Anti-Hero
I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser
Midnights become my afternoons
When my depression works the graveyard shift
All of the people I've ghosted stand there in the room
I should not be left to my own devices
They come with prices and vices
I end up in crisis (tale as old as time)
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day I'll watch as you're leaving
'Cause you got tired of my scheming
(For the last time)
It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me
At tea time, everybody agrees
I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby
And I'm a monster on the hill
Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city
Pierced through the heart, but never killed
Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism
Like some kind of congressman? (Tale as old as time)
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day I'll watch as you're leaving
And life will lose all its meaning
(For the last time)
It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me (I'm the problem, it's me)
At tea time, everybody agrees
I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
I have this dream my daughter in-law kills me for the money
She thinks I left them in the will
The family gathers 'round and reads it and then someone screams out
"She's laughing up at us from hell"
It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me
It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me
It's me, hi, everybody agrees, everybody agrees
It's me, hi (hi), I'm the problem, it's me (I'm the problem, it's me)
At tea (tea) time (time), everybody agrees (everybody agrees)
I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero.
—Taylor Swift
Alright, let me start with a big fat disclaimer: The first time I saw the music video for Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero, it really pissed me off.
How dare she! I thought. This thin, gorgeous, famous, unthinkably rich, young, white woman is looking at herself standing on a scale and shaking her head, and if she is conveying to the millions watching that she’s overweight, what kind of awful message does that send?
Because, of course, pretty privilege is a thing, as is thin privilege, as is - it goes without saying - white privilege. And those things are real, and I’ve benefitted for sure from at least two of them my whole life.
But of course it is not that easy. And to explain, I have to invite you into my past and invite you into my head. Please be gentle with both.
Let me start by saying I love my dad. Very much. But he grew up in an era (an era that *maybe?* is slowly fading) when he felt entirely entitled to impose his destructive and cruel view of female on anyone who would listen, especially the women and girls around him. To my dad, there are only two kinds of women: thin (beautiful) and not thin (not beautiful). That’s it. Historically, if my dad told you about a woman he had met, it would not be more than a sentence or two before he made sure to let you know which category she fell into. And for those of us in his family, he made sure to let us know frequently that he was always paying attention to our weight.
My poor mom. I never saw her truly enjoying food - really allowing herself to eat what she liked - until she was eviscerated by chemo and under doctors’ orders to gain weight. My whole life she kept herself on a punishing and rigid diet, under my dad’s watchful eye. And that is just what I observed from the outside; I cannot imagine what he said to her privately.
In a certain way, I was fortunate that until my mid twenties, I could eat anything I pleased without gaining a pound. But this did not help me escape my dad’s pernicious appraisal. It did not help me escape the threats made by my first serious boyfriend (“If you gain weight I’ll dump you”). It did not help me escape - and probably only exacerbated - the slimy harassment by my boss in the kibbutz kitchen where I worked when I lived in Israel (“Why don’t you come to work in a bikini tomorrow?”). And it did not help me captivate or attract my on-again-off-again boyfriend through my mid-twenties, who never once - in four years - told me I was beautiful.
Still, I have spent the rest of my life regretting that I did not appreciate how easy I had it before. Before my metabolism changed and before I had any use for a scale and before I started outgrowing my clothing. That all snuck up on me, over the course of one summer, and it changed everything.
Eating disorders are no different than any other kind of mental illness: what is true and what the person believes are a Venn diagram with zero overlap.
I had noticed, of course, that I was gaining weight. But it was the week before school started that knocked me flat. I was standing on a step-ladder outside of my classroom, decorating the walls in preparation for my students’ arrival, when Ms. Burnett, a second-grade teacher, all honey-coated razor blade, walked up: “Wow! Look at you. You got so fat.”
My jaw dropped and I stood there, stunned on my stupid step-ladder, unable to say a word, my eyes full of tears. In retrospect, I was still a completely normal weight. But I was no longer underweight, and so, in my mind, she was entirely right.
From that moment on, I stopped eating. I have spent all of the time since then - except for my three pregnancies - experimenting with how little I can eat and still stay functional. Objectively speaking, I am a queen of willpower, although my evil brain never lets me really see it that way. In my mind, unless my BMI dips below normal, which it has on and off in the intervening years, I am a failure, just one of those “not thin” women my dad found so unattractive.
Of course having babies made everything more difficult. A year after Vee was born I still had not lost all of the baby weight and I despised myself, even though my ex-husband - who is the only man I have been close to who has never made me feel bad about my weight (intentionally or unintentionally) - let me know all the time that he found me more beautiful at that size. It did not matter. The hatred was too powerful.
Then my mom got diagnosed with the leukemia that eventually killed her, and just like that, I could not eat. Nothing like grief to take the pounds off, I guess. By the time she died fourteen months later, I weighed less than she did on her deathbed, even though we were the same height. I look back now and realize how skeletal I was, but I also think, Damn, how awesome is it that I could fit into that dress?
Being back in the dating world since having kids has been difficult as well. Remember George W. Bush’s “soft bigotry of low expectations”? (Aside: for some reason I cannot explain, my kids call him George Bush Bush.) Anyway, that is the phrase that most comes to mind when I think of the two men I really loved who both loved to exclaim: “I cannot believe you had babies and your body looks like that.” One frequently took this even further by insisting that my girls had to be adopted because I was thin and didn’t have visible stretch marks. It sounded like a compliment at the time, of course, but…gah. I still have a sour taste in my mouth.
Fast forward to about a year or so ago, when suddenly - thanks perimenopause! - I started to gain weight that I could not lose. It really has wrecked me, and sent my eating disorder into the stratosphere. It does not matter that Ben has let me know often and in a million different ways that he loves my body, no matter what. It does not matter that my OBGYN looked at me incredulously when I complained about gaining weight, and noted that my weight was still at the low end of normal for my height. All I feel is self-hatred, and the only voice in my head that matters is my dad’s.
I probably should have shared more of this with Ben, although he has known for a very long time that I have an eating disorder and I struggle with my self-image. Maybe if I had, he would not have gotten me an item of clothing for Hanukkah that ended up being too small on me, and maybe if I had, he would not have exclaimed, in response to my dismay, “I thought you were…small!”
He meant the opposite of how it came across, but still. He felt horrible, and I know he did not mean it, and I know - somewhere in the rational part of my brain - that I can trust that he is attracted to me, but…oof. I have been in a tailspin ever since. And I am not sure how to come out of it.
I know that what I have shared so far still may not resonate, so I want to try a little thought exercise with you.
Try this: Next time you are about to eat, pause and close your eyes and listen to your internal monologue. Is there a voice commenting on what you are about to eat, how you should feel about it, whether you should eat at all, and what the consequences of eating will be? While you eat, is that voice mockingly narrating every bite? After you eat, do you feel awful for having eaten too much, or eaten at all? For the rest of the day, are you thinking about what you ate, whether you should have eaten, and what the scale will say the next morning?
I hope, for your sake, you have no internal monologue around eating. Really and truly. But I do, and it is never silent.
Witness: Last week my team had a half-day planning retreat. As soon as I learned that food would be provided, I started worrying. That morning, I packed my usual coffee and apple and clementines - the only foods I have recently allowed myself to eat between dawn and dinner - and checked what time I could stop my nightly 14-16 hour fast. I was anxious, but decided to let the day play out as it would.
When I got there, the first challenge was the box of donut holes on the table across from me. One, I thought. That’s not too bad. I waited until my fast timer was done, and then I had one chocolate donut hole.
The meeting started. I was facilitating an activity, but it was one I had facilitated many times before, so there was room in my head for the awful voice to keep hounding me: That donut hole was good. You never have those. Look: your colleagues are having more than one. You should have another one. When the activity is over, you should go take one more. It’s so small. It’s just one more. Everyone else is eating normally. Why don’t you just eat normally, just for today? Go ahead. It won’t kill you. Better to satisfy the craving than to let it just grow. Go ahead. Might as well. You don’t have much willpower anyway. You’re not good at this. And you’re fat already, so what difference does it make? Go ahead.
Of course, as soon as we had a break, I took another donut hole, eating it quickly before I could change my mind. Once back into the work of the day, the voice continued: I can’t believe you ate two of those. You shouldn’t have had any. Are you even trying to lose weight? Isn’t it bad enough that your skinny pants don’t fit? Weren’t your hiking pants too tight this weekend? How weak are you? Pretty weak, it seems. You can’t even fast as long as you used to be able to. Your willpower is gone. What a shame.
That horrible narrative repeated itself on a loop until lunch was brought in midday. It was from Potbelly (hahahahasob), so there were no really healthy options. I could have just sipped my coffee and eaten my apple and clementines, but in for a penny, in for a pound, the voice mocked, and so I grabbed a plate and dug in.
As I sat eating my one vegetarian sandwich and my chips, the voice picked right up: Look! Every other person in the room is eating. They’re having two sandwiches. Some people are having three! They’re really small. They’re just sections of a hoagie. And there are cookies too. They look really good. See - your colleagues are talking about how good the cookies are. You should have one. You can eat a few bites and then bring the rest home for the girls. And while you’re up, you should get another sandwich. See? They’re trying to get people to finish them. You don’t want them to go to waste, do you? You’ve already decided that today is a day for eating normal food like a normal human, so just go for it. Seriously. It won’t kill you.
I got up. I took a cookie, but not another sandwich. I ate half the cookie. I put the rest in my lunch bag, knowing I would certainly sneak bites through the afternoon. I looked at my empty plate and thought about getting another sandwich. I helped clean up, and thought about getting another sandwich. I finally mustered the willpower and tossed my plate in the trash. I sat down. I thought about getting a new plate and another sandwich. The meeting started back up, and I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing my window for eating more food had closed.
The voice continued, awash in sarcasm: Good job, Jane! You only ate ONE sandwich and ONE bag of chips and a HUGE piece of cookie. Very impressive! You should weigh yourself tomorrow morning. Really! It will be fun! Also, it’s a very suitable punishment for losing your damned mind and eating so much, you weak, fat, loser. You had a healthy apple just sitting there in your bag, but you couldn’t just eat it and move on, could you? You saw food and you had to take it. Lovely. You’re so disgusting. You have no willpower.*
Let me be clear: That was a snapshot of one part of one day in my life. But the voice talks nonstop, every waking hour of every day. I am always thinking - actively or passively at the back of my mind - about eating and food and fasting and hunger and my weight and how my body looks. In fact, as you read this, I am obsessing over the agency-wide holiday party on Thursday where every office prepares a food extravaganza, and everyone spends the entire day, 9-5, traveling from office to office and gorging themselves. I have been fretting about this party since it was announced many weeks ago, and now my anxiety is through the roof.
Also, there is never a moment - not ever - when I look at myself and feel good. And so mostly I avoid looking at myself.
To return to where I started, I know that people look at me and see a person with an average - or even thin - body. But knowing that intellectually does not even remotely matter. Eating disorders are no different than any other kind of mental illness: what is true and what the person believes are a Venn diagram with zero overlap.
Recently, Dear Prudence in Slate published this letter. It could have been from me:
Dear Prudence,
I hate my body. For a good six months, I (F, age 38, two kids) reached a lower weight goal after following a strict diet and exercise regime. I was happy. I was a thin model. And then I burnt out, and for two weeks I did not work out and ate normally. And I gained it all back! I am defeated and I hate myself and my body. I don’t know what to do. To me, going to therapy is giving up and accepting being a porker and looking mediocre. And menopause is around the corner and I am dreading the weight gain. How do I get back on track?
—Struggling
Prudie’s answer was excellent, but I also know it almost certainly fell on deaf ears:
Dear Struggling,
I can feel the desperation and pain and self-loathing in this letter, and I’m so sorry. You say you’re near menopause, which tells me you spent a decent chunk of your adult life in an era when we were told every famous woman over a size zero was fat. That was enough to do damage to anyone’s self-image. I imagine you have had some other painful experiences that make the issue of weight especially charged for you, even more than it is for the average person living with our culture’s unhealthy messages about body size. I actually am going to edit the precise weights and percentages and calorie numbers out of your letter, because I don’t want to contribute to sending even one reader into a spiral of measuring, comparing, and shame. I will share with readers, however, that you have mentioned weights that most people would consider to be low to very low, and that the changes you’re monitoring are not significant. We’re talking about weight gain in the “I went on vacation and came back a little heavier” category—nothing that would change your ability to move through the world or even, really, fit into all the same clothes.
It’s not about the numbers, though. You feel the way you feel, and the way you feel is unbearable. It’s absolutely no way to live. You have to, have to, get into therapy. I get that your self-hate is telling you that you need to be thin, but not that you deserve to be happy or even peaceful. I get it. So can you at least look at this from the perspective of your children? Do your kids not deserve a mom who is present with them and enjoying them rather than obsessing about every calorie and ounce? What if, to get yourself in the door, you tell yourself that if your mental health is better, you will be in a better place to focus on your health and fitness the way you need to? To be clear, I do not agree that you actually need to focus more on health and fitness! Not at all. But “Therapy will help me be more disciplined about obsessing over my body” is better than “Therapy is giving up,” if it gets you the help you need.
Just open your mind to the idea that once you’re getting that help you might, just might, start to think differently about the relationship between your body and your ability to be happy. Open it to the idea that you deserve a little bit of relief from the way you’re feeling right now. After all, your deepest fear is “being a porker and looking mediocre,” and I assume that’s because you think you’d feel awful that way. Well guess what? You feel awful now! How much worse can things get? You’ve tried punishing yourself into happiness and it didn’t work. Please try another way.
For me, the only part of this answer that I felt I could really absorb was the part about the woman’s kids. Given that two of my three daughters already struggle with deeply disordered eating, and the third is growing more and more critical of how she looks, I know I have to do better. Their dad and I have tried to do everything right, and I love to bake with my oldest and I keep all my toxic inner monologue to myself when I do (and at all other times too), and we are getting them help, but I don’t know how to teach them how to love their own bodies at the same time that I hate mine, when loving my body feels entirely out of reach.
At the White House this summer, meeting with Biden Administration officials about health insurance parity for mental illness, two families told their stories of raising girls with serious eating disorders, and the horrific struggles they had gone through to get any kind of real or consistent or minimally compassionate care for their daughters.
One of the daughters - now a young woman - was there. The other was dead.
I know I am not at risk of dying from my eating disorder, but my girls’ story has yet to be told. And it absolutely destroys me to think that even in 2023, even without social media, even with lots of body positivity all around them, even with two parents who love them unconditionally and work hard to teach them healthy perspectives on food, even with all of that, they are still being crushed by the unforgiving weight of disordered eating. I do not want that for them. I do not want that for me. I want to tear it all down. But there is no force strong enough, and my strength keeps failing me. And so I lurch on, just another sad, hopeless monster on the hill.
*If anyone is a fan of Only Murders in the Building, I watched Season 3, Episode 9 with Vee not ten minutes after writing this paragraph and…whew.
Jane, you have done it again! Written a piece that is so profound and honest and sad that you mostly stun us to silence. I want to do two things - give you a ginormous hug, and take you to task. The hug will have to wait so it is on to tasktaking (is that a word?)!
It is difficult to take you to task of course - you are so freaking smart that you have heard it all before and thought it all through, and coming up with a fresh angle is verging on impossible. I am going to try though! You must be aware how many of us out there love you to bits and think you are the most amazing human being. And - Big Reveal - this is not because of your amazing body (it's pretty cool, by the way, but not the first, or second, or possibly even third, thing that comes to mind when we reflect on how wonderful Jane is). Now, are you telling us, we're all wrong? And do you think if you added a few grams here and there, we would care? Or even notice?
An aside which may or may not be relevant. After years of being plagued (in my mind) with a stammer, the discovery that most people noticed it far less than I did had a more curative impact than endless hours of S&L therapy.
So, listen to Julie and treat yourself with the loving kindness you strew so generously on other people.
Thank you for sharing this vivid view into the realities of living with disordered eating. You've created a window into the life experience that is true for you and for so many others. As always, your writing fuels empathy and sparks a desire to learn and understand more deeply. And that is a gift to the world. And in a relentlessly optimistic effort to create some overlap in your Venn Diagram, I will tell you what you know: I love you for every single bit of who you are; and I know you are beautiful - inside and out, and outside and in.❤️