Let’s talk about health in general. It’s the broader category under which martial arts fall, and it’s not something I talk about much. It’s something I’ve been thinking about more, and I want to get in better shape.
This is tricky because I have a life-long history of eating disorders. It started when I wsa seven and my mother put me on my first diet. My cultural lineage is Taiwanese, and they are even worse with weight-based shaming than America (at least they were when my parents were children/young adults). In addition, my mother had a mother who was obsessed with girls being skinny and pretty–basically being decoration. Which was grimly ironic because my grandmother was nott like that at all. She was not decorative or just sitting around limply doing her womanly duty.
She was the first woman to graduate from a certain college in Japan (can’t remember which one), and she was the first woman to be the equivalent of a senator in her prefecture. Yes, she had eight children, but she didn’t like being home with them. In other words, she didn’t walk the walk when it came to her talking the talk.
By the way, this is the same with my mother. She has a litany of things she thinks a woman should be, but she doesn’t like any of them herself. When I was a kid, Iused to think she was a bad cook. I didn’t really think too deeply about it until much later. Then I realized that she had the problem of a husband who refused to eat anything other than Taiwanese food (when he was actually home) and two kids who only ate American food. Preferably burgers and pizza.
My mother was into clean eating before it was a thing. She made my brother and I clean our plates and gave us the hoary old line, “There are starving kids in Africa.” It didn’t make sense to me, even at the time. That’s bad for them, but how is my eating or not eating my food going to help with that?
My mother was a mass of contradiction when it came to food. As an Asian mother, her impulse was to stuff us silly. But because of her body/food issues, that was followed up with her commenting on how fat I was. I’m not exaggerating. She told me when I was seven that I would be so pretty (ugh. That’s another dysfunction that she espoused since I was little–a girl was supposed to be decorative and pleasing to the eye. Especially the male eye) if I wasn’t fat.
At seven.
Let me tell you, that’s a guaranteed way to put someone down the path to an eating disorder or seven. I dealt with anorexia and bulimia in college, and then overeating/compulsive eating afterwards. I still deal with the lattar and–oh, the former went into my mid-twenties. I used my obsessive nature to be the best anorexic I could be (even though I did not phrase it that way), and I did it so well.
This is the problem with me now not being happy about my weight. I don’t hate it the way I did back then, but I’m not happy about it, either. I was pleased to have the extra weight during my medical crisis because it cushioned me. I also thought I looked as cute as fuck, but that was probably the drugs talking.
Side note: I’m straitlaced when it comes to drugs. I don’t even drink because I can’t stand the way it makes me feel. When I was in the hospital, I was stuffed to the gills with sedatives, barbiturates, and…something else. I don’t remember, but something similar. Maybe opiates.
And I finally understood why people did drugs. My god. I felt so good in the hospital. Tired as fuck, but other than that, I was flying high. Nothing could touch me, and I felt as if I could do anything.
When I got home, I took a bunch of selfies with my hair done frivouusly. That was not like me at all, but that’s what I felt like doing. I had my hair in Chun-Li buns–well, not exactly. I put them up in two high ponytails, braided each ponytail, then twisted each braid around the stem. Then I put a scrunchie on each stem. It was so cute! I also did two high ponies and just let the hair free. Now, I wear it in a high pony with the tail half-braided.
My body had seen me through death. Twice. And I was not letting anyone shit to me about it. Not even me. Now, though, it’s been three-and-a-half years. I don’t know why I survived my medical crisis, and I’m not sure I’m glad I did. I was at first, but now, with the stated of my country going to utter shit, I feel…defeated.
But this is not a post about that. I will do that post at some point, but not this point. Because I’m way too mad to write that post with even the thinnest veneer of civility.
As for this post, well, I’m pretty mad about this as well. Still mad, all these decades later, that my mother was so fucked up about weight, gender, and everything related. Still is. I remember her fighting to lose those five pounds for decades. She finally did, but it didn’t make her any happier–just thinner.
That’s what I found out from being anorexic. It was never enough, and I still felt fat, depresesd, and deeply unhappy. I have to emphasize that I had classic anorexia twice. I could barely walk without passing out, and I was in danger of dying. I would not have admitted it at the time, but I was. And I still felt grotesque and as if I was too ugly for words.
My mother conveyed the message that for a girl, being fat was an unforgivable sin. See, a girl’s first obligation was to get married and have children. And fat girls weren’t going to get guys to look at them, obviously.
My mother did not allow sweets in the house. Ocne a week, we went to a fast food restaurant after church, and I would get something sweet just because I could. When I was in imy early thirties, I gave up eating fruits and vegetables completely because my mother forced me to eat them four to five times a day. Which, yes, that’s how much you’re supposed to eat a day, but her relentless nagging put me off both fruits and veggies. Which was sad because I likke them both.
But, and this is something I learned in therapy, when you aren’t allowed control over anything, you find ways to take it. Even if they’re not healthy ways. Even if they’re self-destructive or against your best self-interests. I did it just beacuse I could. Yes, it was childish. Yes, it didn’t hurt anyone but me. Yes, there were better ways to deal with my childhood trauma. Didn’t matter.
You have to undrestand. I was the hottest of messes until I started studying Taiji. Even past that, but more so before I started my martial arts study.
That’s it for today. I didn’t even scratch the surfaces of what I wanted to say, so I’ll be back tomorrow.