After using it for a couple weeks, I’ve discovered that one of my commenters was right; this app just brings my disorder to the forefront of my mind.
The constant “EAT” reminders that buzzed on my phone every couple hours just overwhelmed me and make me uncomfortable. The detailed food log just made me want to have a lack of food to log.
All in all, I’m sad to report it was very triggering. I do hope it was better for others, but I wanted to mention my experience.
This advertisement floored me when I saw it a couple days ago for the first time.
More than a number? It may seem like simple advertising techniques to a marketing excecutive.
“Oh women are always concerned with weight and sizes. What if we just made sizes flattering names instead?”
What I don’t think they realized is the impact it would have on someone who struggles with ED.
The whispers of my ED were stunned into silence after seeing this commercial. It was terrified of a world where it couldn’t dictate to me to get down to that size. To the winning size.
How could the whispers possibly hiss and bully without the elusive 00 goal?
In this beautiful boutique the commercial paints; all sizes are merely empowering descriptors.
It’s a deep, dark struggle to tell friends or partners “…now I’m a size 7.”
But wouldn’t it be beautiful to tell a friend “Now my size is fabulous! What about you?”
The hissing and bubbling and bullying would be forced to cower and grumble in disappointment. It’s hard to make words like Stunning, Confident, Courageous, or Charismatic a punishment.
I like radiant myself
I think Special K has made a surprisingly strong (and perhaps unintentional) message to not only the general self image we are obsessed, but the size focus a lot of eating disorders and other mental-health diagnoses struggle with.
I’m ready to re-label all our sizes! Let’s do away with numbers! It’s time for some positive change!
The Goddess Ana and Mia can only crumble before these heroes. I imagine these modern heroes fighting just as bravely as the famous Greek ones of mythic lore.
Meet Radiant: A fiery redhead who in the past would rather sleep than do anything. Now she uses her two powerful short swords to slash at the black curtains of depression and self-harm that these hateful goddesses erect daily.
Meet Charismatic: A smiling blond whose song can stop a truck. She used to sing the blues but now she rocks out with all the energy of hope. She loves it even more when she can get others to sing with her. Her friends and family comment how much her smile lifts their spirits and how glad they are to see it again.
Meet Fabulous: This brunette used to stay in the bathroom, bogged down by the whispers and tormented by what she thought was her own desire for death. But now she stands strong and using a mirror shield, reflects the goddesses own images and nasty words back at themselves.
These are today’s heroes. They want nothing more than to drive away the black hole that only sucks and sucks. To replace it with the shining light of hope, healing, strength, love. To show you that you are a beautiful person.
And you can be a hero too.
What new size do you like the sound of?
Disclaimer: I don’t work for or with Kellogg’s in any way. I haven’t received any compensation. I did this post merely because their ad struck me on a personal level. I actually don’t even eat cereal.
I just downloaded it and haven’t had a chance to explore it thoroughly, but what I read so far on the description and reviews has me excited.
Here’s something that may manage to let me track and log like my brain likes to do; but keep it as positive and guilt-free as possible. Perhaps avoid too much triggering and encourage some better eating habits.
Please let me know if any of you have already tried it and have opinions or if any of you happen to try it out here soon and want to let me know what you think!
Remember; you are beautiful and braver than you realize! Be gentle with yourself!
**(EXTRA Trigger warning for blunt and not pretty ED talk)**
The glow and flame and burst of light you think you’ll have. The silver insides, the fluttering clean, the glorious empty, the lightly skipping steps of a person who is perfectly thin.
It’s a rose-tinted lie.
Here’s what an eating disorder really is for me:
It’s two am and I wake up with those sudden feelings of self-hatred and the flab seems to be clinging, clinging, Something has to be done. It doesn’t matter that work is in the morning and I really shouldn’t be a shell at work. I reach for the pills.
It’s living a life where measurement of pills are dolled out by shakes of a bottle and tosses into a shaking palm. Proper dosage is only “more”.
It’s making sure I have enough ephedrine to curb the hunger pains and exhaustion. It’s reading the articles that talk about it being mostly outlawed because when it was coupled with caffeine and aspirin it caused dramatic weight loss (and a lot of health problems). And my only reaction is “gotta get some low-dose aspirin”.
It’s telling people I love eating hot sauce straight because I’m a weird nut about spicy food; when it’s really because it acts as a natural laxative and adds next to no calories. And loving that it burns the shit out of my tongue so I don’t want to eat more.
It’s the burning and painful tenderness of my behind after I’ve had a particular violent bought with the laxative effects.
It’s sobbing in the middle of a weekend afternoon because I desperately want to bake something (baking being my secret passion) but knowing I’m not seeing anyone soon that I could pawn the results off on. So I have to stop myself from doing it. Otherwise I’ll just eat the results and cow’s don’t deserve desserts.
It’s being a little happy deep down when a particularly nasty migraine results in multiple days of vomiting.
It’s hating myself so deeply, so darkly, in a twisting thorn of rage, for the days after those migraines where I can’t eat enough.
It’s telling coworkers that I ate before I came to work and I would prefer to just work through lunch.
It’s shaking and trembling in the bathroom after those handful of laxatives, the cramping in my stomach so bad that I’m pretty sure I’m going to die.
It’s unexplained bruises and scratches when I wake up in the morning. The only clue is a echoing cry of despairing self-hatred in the back of head. It is almost childlike.
It’s hearing my best friend tell me I look like a pinup model in a swim suit and wishing, just wishing, that I could see myself that way. I’m not dumb, I know my eyes are broken.
It’s hearing my mother say “You would never treat another person the horrible way you treat yourself” and being stunned into silence by the truth of it. I am my own worse enemy.
It’s hoping, hoping, hoping that something will change. But nothing ever does.
pen, paper, and crazy 