To Recover, I Had To Break The Mold

PC: Jennifer Dutra

To recover, I had to break the mold.

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I had to break not only the size 00 cookie cutter mold diet culture was forcing my body into, but also the mindset molded by our patriarchal society that I had to be small, quiet, and their version of “pretty”.

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Society has made “self-love” rebellious, and even something to be ashamed of. 

Society has made self-deprecation trendy.

Society has glamorized eating disorders by literally stigmatizing mental health, praising thin bodies and obsessing over clean, “healthy” diets.

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And you know what? Every 62 minutes, a life is lost...lost to the mental illness of an eating disorder. 

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Why do we kill ourselves to fit into society? In the pursuit of what? 

Love?

Acceptance?

Fame?

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Coming from a person who has been nothing but a people pleaser for a fourth of her life, it took me so long to realize and understand that being liked by others does not mean anything if you don’t like yourself. 

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And this applies to everyone, diagnosed with an eating disorder or not.

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Please:

You are allowed to take up space

You are allowed to speak your mind

You are worthy of love and happiness just as much as anyone else for the sole reason being that you are alive

And you are more than allowed to love your beautiful self

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And I wish that we can embrace taking up space. I am a firm believer that we were put on this beautiful planet for a reason. We are here for a reason. We are here to be our true authentic selves, not anyone else’s. We are here to use our voice; to be heard; to offer our creativity and wisdom and inner strength. 

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The space each of us occupy is beautiful and unique to us. 

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Our time on Earth is valuable, precious. We get ONE shot at life. 

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Why are we wasting it shrinking ourselves into expectations that literally no one asked for??

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I wish for all of us to feel free to be authentically ourselves. 

I wish for all of us to stand by our beliefs, but to also listen to others’ points of view and to understand that sometimes we must unlearn our own beliefs to be better humans to one another. 

Remember that if no one speaks up, nothing happens.

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And never forget to eat, sleep, dance, laugh, sing, fight, create art, make change, and RECOVER- because if you truly set your mind to something, nothing can stop you.