Anything that a boy can do...

I am the only girl of four siblings. When I was a child, I participated in all of the activities that my brothers would. 

What stuck with me the most was the adults in my life telling me that I couldn't do many of these activities because I am a girl.

This did a terrible number on my self confidence as a child.

Today I can recognize that this was not a measure of my abilities, but rather a measure of the ignorance and lack of education regarding gender equality from the adults in my life. This seemed as unjust as a child as it does to me now. 

I am happy to report there is a rainbow after the storm. I can now recognize that my determination to be treated equally, even as a child, was set ablaze to do anything that a boy can do, just much better. ;)

"Too much fat."

As a kid, and even now, I was always thin. Especially before puberty, I was tall, lanky, and naturally skinny.

I remember being about twelve, and I had put on a little bit of baby fat, as lots of girls do around that age as they reach puberty. I remember being in my grandmother's kitchen and going to pour myself a glass of whole milk before she snatched it away from me and poured me skim, patting my nearly flat stomach and telling me in broken English, "No, too much fat, [granddaughter], watch it!"

It was the first time I had felt shame about my body and that my worth was directly tied to my appearance.

It lead to years of being ashamed to eat anything fattening in front of people.

"You're hurting ME and MY family."

Said by my biological dad, after I told my therapist about a fight my family had that caused me to have a panic attack. 

I have been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, anxiety, body dysmorphic disorder, and major depressive disorder.

Through years of family and individual therapy, my therapists and psychiatrists have concluded that my eating disorder, anxiety and depression were partly caused by my family dynamic. Fighting, lashing out, aggressiveness, hostility, hatred and anger filled my house throughout my childhood. Or this is how I perceived it.

In 2014 my dad lashed out at me, saying that I was hurting HIS, not OUR, family, by making up these stories about how painful it was for him to live through this. According to him, I've overdramatized my family's problems for attention, and I lie to my therapists and psychiatrists. I was making HIS family seem like monsters, and ME as the poor little victim.

I haven't felt part of the family since he said those things. I've been the outcast. The insane one. The crazy one. My parents love me, our family dynamic is better now, but because of that comment I've truly come to the realization that my parents' support through my recovery is all an illusion.

They are ashamed of me and wish I were different.

Professional Draw-er

In first grade, I loved drawing. In my heart, I truly thought I had a shot as a "professional draw-er."

But on my report card, my first grade teacher wrote (to paraphrase): "[NAME] loves to draw. She wants to draw for the rest of her life. I don't think she has what it takes to do that... but I know that she's going to be something big, somewhere big, and I'm gonna read about her in the news one day." 

This completely broke my spirit and discouraged me from pursuing this dream.

"Well, she can see you."

Between kindergarden and first grade, I started to put on some weight and developed into a quite chubby kid. My mom was very proactive when I started gaining weight, and enrolled us in many family "get healthy" programs. I was aware that this was an issue, but for me at the time, it was an internal one. 

After one of my parent-teacher conferences in first grade, my mother came home and reported that I got glowing reviews from all of my teachers. She also said that one of my teachers, a beautiful and very thin woman, mentioned to her that she was overweight as a child as well and that she eventually grew out of it. I asked my mom how my teacher knew that I was overweight, and my mom responded, "Well, she can see you". 

I have never forgotten this moment. It was an innocent comment by my mother, one that would be obvious to any adult. However, as a young child that was the first time I realized that others were seeing and discussing my weight gain. That was the beginning of many years of self-consciousness and self-hating regarding my weight and looks.

It is only in the past several years that I have come to accept and like myself and how I look.

I don't think my mom remembers this comment, or has any idea how it affected me.

One time when I was in high school my mother and I were talking about sex. My boyfriend at the time was an Evangelical Christian and because I loved him I had started to become one too. My mother kept trying to bring up sex and I kept laughing, insisting that we weren’t having sex - we weren’t - and to close the subject for good I told her that I was saving myself for marriage. She was stunned. She said, “But what if you’ve waited all that time and it’s bad?”

Always ready with Evangelical sound bites, I said, “If I have nothing to compare it to, how will I know?” I smiled. My mother looked me in the eyes, her face deadpan.

“You’ll know.”