Mixed Messages Matter – When Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Random Quorum just wrote something interesting about Liz Jones and how thin just ain’t worth it.  It is thought provoking and I highly recommend taking a read.  The link is above.

Liz Jones is a Daily Mail fashion editor who has struggled with anorexia on the one hand and on the other hand has been:

…so vocal in campaigning for more diverse women on the catwalk, on the covers of magazines, and in adverts – encouraging women to love themselves as they are, not to conform to some outrageous, one-tiny-size-fits-all ideal of beauty

Random Quorum does a great job of pointing out the self-hate that oozes through even the positive messages that Jones tries for.  Again, I recommend checking out the original post for all that.  It’s thought provoking stuff.   One of my specialties is using my personal experience to make a point and that’s where I’m gonna go with this.

My mother was a lot like Liz Jones.  I hardly ever saw the woman eat and when she did, she used popular anorexic tactics to make sure she ate as little as possible.  At the same time, she seemed to purposely overfeed me as a big “givin’ the finger” to the culture of adoration of thinness.  She spent a lot of time telling me how the images on TV weren’t realistic.  She saw other girls in my grade school who seemed to be underfeed by their weight obsessed mothers and felt compassion for those girls.  She went so far as to make fun of starlets who spent so much time and energy to maintain the beauty ideal.

I didn’t hear what my mother said.  I saw what she did… that is what I really learned from.

I saw a woman who would rather be frail and ill than eat enough food for her body to be healthy.  My step-father made it clear that he was hugely attracted to her “smallness”.  She was short and thin… she hardly ate.  My step-father would go on and on about how he admired this about her.  He would also go on and on about what a pig he was and what a pig I was and how disciplined and saintly my mother was for hardly eating… and what jerks he and I were for “living to eat” as opposed to “eating to live.”  In other words, my step-father thought less of me and him, because we didn’t eat just enough to stay alive.  Forget thriving.  We should’ve been seriously ill often as my mother was from her “viruous” abstinence of nourishment.

Let’s review what nourish means (and a shout-out to whichever blogger – I’m sorry, I can’t remember which one, but feel free to name yourself!!! – who has the definition of nourishment at the top right of their page to remind us all what a wonderful thing taking care of ourselves is!).  This is from dictionary.com:

–verb (used with object)

1.	to sustain with food or nutriment; supply with what is necessary for life, health, and growth.

2.	to cherish, foster, keep alive, etc.: He had long nourished the dream of living abroad.

3.	to strengthen, build up, or promote: to nourish discontent among the workers; to nourish the arts in one’s community.

Sounds like a horrible moral malady, right?  Geez!  Who would want to nourish themselves?!  The shame!  The horror!  *headdesk*

The whole world (almost) around me was claiming the virtue of thinness and the vice of fatness – even my mother through her actions – and I was supposed to believe her words?  Pluhhhleeez.  Those words felt ridiculously hypocritical and hollow coming from a woman who sacrificed so much for thinness and seemed to revel in the thin complements she got from her husband.  It seemed to my mind (when I was a child and teen) that my mother just wanted me to be fat, so she could lord her thinness over me like the women on TV seemed to do all the time.  I became even more determined to be thinner and prettier than her and anyone else, because obviously it was a powerful way to all kinds of success and praise.

As a 30-yr-old looking back, I think my mother meant better than I gave her credit for.  I think she was something like Liz Jones.  She felt trapped in the thin ideal, but hoped that I would be free.  But, lip service just wasn’t enough.

Unlike Liz Jones, my mother actually did give up the starvation and restriction.  Her husband is in his 70’s and it looks to me like she decided that he’s too old too care so much about looks.  She told me (and ew, I wish she would STOP telling me stuff like this) that his d*ck stopped working (that is just how she put it), so she was off the hook.  She eats what she wants now.  She doesn’t seem to feel any shame about her body.  This has happened over the last 10 years.  She is really happy that I have taken up IE and HAES ideals after years of starvation and restriction that I put myself though.  She seems relieved that I eventually admitted that my quest for thinness had nothing to do with health and that health can be found at this wide range of sizes… not just thinness or average weight… and that doctor’s weight charts aren’t worth looking at in terms of measuring health.

I can’t say that my mother’s giving up the starvation helped me at all.  It came too late.  But, I’m glad she’s not suffering like she used to and is starting to practice what she so often preached.  There is that…

I’m here today to say that mixed messages matter, especially between a mother and a daughter… or between women in positions of influence and the women who expose themselves to their work.  Talk can feel so amazingly cheap.

As someone who has survived an eating disorder herself, I understand how difficult it is to recover.  While I criticize Liz Jones and my mother, at the same time, I feel for them.  Eating disorders are painful and a hell in their own right.  It is possible that the best Liz Jones is able to do is to do the lip service thing.  Maybe it’s the best she’s got and we cannot ask any more from her.  I don’t know all her details and probably never will.   I also think it is also really important to note that mixed messages matter and that Liz Jones is probably also influencing many women towards the direction of thin idealizing rather than in the other direction.  There’s a sad truth for you.

This underlines the importance of treatment and working for recovery.  If an eating disordered person thinks that lip service alone makes up for the influence they have on their children and others, IMO they are gravely mistaken.  Actions matter.  Words can ring very hollow, when the way we live our lives show that we don’t even buy into our grand ideals.  If Liz Jones isn’t in treatment, I hope she gets into treatment.  I think there is always hope, even after 40 years of anorexia.

As for my mother, I doubt treatment is ever going to happen.  While she may be eating better nowadays, she obviously still carries so much of the self-hate that was a big part of her restriction in the first place.  I believe a good therapist would do her good.  Unfortunately, she thinks all therapists are scam artists and people who go into this kinda treatment just want to be victims and use their problems as a “crutch” to not take responsibility for their lives.  She prefers to shop doctors for her “nerve pills” (generally valium) as she calls them and avoid looking at any deeper issues.  When her neurologist told her that he would no longer medicate her and that she obviously needed to see a psychiatrist for psych meds, she dropped that doc and found another that will give her what she wants.  Even the 15 minute average appointment with a pdoc to get some anti-deps or something is too far in the direction of “crutches” for her tastes.  Her loss.

I wish self-love for all people… that includes Liz Jones.  Like the blogger at RQ said, I wish I could give Liz Jones a big hug and maybe help her find some safe space to treat herself kindly.  To all you folks who are struggling with eating disorders, I am sending you warm vibes – whether you are in treatment or not – no matter how horrible you think you are – no matter how unworthy of good things you feel you are… and, most of all, I hope that someday you find relief.

For those who are still struggling with body acceptance (and some days that includes me!), I highly recommend reading the awesomeness that April at RoundShape just wrote on why we are fat from a historical perspective.  April rocks.

–AngryyGrayRainbows