like realizing how large this shirt is… they remind me.

<3

~ by Sisters By <3 on June 9, 2008.