Bikini shots and reflections on eating disorders

First of all, I want to lay out something before I display a string of photos of myself in a two-piece swimwear:

The intention of these photos is not to brag about my waistline or any journey about my physique (ok maybe a teeny bit of bragging 🤏😂) but mainly it's to talk about my overall growth as a person and my improved relationship with food.

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⚠️ This post contains a Trigger Warning for Disordered Eating ⚠️

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I come a long way from being anorexic and bulimic at 14-years old. My 14-year old self was a kid who grew up being criticized about her body a lot, being shamed and called fat or chubby even though she really wasn't. She was just a kid who needed someone to teach her good eating habits.

The thing about the comments were, they really affected her self-esteem. She felt that it didn't matter how outstanding she was at school and had more than 20 or 30 things she was good at. What mattered was, if she was pretty and thin because she was female.

So a day came by, which shattered her self-esteem to a million pieces and decided that she had had enough of the criticisms, and finally decided to satisfy everyone around her by going on a "weight loss journey", taking things to her own hands, through a series of 500-calorie-per-day-dieting-cardio-twice-a-day-hair-falling-out-because-of-the-lack-of-nutrients-and-forcing-herself-to-vomit-her-food-out-every-after-meal-to-lose-weight. At that time, no one around her had the adequate knowledge and means to guide her properly, and teach her the right values about food.

She continued internalizing the mantra:
THINNER MEANS YOU'RE MORE APPRECIATED.
THINNER MEANS YOU'RE MORE LOVED.
THINNER MEANS YOU'RE NOT LAZY.
THINNER MEANS BETTER.

and had this paranoia and fear that if she gained weight, she'd go back to constantly feeling unloved again.

She loved the validation and newfound appreciation she was receiving from all directions so much that she had to go through the following to keep receiving it:

✅ She lost almost 8 kilograms in a span of two and a half months (58 kg -> 50.5 kg)
✅ She had to eliminate rice completely and replace it with half a pack of whole wheat crackers and a lot of carrots, cucumber or lettuce every meal time
✅ She had a heightened fear of carbohydrates and felt isolated from her family and friends
✅ She used to force herself to vomit out the food she ate in order to lose weight
✅ She would have a breakdown every time she gained half a kilogram after her regular two-day weigh ins
✅ She'd look for any excuse to walk around the city and just stare at bread on display whenever she craved for it because she knew she couldn't eat it, so might as well stare
✅ She'd punish herself every time she thinks she overate by doing more cardio
✅ Her period stopped for three months
✅ Her hair became dull and her skin became paper thin due to the lack of nutrients
✅ She didn't talk about it for a while because she was afraid people would judge her or stop her.

Later on I realized that eating disorders were more common than I thought. There were friends around me who I didn't expect to be going through the same things I did yet it took us so long to open about it because I don't know... shame?

In my case, it took me over a decade to fix my relationship with food, and all that went with it. I still deal with body image issues sometimes. That's why I consider it a milestone to gain this level of self-esteem.

My anorexic 14-year old self who really tried to keep her 50.5 kg weight could never have imagined herself wearing a two-piece swimwear for fear of backlash since she still thinks she is too ugly and fat (voices from my childhood that I had to overcome), but here I am at 25, with my 60.5 kg-body in all its glory the moment these photos were taken:

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These shots were taken recently at San Remegio, Cebu. I was with my pole friends @anneporter and @thegaillery and our amazing pole momma Juli Ponder, who taught me everything I know about improving my relationship with my body.

In fact, these pictures were taken by pole momma Juli, herself. Anne and I talked to you guys about her before as well.

Their presence in my life really improved the way I see myself out of the generational and cultural filters and cobwebs I grew up in which in all honesty, is not that progressive at all.

Poleing is already impactful in itself and in fact, is already made part of who I am, but my friendship with these three is the real treasure. That friendship was enough to make a 60-kg bag of body image insecurities wear a two-piece swimsuit from Shein at the edge of Cebu province and enjoy it.

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Society often places an impossible list of physical expectations on women like to be skinny, to be feminine, to have a nice rack, to have a nice ass, to not have any unwanted body hair 24/7 and 365, to have an A4-width waistline, to not have any centimeter of hanging fat (which is kind of stupid because people are built differently and have different daily functions. Even if people ate the same thing and did the same things, they would still look different.), to have light, spotless and poreless skin and so on.

I'm not really saying that my parents, guardians, relatives or anyone else during my childhood didn't have my best interests at heart. I am 110% sure they did. It's just that, when they found out that I was showing unhealthy eating patterns, they just didn't know how to help me. Sorry for the woke kids out there but it was never their intention to hurt me, even when they resorted to body shaming. They didn't have access to reliable information that comes so easily now via the internet.

That was just how they did things during their time (which needs to change for sure).

Shame was the only punishment and discipline they knew when it comes to those things and didn't realize that there were other more effective ways to drive a person to discipline themselves and change amazingly by planting love and passion (of pole dancing in my case 🤣), instead of fear and shame.

I guess this is one takeaway any reader can get from this post:

If anyone here has daughters who are showing unhealthy eating habits, please don't shame them right away and make unnecessary negative comments about their bodies 🥲 especially if they are surrounded by adults who are not the best examples, because it will stick with them for a long time until adulthood.

Lead by example because children don't listen to words, they mimic the adults around them. Teach them and show them how to eat and what to eat. Encourage them to have hobbies that promote physical discipline or have them engage them in sports. They'll be so much happier when they aim for more strength, flexibility and coordination instead of a certain number on the weighing scale and pleasing people who are not even good role models themselves.

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They'll instead meet friends, teammates and coaches who will not only coach them in the gym but also empower them in real life, because at the end of the day, this is what's important:

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To my anorexic 14-year old self who had to go through an uncomfortable trip to the OB-GYNE at 14 with her mom, and do a pregnancy test after 3 skipped periods,

"WAGMI (we are gonna make it) and don't worry, you are going to be surrounded by people who will teach you the world" ❤️

About The Protean Creator:

_{Roxanne Marie is the twenty-year-old something who calls herself the Protean Creator.}

_{She is a chemical engineer by profession, pole-dancer and blogger by passion and frustration, and lastly, a life enthusiast. She is on a mission to rediscover her truth through the messy iterative process of learning, relearning and unlearning. Currently, she works as a science and research instructor in her hometown, Tagbilaran City, all the while documenting her misadventures, reflections and shenanigans as a working-class millennial here on Hive.}

_{If you like her content, don't forget to upvote and leave a comment to show some love. It would be an honor to have this post reblogged as well. Also, don't forget to follow her to be updated with her latest posts.}