Trigger warning: Danger zone !
I am legally obligated by cyber law to put a trigger w for ED stuff. Read at your own risk, my sweet.
Hi, let’s get right into it. I make a living being scantily clad on the internet. Most of the time, I am nude. My body is my moneymaker. Like most people online, possibly even the person reading this, I also suffer from body dysmorphia and had been plagued by an eating disorder for over a decade of my life. While my body is recovered* (asterisk denoting a foreboding exploration into this term later), my mind teeters on the edge, dallying to and fro between dimensions of healthy and demonic. My body dysmorphia, like everything else, goes digital these days. Online existence both alleviates and exacerbates it. I often feel shameful for even thinking the thoughts I think. Why, then, am I writing about this?
There is something that porn stars or nsfw digital creators don’t really talk about: the psychic consequences of posting the naked body in the cyber world, and our fragile body image. The general concept of this article applies to many creators, sfw or xxx, because it discusses the relationships we have with posting our bodies. Even here in this article, especially here, I have taken care not to post the generic triggering eating disordered photo set. In place of that... my memes, random bullshit, and wistfully pensive yet horni and perverse self portraits where I think I'm hot. It's my page, so whatever !
To be nude online is to attract viewers and unintentionally invite comments about the body. This can be amazingly liberating, or it can backfire horribly.
There are some days that in terms of body image are like a hellish hell. I have no better words to describe it. Add a new circle of hell for each unsatisfactory bodycheck.
Some days it has the opposite effect, where the compliments I receive make me genuinely feel good. Overall it has been healing. My confidence has in the grand scheme actually improved a lot with OnlyFans. To be honest I never felt attractive to myself until I started doing sex work. I love posting nude and sometimes I even love my body. That is the only way to truly rebel against society, I think: to truly like yourself, and to embrace your sexual personae and individual flaws. Instagram Face: just say no. If for nothing else, I will honestly forever be grateful to OF and to my clients for helping me feel good about my body. My job heralded a sexual awakening and a healing from past SA traumas. Without a doubt, I love myself more: I’m glad to be doing this and I love bringing you my horny artistry. Still, there are hellish days where I hate my body and am dissatisfied with my appearance. Some of the article is actually cut from an ungodly emo cringe OF post I made on a day when I was feeling particularly hideous. I’ve discussed emo posts in a previous article... Long-Winded Philosophical and Psychological Posts on My OnlyFans: Taking My Emotional Reality Online.
How to forgive for violence against the self? That can be the hardest part.
The first step for any problem is to admit you need help. And I do. I need a lot of help not hating myself. My dedicated team of therapists is pretty much essential to my survival. How to deal though, on your own? Who else is feeling this way and candidly open about it?
There is simply not enough literature on body image issues in porn. They without a doubt exist but are invisible because we as performers do not want to ruin the illusion that we are anything less than perfect, confident, capable — the fantasy. Your fantasy.
While I am proud of my body (of work, that is) and confident that I’ve imprinted a unique signature into the world of obscure porn that dovetails with cinematic art, I sometimes cannot look at my past works without feeling disgusted at every fat fold, chubby angle, or squishy thigh. Even choosing pics to post on here, I find myself gravitating towards angles that make me look slim. I be sucking it in honey -- I am a connoisseur of succ. 🎩
This calls to a much bigger picture of fat phobia in our society. It’s so wrong and obviously should not be that way, yet in people like me who grew up in the 2000s and 2010s when the too-thin aesthetic was in, it’s almost inevitable. The propaganda is deep in our brains. I don’t know if it’s just me, but the style silhouette seems to be swinging back to “unrealistically thin” nowadays, after a bender in the equally unrealistic Kadashian influenced “huge fake ass, thick thighs, and teeny teeny Barbie waist” look of the 2010s. Can we get just like…. major love and representation for normal, average, regular person sizes? Medium sized thighs, medium boobs, medium ass, not fat fetishized or anorexia glamorized? All bodies are valid of course, but like… I don’t even know. It’s honestly hard to provide good insight on this topic when I myself am complicit.
I used to have a folder in my computer that contained my own version of porn — photographs of me at my thinnest, rib cage and hipbones jutting, no space for my internal organs, skin almost transparent, hair falling out. For a while I wished to look like that again. When I recovered I deleted that folder because I essentially used it to trigger myself. I don’t care about external thinspiration — what was special about this was that I did it. If I had applied the mental energy to being thin, to other avenues instead, I would be much more successful by now. Self harm is not the way to go. Now, I cycle though every coping mechanism I know, sampling healing methods until something feels effective and natural.
With therapy and spiritual guidance (yes I am into the “woo woo stuff” and I love it) I can hold together a healthy mindset for as long as possible. Women’s bodies are mysterious and weight naturally goes up and down depending on hormones, stress, menstrual cycle etc and is even more variable in front of the camera, which as we all know adds pounds. I also tend to shoot myself from the even unflattering “mommy angle” aka from below, to look taller. I love the height it gives me, as I’m just a little over 5’ without heels, but as a stylistic choice it’s also a fattening one. I’ve also recently sustained an injury to my legs, yet another one on top of previous fractures to my feet and ankles because of my weak bones, which left me a little bit immobile and unable to exercise.
I always think of myself as sedentary and physically lazy, but this experience showed me just how much physicality and Manual labor goes into my job. I also walk a lot, even tho LA is not a walkable city. Not being able to perform my physical duties and being laid up on the couch these days made me feel sloppy, floppy, and uncomfortable.
Last year I was diagnosed with a painful stomach condition called gastroparesis which is literally a paralyses of the stomach nerves. (More later in this article about the fun and gruesome medical repercussions of long term EDs -- the erasure of invisible illnesses is a horrible thing and there's a special little circle of hell for people/doctors/industries who deny and gaslight medical issues like anxiety and depression and gastric distress because they cannot easily be visible, but that is another target all in itself). With updated medication and medical visits I am doing a lot better now, and while GP can’t be cured, I am successfully managing it. At first, the medication I was on made me lose weight, which I guiltily loved and wanted so badly to get used to. However, I also got unpleasant side effects from the dose so the dose was adjusted to my pain threshold — so while I no longer feel those side effects, I have put on weight and I am distraught in a whole other way. I feel fatter because I am able to eat normally, healthily, and not feel a cluster of pain when I do. Fat is a feeling and a state of mind. How horrible is that?
It’s obviously a turn off to talk about this, and a turnoff to talk about having low confidence.
It’s really never discussed in our culture but many people think porn stars and nsfw creators are always confident in (and even proud of) our bodies because we can publish them online for others to watch, gawk, judge. That the exhibitionism brings invincibility. Just because we do porn we’re immune to these body issues right? How I wish that were true. It’s strange because this issue is so complex.
As if intentional nudity brings an immunity to self esteem issues….I did not know what an innie or an outie was until I started browsing Reddit. Even women’s most intimate body parts- nipples, labia, asshole… are all subject to scrutiny. Ratings. Compliments. Insults. Attention. Dismissal. Which is worst? I learned a lot from posting online, both good and bad, all fascinating. There is a toxic “rate my boobs/ass/etc” “am I hot” culture… it’s torture. We obviously just post to be complimented, almost more so for validation than spicy page promotion. And if it’s anything less than a 11/10 I have a meltdown. What I found in my experiential research was that people who paid to have a subscription to me were generally courteous and respectful (cause lol why would you waste money to troll someone you don’t even like?) but the majority of viewers commenting online were entitled and despicable. Disgusting perverted men gawking and judging much younger women on their bodies. Online, these disgusting incel men have their pick of the litter when irl none of the ladies posting would give them a second look. The disgustingness is not in terms of appearance but in personality. They are sadistic. This is another reason why older women do not engage these sadistic men — they won’t take any of the bullshit that a younger women with less sense of boundaries would.
But ageism in porn is a whole other article. I will delve into it some time later. It’s not enough to simply be nude, youthful, attractive, before an audience; one must also be behaviorally perfect. Quiet, submissive, not outspoken, not “extra”, not a hot mess, not depressed, not over the hill, not over weight (unless a milf or thicc fetish category). Everything in our contemporary society has to fit into appealing dainty little categories and I hope that era gets untangled soon. I hope at the very least I can do something to dismantle this fixed system and create a bolder grey area. There is no representation for the “in between” — not skinny, not fat, just average. And as much as I hate to be categorized as such, here I am, begrudgingly representing for the average, the normal, the messy, the ugly, the real. I’m not overweight and I’m not an anorexic looking sample size. I still have my past thinness tied to my identity so badly, that to be categorized into “normal” weight range makes me weak. It was the worst when a while ago a fellow girl who I worked with wrote what she thought was my weight # was on one of her socials, and that just aggravated me on many many levels. I don’t know how to approach things like this. Thank you for pushing me back into the closet. Thank you for the insecurity, you may as well have bashed my head in and called it a day.
“Insecurity is unattractive/ anxiety is not hot / depression is unsexy”… I hear that all the time. It damages my business. We’re supposed to conceal. My job is to be a fantasy, not a human. But I cannot with a clear conscience perform against myself and my boundaries. I cannot undo what I have already posted but I can reconsider my future and what my OF / online presence overall will look like. I have some content that I’m sitting on but I’m not sure if I wanna release yet. I will think about it. I want reassurance that I look good, and not just in my own delusion. There is a quote I forget attributed to whom, which goes “delusion is more necessary to our happiness than reality”. God damn is that ever true. But what are you gonna do? Just keep chooching.
I do not want much from this world, all I really want is the reassurance that I am skinny and thin. Dainty. Delicate. A fragile, rickety Victorian doll. Admittedly it just makes me sad that I’m not seen as thin. One would not look at me and immediately go "wow she is skinny". I think if I had a constant stream of people telling me how skinny I was, I would probably float on cloud 9 in a happiness I’ve been so deprived of. On the other hand… If I was very fat and plus size and BBW I would have a moneymaker niche to exploit. Yes, I participate in this blatant hypocrisy as well. Fml. But the ordinariness of the middle ground is agony.
That post was more than enough emo cringe trauma dumping for OF… it was long and dark sided. Sorry about that to my OF subs and sorry in advance to you. My moods about my body change often. When I have a bad day, I’m comforted by the fact that all things pass. It’s not forever; thank god everything is temporary. I know I’m gonna get over this moment and feel like a sex goddess once more and resume posting nudes again and say hello from my little padded room and hope you continue to enjoy my content and…
This is an ongoing topic. I have to step outside myself to dive deeper. In terms of the meta analysis of this post, I struggled with writing it on various levels. Namely, am I credible enough to discuss this? Do I look sickly thin enough to warrant credit in the ED communities and to be believable as someone who has suffered this violent illness?
Listen to me: EDs come in all shapes and sizes and are not limited to the common media potrayal of the size 000 rail thin model. It is the girl next door. It is the mom of 3. It is the guy at the gym. It is the stressed out nurse. It is the posing adult film star. While traditionally known as skinny white rich teen girls, that myth is bullshit and EDs occur across all ages and ethnicities and genders and wealth classes. There is no “normal” or “good/bad” sufferer. They’re all bad.
Men suffer from this too. I have talked to a lot of men fighting body issues. This is also a behavioral dysmorphia, and the male role is something I delved into a bit on my other post (How To Girlboss and Mancringe...)
Oh honey I could easily do the ED recovery influencer classic post:
*triggering mention of lowest weight number*
*triggering pic at lowest weight*
*semi-triggering pic at a barely higher current weight that's still super thin*
*pathetic photo of WIEIAD (what I eat in a day) flexing that woooww a breakfast of oatmeal, + a lunch of one (1) pita bread is just sooooo much I could run a marathon on all this fuel (I’m looking at you em_fitx)*
*vague ig story about weight "going up" and "loving food" 😍*
*video of taking a few bites*
*joyful movement 🤮 that’s more vanity than sanity*
Yeah I’m not doing that. It's not a chussy slay to intentionally trigger others.
A very disturbing trend to me is this “recovery influencer” spectacle, featuring accounts like the aforementioned "emfit_x", or extreme gym junkies profiting off their orthorexia like "sculpt with Scarlett". They peddle protein bars, I think. Capitalism has us all by the balls. I suppose it's natural to want to capitalize off of trauma. Shit, I do it too. But I don't deny the critique that cums my way.
When you put yourself into the public sphere with the intention of getting attention, you need to be able to handle critique as well as praise. Emfitx has deleted comments that myself and others have left on her page — not mean trolling ones, but genuine concern for her impressionable platform of young fans who idolize her too-thin body type. That body type does not come from truly healthy eating and proper exercise — it comes from food restriction and overexerting the body, aka a hot girl walk or… joyful movement. Hot girl walk? More like insanity walk. And come on, “fashion” "influencers" (can anyone be an influencer now? can I? do I just declare myself one?) like nimamcdougall, but buying a size 000 from Urban or Brandy Melville does not make you fashionable. You are just very very thin. There is no personal style in these posts, the entire personality revolves around having an ED. It’s not “Inspo”, it’s sad. Take accountability, queen. Actually recover (if you want to, cause I know it is scary as fuck to start the process) and then share that journey, warts and all. Again it's just so extremely vulnerable that it doesn't feel right to view content from a creator who obviously isn't well and isn't admitting to an illness that can impact her audience. It would be so much more refreshing to see something like: "yes, I am thin and look like this because of my habits. It's tough to stop them and adjust to a healthier body". Like, we get it. We suffer too. But a shred of honesty would be so much more powerful imo. With models too -- a disclaimer from clothing brands that like lol no most civilian people will not fit a sample size meant for the extremely thin.
How I wish I could Anthony Bourdain Kitchen Confidential gonzo expose these influencers into realizing the reality of their problems — not to themselves but to their followers. The triggering grandiosity of the before and after pics. The constant battling of the self image. The social posturing from these accounts, is not only hugely harmful to impressionable viewers, it's a spread of false information. I thought it was satire at first honestly, it's a pretty good parody of a recovery account. It makes me want to start one. Just in spite! I don’t mean to spread distress but rather to shed light on the pain this could give their younger viewers. I hate the bullshit and the hypocrisy; at least be real and say “yeah I’m struggling I’m afraid to gain weight”. The persistence of this kind of media perpetuates the skinny idealization. Looking at it triggers me too if I’m being honest. Before/afters of “weight gain” where the only difference is fatter cheeks due to fillers? Marathon while restricting? Two fitness watches when “not counting calories burned”? Yeah girl this shit don’t add up.
Sometimes I am too far up my own ass to admit my delusional thinking too, but luckily no one really follows me (at least not for this). I urge health/fitness based creators with a bigger following to own up to their distorted thinking and behaviors - idgaf about y’all’s own ED, our bodies are all our own individual responsibilities, but this kind of posting is dangerous to young impressionable fans.
Do I care about the well being of an influencer who I don’t even know and can’t verify the truth of? Hell no. I care about the spread of fraudulent information, the influence this has on future generations, a protectiveness of young girls who remind me of myself, and of course I care about my own triggers and not relapsing. If I were seeing this as my teen self, I would be triggered as shit and likely alter my behavior to look like the “correct” recovery aka still very skinny.
In recovery, it should be like all bets are off when coming to terms with your new body. After restriction, the natural response is to desire and give in to cravings. Having extreme hunger is normal! It’s also very normal to gain weight in an unusual way. When I recovered I ballooned like cray before stabilizing, and my genetics are on the thin side. Sure there’s naturally super thin people who still suffer from EDs and their weight differences are not as striking before/after/through the years, but somehow I don’t think a majority of these recovery influcencers are among them. I think it’s a part of recovery to face those uncomfortable body changes head on and just be honest with yourself. What really bothers me about these girls is that they have such an incredible platform to help people, but the denial of their illness keeps their pages from being honest or sincere or refreshing; I feel bad for the impressionable fans, most of whom are likely in a fragile point in their ED.
Young girls can see this influencer crap and be scared further into the closet of their EDs, feel like a “bad anorexic” for recovering heavier than some online chitch, or just be afraid that they’ll gain weight that others haven’t. If you’re dealing with issues like this I assure you there is no “bad” or “good” way to recover. Progress is progress. It’s nonlinear and you can relapse before getting better, it’s completely normal and shouldn’t be allowed to ruin you or impede any future recovery. We’re all sick here in our own ways and no one’s journey is more or less valid. It says something tho to either deal with it in private, or be upfront about it online. I'm deviant as hell but at least I admit it.
It must be horrifying recovering online publicly. That kind of platform is a lot of capital-R Responsibility. I would probably shit myself. I will share this: I had two serious, legitimate recoveries from my ED. Once in 2010, before internet times, that was helped along by psychedelics, which is why I champion them so heavily for any general life guidance. Through the next few years I was more or less okay, but I had relapsed on and off lightly. That doesn’t excuse my behavior but is nothing to how hevaily I relapsed in 2015 after I was sexually assaulted. It took me some medical wake up calls (more on the gruesome side effects later) to actually take it seriously, and between 2015-2017 I got on a healthier track. Lipstick on a pig. By 2018 I no longer practiced any self harming behaviors, and do not to this day, so in a way that is a success story, but my mental state still needs a lot of cushioning. So for about four years now I have been physically well (ish) but I fucking feel the invisible health repercussions and wish I could take back the time I spent starving myself or crying in the mirror or throwing up after meals.
The weird thing is too, that the times when I was deepest in my ED were not necessarily the times when I was at my skinniest. Bulimic people especially are not locked into one body type, it can be any weight. Even anorexics can be a higher weight than you think. The illness is the mentality, the habits, the behavior. Sometimes it's glaringly obvious someone has an ED, other times it can be skillfully concealed. It also doesn't always start with feeling fat. Many people report sexual assaults, family trauma, bullying, and other issues as a root cause of their ED. For me, personally, it was tightly linked to my rickety relationship with my mother, a former Russian model and beautiful woman who feared for me when I matured young and gained breasts and hips at an early age, that I would become fat. "You can take three bites and leave the table hungry" ... "those pants make your thighs touch" ... "wear a jacket over your chubby arms" was something I heard a lot. I ingrained that fear of weight gain even tho I inherited my parents' slim frames. Young, dumb, and full of glum. Now, I am stronger to hateful words, but back then as a young kid of course I was fucking impressionable. I did not want breasts and a period at 11/12. The size I am now, was basically the size I was then. For a very long time I did not want to be touched and avoided anything sexual entirely. I just... little. My genetic lineage has a taller height, but I definitely stunted my growth with nutrient deprivation. I cannot understate how much I regret. Yeah yeah it built character etc but it was also years of unnecessary hell. With my natural body, I never needed to have an ED. No one does. Is it a choice? Kind of... it's hard to describe, and feels like a possession almost, quite out of control. I would equate it to addict behavior. But you can choose to stop and recover and get better.
This. This is why I feel protective of younger teen girls who are exposed to dare I say... thin-celebrating propaganda. I don't know, maybe it's not my place to protect. Maybe I'm not the right person to champion body positivity because of my hypocrisy. But I have made it out of some of the darkest shit I could face within myself and I want to tell people they can do it too. It takes a village to heal the wounded. It takes a society. Women, men, everyone in between -- none are immune to body dysmorphia and image issues. I actually have quite a few subscribers on my OF reach out to me after I made my long emo post, telling me they can relate. And, of course, telling me that I am beautiful. ☺️ Thank you.
I know there are people who will look at me and think “what the hell this bitch is skinny how does she have body image issues”, and others (prob ED sufferers just as, or more so, perfectionist as I) thinking “mmm she has the potential to lose another 8-13lbs✨ see some fat rolls around the pooch and cellulite on the ass but otherwise looks okay, keep going queen think thin😍” .... uggh. Mixed bag. My body has thinner parts and fatter parts. Obviously online I will choose the most flattering pics, so you don’t see the ass cellulite or the mom pooch. You don’t see the cuts, the scars, the zits, the ingrowns, the under eye bags, the thick bulging veins (do I have dick hands?? is that a thing?? have I invented a new dysmorphia??), the bald spots from trichtillomania where I have ripped my hair out. You see me in cute clothes, with cute backdrops, posturing for a thinner angle and sucking it all in to heavens. I know my body. I have a mom pooch, stretch marks in my ass that seemingly appreared overnight, and cellulite on thighs. I also have a skinny ass flat MFin chest with too-far-apart boobs. My genetics are pretty good, so I don’t exercise and live a sedentary lifestyle (god this will catch up to me when I'm like 40 unless I start to become healthily active, whatever that looks like). Altogether it averages out to normal, or the weird hybrid known as “skinny fat”. I know how to dress to flatter myself, I’ve been doing it for over a decade. If you really want to observe and scrutinize me, knock yourself out. I don’t really care about the critiques from others; mental self-flagellation is a daily practice for me. I want to start this “body image in porn/digital adult content” conversation, and critique the ED recovery culture, but I don’t intend to inadvertently become a spokesperson for anything. I am the boss and overlord of the unhinged cyberhorny cunty bitches, that I am.
With a normal non skeletal weight am I no longer disordered? What then of my bleak thoughts? Haven’t we all dissected ourselves in the mirror and isn’t that normal?
There is a girl I have been falling for on Instagram for a little while (not a recovery influencer, just a random civilian, kind of a NPC I guess). When I first saw her, she took my breath away. Big blue eyes, Anna Karina haircut, exquisite style, hints of old money, grad school under eye bags, Wes Anderson-styled photo grid, and — excessive long-limbed skinniness. Perhaps she reminds me of the rinds of my younger self but wealthier. Perhaps I fantasize about seducing her and lifting up her skinny frame because I find her attractive. Do I droolinlgy want her or do I enviously want to be her? I don’t know. Either way, I am a bit obsessed. I wonder if I am anyone else’s Skinny Bangs Instagram Girl. My breath feels trapped in my throat. Simultaneously I hope I am and I am not. Comments on her post include stuff like “actual angel” ; “unreal” ; “supermodel doll” ; “ur perfect” … and while I usually cringe at these kind of IG comments, I find myself simping for her, ready to white knight any haters away. Not that there are any cause she’s ethereally perfect, but still, you get the point. Meanwhile the last online compliment I received about my looks was “you look healthy”. Womp womp.
God I just wanted to implode. I don’t think people understand that calling me “healthy” is the ultimate insult. I want to look like I’m about to blow away in the wind or fold over if my cat bumps into me a bit too hard. As if I just walked out of a smudged photograph in a willowy ballerina dress. I desire that enviable skeletal look, I know it’s bad but I still want it. What a mental gymnastic and a psychological splitting; I can look at my hip dips and say “alright, sexy, let’s make some $”, but then at the same time deride myself for having too much flesh. In the porn world this feels especially strange. Sometimes I want to pay someone to tell me I’m skinny, leaflike, way too thin; if they’re really good, I’ll actually believe it and start telling it to myself.
We truly live in a dystopia. Is it better to be disembodied?
Is reading this exhausting you? Existing in my mind exhausts me constantly. Body dysmorphia is severely complex and necessitates more delicate treatment and rehabilitation. Aside from Cyberhorny topics, I could write a whole book about my experience with body issues. But I don’t know, it just brings up a lot of discomfort. This article took me longer than any others. There’s something deeply uncomfortable and disturbing when people talk about their EDs. It’s a mental illness manifest physically. It’s a second hand embarrassment.
It not that I feel shame around writing about such a dark topic; it’s more that I feel shame around being at a normal weight now and not qualified to write about it. So yeah while I might be physically recovered and “healthy” (again, I fucking hate that word) .. I am still mentally exhausted with thinking about the space my appearance takes up.
Inside me there are two wolves; one that chants praise towards my recovery process, and the other that repeatedly tries to convince me that I’m too fat.
OF has been so amazing for my body image that I was shocked by the lovely validation and constantly think, “wow how long is this gonna last?” .. The impostor syndrome is real. I am at that point where the honeymoon phase feels null and I find myself having more bad body image days than I used to. Maybe I just haven’t gotten a good compliment in a while, or haven’t fished for one. Perception is a strange thing and the pendulum of it swings wildly. Ten years ago I would have been deathly horrified at the thought of curves on me; two years ago I liked it because men liked it and it made me money; now I look in the mirror and am confused. I ask myself questions like “why?” “how?” and “what the fuck?”
Torture thru the looking glass. Maybe I need to do psychedelics again. It’s the only thing that has honestly really truly helped.
As you can see I have posted vague aesthetic shit instead of triggering before/afters, posed/relaxed pics, numerical values. That’s nobody’s business and pictures of my body are already too readily available online for your scrutiny, from my unflattering fat angles to my posed contortions trying to appear thin.
When I look in the mirror or pull out my iPhone cam, I do it too.
Bodychecking: our guiltiest pleasure. It's when someone takes a curated picture of their body that is meant to look thin, through angles and poses and various parameters: checking the body for flaws and whatever. Usually it's a full length mirror selfie. It can masquerade as an outfit of the day pic, bikini shot, etc. We see it in every Hollywood celeb from ariana grande to the Kardashians all the way to the XXX porn stars to the Z list tiktokers. It truly is an inescapable mania for everywhere we look we are staring into someone else’s body dysmorphia. Am I immune to it? Fuck no. For a while I felt really liberated when I took pics, and like I had blinders on to my own issues, but now I feel self conscious again. Like a lot. A crazy lot. The Carl Jungian enantiodromia swings from self-love to self-loathing.
If I had to pick out one behavior to disengage with, and my therapist is dealing w this right now, it’s this urge to bodycheck and compare. Taking so many pics of my body over the years had def weighed on my psyche. Now it is sometimes hard to discern the line from where I am just habitually taking peaceful nudes, or violently scanning every inch of my body to see if I look as gross as I feel. (Do you see how this correlates with my depressive cycle? See, see? It’s comorbid. It’s like syncing a period.) Some days I love how I look and am elated to post my glorious goddess nudes, other days I cry after a photo shoot and delete 186 pics and 22 vids from my phone, feeling less than nothing.
I’m comfortable opening up about this because I feel physically recovered, yet I also need people to know to that I still psychologically struggle. Recovery is not linear at all! It’s so normal to backslide even years after you become weight restored. I actually don’t think there is a way to 100% get rid of an eating disorder’s thought patterns even when physical recovery is possible. But 90% can be alleviated.
Here’s the thing too with the recovery influencer squad; basing an entire personality around Ed, fitness, recovery, is fucking boring. And it’s sad. Do these girls with EDs have hobbies? Interests? Does financial / class status have an impact on ED? Treatment is very expensive. Still, patient programs only help if you want to be helped.
To reiterate I am not here to hate on these girls, at all. I feel a lot of compassion for them. I know what it’s like to feel that panic, that discomfort, that fear. It fucking sucks, it starts a chain reaction that ruins your life first, then the lives of those around you. It’s addict behavior with addict consequences. The thinness is the drug. But I also cannot stand idly by with this proana propaganda being so easily accessible.
How to remedy this? Harm reduction? I don't know. I honestly would check myself into a rehab if I had a lot of money. My methods of healing include: Therapy. Books. TV binge watching. Emotional support animals. 🦔 Psychedelics, once every few years, like an ayahuasca retreat. Enjoying hobbies and doing stuff I love. Video games. 🎮 Talking to friends who relate. Seeking help in online communities, gossiping, shit talking.
Ah yes here it is. The ugly truth of ED repercussions. Gastroparesis is a new one that I learned about last year; basically my stomach goes into intense pain if I am either empty or full, so I have to keep it at a medium fullness all the time and eat small meals multiple times instead of a one chaos meal at the end of the day. The adjustment was annoying as fuck but I do feel better sticking to a meal plan. There's like a whole fucking iceberg of consequence from EDs, and this is not even a list of the mental distresses. Physical weakness. Kidney problems and UTIs. Constipation. Diarrhea. Shitting bricks or nothing at all. Weak bones. Sports injuries from even the tiniest amount of exercise. Constant feelings of cold. Ruptured immune system. Nausea. Fertility issues. Amenorrhea. Heart problems. Starvation has an anesthetic like effect that numbs your body to pain and feels like kind of a dopey, weak high. You recover and the pain reveals itself when the body is able to finally begin repairs. It was months and maybe like a year after my recovery that the medical damage started really catching up to me and continues to make itself known. Recovery is a real, sincere commitment to yourself. If you're in it, and don't believe the health impacts, just be super mindful because something about this illness almost makes us believe in our invincibility -- but it can also age you young and make you feel like an 80 year old man in your 20s. Not just about vanity, a sudden decline in health is very very scary. When I was 22 I had an aortic tear and I am still fucking terrified to go back to the cardiologist. I have to do that soon. My song "Half Queen Half Machine" is inspired from when I had to wear a heart monitor. Aesthetically bionic and cool, but actually irl unpleasant. Heart stuff scares the shit out of me and I live in constant worry and acute observation of my heartbeat, its tachycardias and erratic arrhythmias. I'm afraid of a regular degular panic attack turning into a heart failure. My bones are thin and weak and fat collects around them loosely (loose skin is a thing with EDs). I bruise easily and get sick a lot because my immune system is so easily exhausted. My fainting couches serve a purpose. I like to lie down. I require a "handle with care" disclaimer. In a way it's interesting right, I kind of got what I wished for huh? A feeble Victorian doll blown away by the wind, fainting easily... except, in a monkey's paw scenario, I got it during a time when I do not want it. I want my health. Chitch, fuck this shit, I take back what I said earlier and I do want to look healthy. I want to look fertile and breedable and sexually desirable. Can I ..... healthy thin? Can this be my hybrid dream chassis? I will spend the rest of my life making it up to my body, for the crimes I have inflicted upon it. Please forgive me. I don't want to hate you.
My body is both beautiful and underwhelming. I don’t have any standout features ; if I didn’t have personality and style and aesthetic my appearance would not be noticed. No big boobs, no birthmarks, no tattoos, no six pack abs, no thigh gap, no definiting features. Which brings me to my next point: anonymity is the new popularity. I want to be admired without being famous because fame does something even more dysmorphic. Why do you think child stars burn out so early? Why do 99.9% of Hollywood actresses suddenly get so skinny and get fillers and Botox and buccal fat removal? Anya Taylor Joy, Dove Cameron, the younger Kardashians, I’m looking at all of them (droolingly cause just wow). I’m so impressionable that if the focus on my looks was even more magnified, and I was making movie star salary, I would most certainly get work done. I would write another blog about body modification. I would post about it gladly idgaf, any medical aestheticians looking at this may slide into my DMs. But alas I have to grit my teeth and strain to tell myself in the mirror “no I do not want my beautiful buccal fat removed”. Just plain medium sized cheeks for me thanks. Medium sized everything. Deep cravings for representation of the “normal size”. Based on my genetics I will always be small and petite. Also based on my genetics I will never have a flat stomach or a thigh gap or no cellulite. I have a fupa, man. I’m like a suburban mom. Overall it evens out, but the averageness is agonizing. Am I supposed to pretend I like this? I am very swayed by certain things I see. I also like my salty snacks and Italian food. Why deprive yourself? I have a theory that anorexia and sexlessness go hand in hand; it makes sense to me that a percentage of anorexics are SA victims with a subconscious desire to appear unappealing. Curves attract male attention, which causes anxiety. Trust me I understand that very well. Slenderness is not to gain the affection of men. In fact, men prefer the average and healthy female form to ultra thin. I suppose I should be proud of myself for achieving that. I should be proud of myself for defending my body and loving it even at a higher weight, fupas and wrinkles and all.
In a way this averageness and imperfection of my physique makes me feel qualified to post something like this, contrary to what I wrote earlier about thinness being the qualifier. Fuck that shit, man. Fuck everything I say here! Don’t listen to me! I don’t see myself clearly. But yet, because I am not outwardly scary skinny in a threatening way, nor am I morbidly obese, nor do I work out into miss muscle territory, I am more relatable than an underweight, compulsively exercising “fitness/recovery influencer”. I am not saying that I am perfect or to listen to me — I am just asking not to listen to them, and to critique everything online with many many sodium infused grains of salt. Take your power back. Like actually tho. It starts with individual thinking.
If you’re reading this, know you are allowed go back for seconds and thirds and fourths and so on. Eat whatever you want. Or not eat at all. Enjoy or deprive. I honestly don’t care, our bodies are all our own responsibilities. Take care of yourself or not, it’s your life and your consequences. I’ve already had mine.
Ironically the only place I remotely post honest photos of my body is OF and that is because I know most of my fans don’t care about the minute details, like smeared makeup (it’s sexy okay), or an extra roll of fats (also sexy), or unshaven legs and armpits (kink alert). Some even like it a lot and pay extra. My paywall serves a protective function for me, so that the least amount of people possible know about my imperfections. I guess if they are paying, I can visually tell them my secrets. (Yes I’m a whore. We all are under capitalism, take a number).
What, then, do you say to that?
You ate queen 😍😍😍😍 ATE AND LEFT NO CRUMBS 😍 👏
. . . oh wait 💀
…
nvm.
But WAIT — before you go, I cannot wait to show you climactically disturbing pics of WIEIAD 😍😍 # RecoveryQueen SLAYYYYYYY !!
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Ha! Gotcha bitch. If you actually read through this whole shit, comment one of ur favorite animals. I’ll go first; 🦦.
⬇️ Tbt to when I was skinny 🤷♀️
Thank you for reading; I hope this was more insightful than disturbing. If you also struggle with this, you already know what to do -- get help.
Thank you for writing this. What an absolute treat to read. I appreciate and admire your vulnerability!
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While you are right about many things and your feelings all valid, it strikes me as a further symptom, unexpressed and perhaps unexamined, of the precise pressures you described vectoring at your varying vitalities, that someone could feel so average, so lacking, so plain...when by society's (problematic and bs) standards, you're a travel sized divinity. This is not to say one's own critical eye doesn't spend the time and see rightly each wrinkle and droop and note them, in service of almighty Perception and its demands, but the way you so catalogued yourself, it's as though you've little notion the vast distance you orbit away from our culture's gooey center of mass.
In simpler terms, you are such a babe,…
definitely the most real, insightful, and eye opening article/blog I've read recently
Thank you for publishing this, Nastya.