Foood Thoughts

Hi Loversss

Hoping you are reading this feeling grounded, feeling joyful, feeling thankful!

I am feeling, as I write this, a bit nervous and grateful, to be sharing a chapter of my life with you; in a way I feel that this is a story that is still being written, that may remain a footnote for the rest of my life. When we suffer with, from and for a dis-ease that shows up on our skin, manifests in a cough or scratchy throat, it’s hard to hide our afflictions, and maybe we don’t want to – cuddles are the best cure for the common cold! When we suffer from mental illness, it’s our secret dis-ease for a while, or forever, and becomes a dear companion, the only one who understands; this is my tale of bulimia and me.

I began sticking my fingers down my throat late in my teens but my body war began long before. We moved from the quiet town where I grew up to a big city, right at the time when my parent’s dysfunctional marriage really hit its peak; I was nine and I began to turn to food for comfort. The move was very hard for me and I was bullied at my new school, kids called me a ‘rich bitch’ (we lived in a big house, we were not poor but we were not rich) and I was mocked relentlessly for my strange eyes, often wordlessly across the room I’d see them pulling at the corners of their faces to mimic my almond slant. I stopped speaking up in class, I didn’t join any clubs and I didn’t have many friends; I’d spend most of my time alone after school or dance class, listening to and watching musicals, dreaming of when I would grow up and be the beautiful movie star I wanted to be. I wasn’t totally unhappy in my singing and dancing world but I was lonely sometimes and self-doubt began to build a little fort inside my mind.

Almost every morning while my Dad was in the shower, I would sneak into his room, slip my hand into yesterday’s trousers and steal some money for my ritual. It began to be my favorite part of the day when I could have a sweet reassuring binge before heading into the hostile, scary place that was school. I found salvation in all the foods my Mom would never buy, in the puckering sour of penny candies, in the creamy filling of pastries and the oily comfort of potato chips. Soon my average frame met puberty, and these daily caloric overloads, and my little body ballooned so they could add ‘fat bitch’ to their arsenal of insults. After two years of almost constant tumult we moved back to our same small town and my eating disorder moved with us, I was eleven.

As a girl and a preteen I was precocious, clever, beautiful, creative, I could sing, dance, play sports, write essays, do math, you name it, but with the help of my new friend I realized there was one thing I would never be: thin. I loved spending my allowance or babysitting cash on People, Vogue and Vanity Fair magazine, I was into everything Hollywood, old and new and I wanted nothing more than to one day be in the pages of those zines. I covered one door in my bedroom with those milk ads, so many perfect glossy bodies and faces, all milk mustachioed, smiling at me as I stared into a full-length mirror loathing myself. My tummy was always what I hated the most and I punished myself as I saw fit, grabbing handfuls of flesh I would squeeze and twist myself until I broke down, sometimes punching myself as hard as I could in the stomach, never as hard as I wanted to; I know now I wanted to feel pain physically to match the pain I felt so intensely in my heart. It was at this time that my parents got divorced and my first round of depression really set in. So as I was adjusting to my changing body, high school, parents divorce, I was making more space in my self for my depression, my eating disorder and thoughts of suicide, I was thirteen, fourteen. It was a hard time for Rubyyy Jones.

For the next few years my eating disorder remained about the overeating and the binge, the constant comforting and reassuring of myself with the weight of a full belly. I continued to be bright and brave but also allowed that doubt to build and gnaw away at me so that even though I continued to be successful, it was either not good enough for me or I felt shocked to be recognized for my hard work or creativity, unworthy of such esteem; it was never enough, I was never enough. I felt worthless and it’s no surprise (now) that I attracted, welcomed into my life my first monster and ‘love’ Ferenc.

Ferenc didn’t like my body, though he rarely said horrible things to my face, it’s the things that go unsaid that are the worst sometimes. My clothes came off less and less during sex, most often just enough so he could access my cunt or tits, tummy always covered and I couldn’t bring myself to have sex on my back any longer after something cruel he’d said about my tummy in missionary. I remember once when lying in bed together, spooning, he wrapped his arm around my middle, then grabbed a chunk of my fleshy tummy and shook it before laughing and rolling over to sleep; I still get tense when a lover touches my tummy in this position, I’ve almost let it go. When Ferenc and I ended things I was a mess, the last fragments of my self-esteem I wrapped up and gave to him and when we were over I had nothing left, I was eighteen. This is when the purging began.

I don’t remember the first time I purged but I remember feeling satisfied with how easy it was in the beginning: see, I’m good at something… I knew how to purge because there’s enough people on TV talking about their eating disorders and I wondered how long it would take before I had to stick foreign objects down my throat to puke, I felt a bit thrilled by the idea of achieving this level of fucked-up ness. Interestingly, when I began purging, the binging slowed and instead I purged anything I deemed ‘not good’ so anything fast food or carbs or sweet was enjoyed and then chucked back up; it was a new ritual and this appealed to my spiritually starved self. I didn’t enjoy the purging as I was always sniffley, my eyes blood shot but I always felt calm afterwards, released, relieved and truly in my body. This period of purging didn’t last long, only a few months but I would have several relapses over the next few years while I dabbled in over exercise, starvation and continued my bad romance with everything food.

I attended one of the most exclusive theatre programs in Canada, it was competitive and tough and many of us had issues with food, exercise and dismorphia. We went to school a minimum of sixty hours a week, singing and dancing and dragging up all the emotional shit we could muster to make it out of this program alive. There was a group of girls in my year who swapped lunch and dinner breaks for trips to the gym, cause the several hours of dance, plus the several hours of rehearsal every day obviously wasn’t enough to keep our body dismorphic brains happy. In my second year I purged for the first time in a year or so and I knew I needed help beyond what my sweet boyfriend could supply. It was after a dance class that I approached the females of my dance faculty and I said in a shaking voice: “I need help because I think I have a problem with food.” The Wood piped up right away ‘It’s overeating, isn’t it?’ and The Ballerina chimed in ‘Well, you could have a great body Rubyyy!’ I stared at the floor as I tried not to cry in front of these women I was hating more by the second, whom I sort of hated in the first place, so I’m not sure why I even turned to them. The Tapper said quietly ‘You do have a good body Rubyyy, just keep up with the gym’ or something imperceptibly more sensitive and I blinked back furious tears as I thanked them and headed for the elliptical; this was at the time when I was thinnest, I was twenty.

It was at this same time that I was introduced to the book ‘You Can Heal Your Life’ by Louise L Hay, a book that is one of my bibles today and began my long journey to recovery. It is Hay’s belief that all disease in the body is the manifestation of emotional dis-ease, that all disease therefore has an emotional root and can be cured, healed with the resolution, recognition of these unsettled feelings and emotions. It is a book I would recommend to everyone but I know isn’t everyone’s bag, all I can say is: this book changed the course of my life. I think one of the most powerful principles of the book in the beginning was the basic permission I had to be in touch with my feelings. Somewhere along my life journey, pretty early in this life I believe, I learned to repress my feelings and my emotional voices and it was liberating to finally turn up the volume again. Most of the book focuses on the basics of quantum physics, that all things are particles vibrating at a certain speed, on a certain level and that if like attracts like, we can mold what we attract by keeping on top of our vibrations; emotions vibrate much stronger than thoughts, thoughts are pretty weak without the emotion behind them. In the book there is a section that lists a number of body parts and afflictions and with each, the emotional root and a positive affirmation/mantra to lift you out of the negative head and heart space.

BULIMIA

Hopeless terror. A frantic stuffing and purging of self-hatred.

I am loved and nourished and supported by Life itself. It is safe for me to be alive

Over the last seven years my journey with food and my feelings around it, and myself, have evolved so much. At a curvy, strong, soft size 14 UK I am the happiest in my skin that I have ever been. One of the keys in my evolution has been shining light on my dark spots and being very honest with myself and my feelings; I cry when I want to now, I laugh when I want to too. As I said, I believe this is a journey that has not ended, and may never, my continued exploration of how I like to be taken care of, by me – I’m still learning how to best mother myself. I’ve learned that how I feel about myself is the only thing that matters and no matter what my shape or size, my health emotionally, mentally and physically is my top priority. I spent years being hard on myself, punishing myself for everything I wasn’t, the power I’ve found is in embracing everything that I am, that I give, the special energy I bring to the world. I respectfully love food, I love being able to eat for fuel and to switch and eat for the pure pleasure of flavors and textures and the new; learning more about cooking and baking has empowered me to also infuse my creativity. my love right into the food I prepare and eat. I am twenty seven and I love me.

I know I am not alone in my experiences, so many men and women struggle with or have struggled with food, it’s purpose and our connections with it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of  if you are confused or ‘not there yet’; the important thing is to be gentle with yourself, allow yourself the space to be happy or sad or whatever but giiive yourself that space, don’t fill that space until you know in your heart what it needs to be filled with.

Thank Youuu for sharing this tender space with me lovers
I Adore You
I Appreciate You
I Love You

Love Lust & Light

♥
R
Rubyyy Jones

On Twitter @rubyyyjones
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