Liberation

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I’m six years (plus three months) sober, but still a big Avoider, and after experiencing all the ways this personality type can harm a person over the past 40+ years, I think I finally found one way that it helps.

I stopped looking in the mirror.

OK, so it’s kinda hard to make that claim, after I clearly invested time in assembling the attached collage ⬆️. That is me, standing at the mirror in our master bathroom, and the “After” selfie was snapped only a few months ago. I’m not sure it’s the best way to illustrate the point I’m trying to make, nor am I sure exactly how to explain the miraculous transformation that’s happened from L to R.

But I can tell you it has nothing to do with my weight.

You’ll just have to trust me when I say: I’ve adopted an “ignorance is bliss” mentality toward my appearance that’s been a total f^cking game-changer. I feel as “recovered” as one can from a disordered relationship with eating and exercise, and more comfortable in my skin than I ever dreamed possible.

I truly have quit body-checking, beyond a quick last glance on business days before I leave for work. This is really a preemptive courtesy to my clients, given my tendency to “save some for later” when I eat spinach, not to mention my rough touch with the mascara brush….

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Don’t get me wrong; I do care how I present myself, in the therapy office and out on the running trail, which are really the only places I even go anymore. But it’s not, “They’re gonna think I’m fat”; it’s, “Gotta make sure I match!” If you saw my packed-solid closets (plural), bursting with dress-and-boot or legging-and-sneaker combos in coordinated color schemes, plus complementary outerwear, plus enough sporty hats for a stadium full of (size 7 1/2) heads….you’d probably say, “Oh yeah, sure, congrats on all the sobriety and self–acceptance stuff, but have you considered getting help for your shopping addiction?”

Life’s a game of whack-a-mole, you know? And if we’re talking about deeper stuff, below the clothes, I think we can say that the body image mole is snug and content in its little hole. I’m a big girl now, responsible for helping other people with their mental health, and if I’m a big-ger girl, now that I’m consistently feeding myself and enjoying a low-impact movement/rest routine that actually feels good and is sustainable, so f^cking be it! 💪🏻

Having worked through the 12 steps, earned a master’s in social justice counseling, and jumped into a helping profession after living 41 years in oblivious white privilege under patriarchal “good girl”/“pick me” conditioning as a cog in the capitalistic “rugged individualism” machine, I’ve come a long way in unpacking all the BS I bought into about what it means to be a woman — and what makes a meaningful life.

So, with full acknowledgement of the systems that shelter and benefit me, as a “straight-sized,” able-bodied, cis-het, middle-class Caucasian, I finally feel liberated from the prison of people-pleasing gender norms that led to so much self-betrayal.

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The woman I was at 40 (see: top left) sought liberation through constant distraction, stuck on autopilot after decades of habitual running away or numbing out, fueled by an irrational fear of discomfort and aversion to growing up. Internalized fat-phobia, or anti-fat bias, was a big part of my dysfunction, because as any recovering anorexic-turned-eating disorder therapist knows, control of our bodies can be irresistibly intoxicating in a chaotic, unpredictable world. And “keep yourself thin” was like an implicit 11th commandment, an unquestioned part of the path to salvation for young girls in my 90s/00s orbit.

That’s why a flip comment about my body from a near-stranger sent me spiraling at age 19, when I had no idea who I was or where I fit in the world. I was desperate for a new way to define my identity after my athletic career ended and the wide-open expanse of college, the future, adulthood (😱), stretched out before me. Being a small fish in a big pond with no idea how, or plan for where, to swim was terrifying.

So, I started believing that as long as I was thin/lean (and thus, pleasing to men/potentially superior to other women 🙄), everything was all good! And my behavior reflected that belief, through my 20s, 30s, all the way to “rock bottom.”

It didn’t matter that everything else in my life — career, marriage, family and social relationships, mental/emotional/spiritual, even physical health, value system, priorities, sense of purpose — were, over time, increasingly out of whack or in the tank.

I chose to avoid the important stuff, the very necessary internal work, and focus on my damn six-pack abs or my jeans size or my (cringe) “WOD” score. This was so obviously a copout! I incessantly picked apart and mercilessly criticized my body, never missing a chance to study my image in photos and reflective surfaces — and never failing to find something “wrong” I could fixate on/spiral over. I compared myself to other women, everywhere I went, as if life was one big competition and I couldn’t have a good day unless I could somehow “get ahead.” All this only drove me farther away from what I really wanted to be!

Which is…the woman way up top, on the right. It is what I have in sobriety, at a size 10/12, with a sweet tooth and a great love for sleep: a feeling of security with, and a home within, myself.

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From my furrowed, Botox-free brow to my softer, post-post-CrossFit physique, my body is aging and changing while simultaneously settling down. At 47, amid the turmoil of perimenopause and a huge career transition, I find myself in a surreal homeostatic state where I feel certain that I’m exactly where I am supposed to be.

I’m riding the life cycle — that “great wind” that carries us all across the sky — and although women like me are taught to fear and fight this natural flow with every ounce of our being from the moment we are born, I’m over here in my own lane, just trying to chill and swim along with it.

OK, so I’m not quite that chill…I mean, raw-dogging 2025 on nothing but magnesium supplements will keep even the most ardent oblivion-seeker tethered pretty close to the Earth.

Maybe my philosophy is less “The Dude abides,” and more, “For who, for what?”

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With as much mental clarity as a woman can have amid their “change of life” and a hostile takeover of their country, I am absolutely certain of a few personal truths: Alcohol is poison. Perfectionism is bullshit. Food is life. Fat is necessary. Sugar is fun. Change is inevitable. Pain is unavoidable. Life is beautiful. Love is everything.

Self-love, especially. I needed to go back and find that before I could whack my biggest mole and move forward in my life.

I also needed to get real about what really mattered and accept another big truth: My body is the least interesting thing about me.

Turns out that the freedom from suffering I’d been so desperately seeking via avoidance (starving and/or stuffing myself, getting drunk, obsessing over exercise, cruising social media, living in my own head…) could only be found through awareness. Wake up, Jen! You are wasting your life chasing other people’s approval, instead of becoming someone YOU actually approve of. And YOU truly have nothing to prove to ANYONE!

Well, nothing except that I can show up consistently in the world with honesty, integrity, empathy, accountability…and a matching outfit. 😉

True liberation, for me, has been an acknowledgment of the role I play in my own suffering and the realization that I can, to an extent, step out of my own way. Which clears the path to really do something with all this wisdom and experience I gained from walking down many a wrong road.

Using the relative privilege I possess within social systems bent on keeping women dumb, distracted, disconnected, small and silent, I realized that I can serve a purpose that’s much bigger than my body.

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I work as a therapist in a practice that specializes in eating disorders, and in that role, I am helping clients from age 14 to 65 with all the shit I’ve been dealing, or have dealt with, myself: anxiety, depression. addictions, trauma, grief and loss (concrete and ambiguous), life transitions, self-esteem, dysfunctional relationships with people/places/things and, of course, their own bodies.

Do I perfectly practice everything I preach? ’Course not. But I feel like I have become the person I would’ve needed at 19, to teach me that worth is not conditional on performance or presentation, it’s OK to not know WTF you’re doing — or to do things completely different than everyone else! — and you will not feel whole or at peace until you can face, and embrace, every part of yourself, along with all your mistakes, failings and downfalls.

It’s a lot easier to stand in this truth, knowing that I’m not alone. And ever since I stepped onto the path of recovery, I keep finding other women, in real life and online, who are freeing themselves from the old ways and shining the light of liberation for their fellow travelers to see.

One of my favorite corners of the internet these days is Abbie Attwood’s “Full Plate” podcast, which I’ve been listening to alongside my old standby, “Maintenance Phase,” and a guest on a recent episode said something about opting out of diet culture in mid-life that I found incredibly validating. I may or may not have yelled, “YES!” out loud in the park when I heard this snippet:

I just want to say loud and clear: I see this period of transition in our lives as an opportunity to let go of all the diet rules, instead of the story about, “You’ve let yourself go.” Let go of the inherited, oppressive rule set, and what if this could be a time that you really step into your freedom?

…It’s such a beautiful opportunity right now, and I feel like diet and wellness culture is really messing with that. It’s really messing with the opportunity. And that’s what I’m all about…how can we step across this threshold into freedom, into a powerful time, and just say, “Fuck ’em” to diet and wellness culture? Just get out of our way! Leave us alone! Let us do this thing that we finally get to do!”

— Deb Benfield, RDN

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Stepping into my freedom has meant stepping away from my physical reflection and using my expanded mental capacity to really reflect on everything I’ve been reluctant to look at, deep in my heart and soul, for most of my life. This post has been a helpful tool in that ongoing endeavor, and whether or not it made a point or explained anything, I will settle for it making my inner child proud!