Are you sure you aren’t diabetic?

You don’t look like you’re starving.

You shouldn’t be eating that.

Not hungry? I find that hard to believe.

You should lose some weight, then you won’t be so sick.

These are just some of the things that people have said to me over the years — most of them said more than once.

I get the diabetes assumption quite a bit. When I had surgery to repair my Lisfranc, I had a nurse ask me SIX times if I was sure I wasn’t diabetic. Six. Times. I understand asking is standard procedure, but asking six times because you just can’t get over your assumption that my weight must mean I’m diabetic is not standard procedure. That bothered me. 

And then there’s the people who see you eating a cookie and tell you that you should be watching your sugar. Why? I’m not diabetic. Never was. But thank you, because now I feel horrible for eating.

You don’t look like you’re starving. This goes right along with not believing I’m not hungry. I’ve had people I considered friends say this to me when I told them I didn’t really eat much. It’s not funny. It’s frustrating. Starvation isn’t always skin and bones. Starvation doesn’t always have an obvious “look”. Trust me, I’ve experienced it. Sometimes forced upon me, and sometimes self-induced. But no one sees the lanugo growing on my body or the rampant malnutrition running through the blood in my veins. They just see my weight and assume I must sit at home all day and eat.

You shouldn’t be eating that. This comes from so many people, friends and strangers. I once had a coworker scold me for eating a Poptart; it was the first thing I had eaten in days. Needless to say, that was the last thing I ate for a while, because what he said made me feel ashamed for thinking I should eat. 

I’m on a high-sodium, high-protein diet for health reasons, and people have felt the need to comment about me adding salt to my food or eating meat. It’s not good for you! Your blood pressure. Well, actually, it is good for me, because my blood pressure is low. I know, it’s hard to believe. Because all you see is my weight.

I am not in the best of health. There’s no denying that. But when you hear about it, don’t jump to the conclusion that I am suffering because I’m fat. I don’t have high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol. I didn’t get lung disease from being overweight. My autonomic nervous system didn’t turn to shit because I’m fat. I can’t fix my health with diet, because it’s not fixable.

People look at me and see the fat. They see I’m overweight. They see me struggling. So they make assumptions. Dangerous assumptions. Hurtful assumptions.

They don’t know that I am literally half the size I was just a few years ago. They don’t know I spent time in the hospital because I was severely malnourished from not eating. They weren’t there when I tediously calculated every calorie I took in, making sure I would not go above 500 in one day. They don’t see the concern in my doctor’s eyes whenever I get weighed and have lost too much weight too rapidly.

They don’t know how much I struggle some days just to eat. They don’t see me weigh myself every morning obsessively, trying to determine if I deserve to eat that day. They don’t hear the inner battle I have to go through before I sit down to eat a meal. They’re not there when people who care tell me I need to eat because they know it’s been too long.

They just see the fat.

They don’t see the eating disorder ravaging beneath.

It’s been so easy for me to deny I have a problem, because it’s been so easy for me to hide the truth beneath the surface. Other people’s beliefs became my words. Whenever I’d get feedback or suggestions that I had an eating disorder, I’d just tell them I don’t have an eating disorder; I’m fat. I’m not starving; I’m fat. I’m fine; I’m fat.

I got so angry months ago when the PHP I was in diagnosed me with ED-NOS, atypical anorexia nervosa. I don’t have a problem. I don’t look like I’m starving, so just leave me alone. Why couldn’t they just be like everyone else and only see what I was on the outside? Why did they have to dig deeper? Why did they have to be worried when no one else was?

It took me some time to realize my anger was displaced. As much as I wanted to be angry at the program for giving me the diagnosis, I was really angry at everyone who refused to see my struggle, everyone who made it harder for me to cope with my ED because they couldn’t see past my outward appearance, everyone who purposefully and not-so-purposefully contributed to my guilt about eating.

I’m not your typical person with anorexia. There’s a lot of things about me that just don’t fit the norm. And that’s fine, because nothing in my life has ever been typical. It’s hard for people to understand that. I only understand because I’ve had to.

It’s difficult in general when you struggle with an ED. It’s even more difficult when you add people and ignorance into the mix. All of those comments about my weight and what I should or shouldn’t eat only made it harder for me to recover. They made me believe that I still wasn’t doing enough. I wasn’t thin enough. I wasn’t worthy enough. I’m not enough. Every time I managed to take three steps in the right direction, someone would make a comment and push me back six steps in the wrong direction. It’s a vicious cycle that continues to hinder my healing.

I’m still struggling. I think I may always struggle a bit. There are days when I manage to eat like a “normal” person. But there are still days when I conveniently forget to eat. There’s still days when I self-sabotage. It’s been difficult for me since I got sick. I’m not able to move around like I used to. The medication I have to take causes water retention and weight gain. I think of ways I can counteract it all, ways that really aren’t healthy, ways that will only end up hurting me even more.

It was much easier for me to sit there and self-destruct when I had no one who cared enough to stop it. It’s not so easy now.

And I know that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t make the struggle any easier, and it doesn’t erase the shame. I’m still scared of myself. I’m still afraid of the thoughts that go through my head, the fear of gaining weight that eats me up from the inside. I’ve been taught to attribute my worth as a human being to my weight and my actions, and I’m not sure how to remedy that when it seems to be ingrained in a part of my brain I can’t seem to access.

This was all so much easier when no one saw what I hid beneath the fat.