TRIGGER WARNING: Eating Disorders
I’m no stranger to feeling like a stranger in my body. I’ve battled the image I see staring back at me in the mirror as my weight, shape, and body composition has fluctuated with each stage of life. Puberty left me not recognizing the womanly figure left in place of the young girl I always knew. Being an athlete gave me muscle in places that weren’t deemed beautiful according to societal norms. Becoming an actor and stunt performer put a direct worth on my physical appearance that – to this day – can determine whether I live in feast or famine. Pregnancy has been no different; giving me a slew of challenges that change by the week and are only getting harder the deeper I venture through this journey. As a woman, I’m no stranger to falling victim to the self-hatred we’re taught to embody in this world. Since I can remember, I’ve always wanted to change something about my physical appearance, placed worth and value on the shape of my body, and done drastic – often ridiculous and dangerous – things to make her more like the bodies that are accepted and praised by society and my peers.
I have DREADED what pregnancy would do to my body for a very long time. Years before I would ever even be in the position to get pregnant, I had fears surrounding the necessary changes that a body goes through in order to bring life into this world. The stretch marks, the saggy boobs/ skin, and the weight gain were always my biggest fears. these were all things that, as the maiden, were tight, high, and in check with just a bit of effort, but pregnancy changes them – sometimes, permanently, and there isn’t always a “fix.” In the past, I would control my diet, exercise, and lifestyle to force my body to maintain a shape that kept me in a headspace of neutrality at the bare minimum. If I wasn’t actively hating my body, I could handle that. It’s those moments when I’d look in the mirror and see noticeable physical changes that would send me into panic. In the most extreme cases, that panic led to Bulimia, Binge Eating Disorder, and bouts of Orthorexia. With pregnancy, giving in to the temptation to slip back into my disorders comes with my relapse directly affecting another person: my son. Hell, I can’t even do a lot of the things I would have previously seen as “maintaining” that neutral mentality anymore because even those things could hurt him. Pregnancy has forced me to FINALLY release ALL control I have around my body.
From the first trimester and the list of challenges that came with it, my body has changed. I was bloated ALL THE TIME. I woke up with what felt like the hangover of the century every morning and it often lasted throughout the day. I was EXHAUSTED. I retained water like a sponge. All things that contributed to my immediate weight gain. As someone who is used to constantly moving (in the gym, at work, while training, etc.) being glued to the couch or my bed because of the nausea, exhaustion, and extremely low self-confidence did nothing good for my mentality in those first three months. My clothes started getting tighter by the minute and by the start of my second trimester, I could no longer squeeze into any of my pre pregancy clothes. The way clothing fits me has always been a trigger. In phases of my life where my body adjusted to existing in a softer form, it was always clothes feeling different that would send me into that same panic of “shit… I need to change this NOW.” It worked in the reverse, too: if I unexpectedly had clothes feel lose, it’d send me into the same panic, but the narrative was “shit. I gotta keep doing whatever is making this happen.” Now, at 31 weeks pregnant, all of my pre pregnancy clothes (save for a couple oversized T-shirts and sweatshirts) are packed away in bags. Now, only things that are either maternity specific or four sizes bigger than my pre pregnancy clothes remain. I hate it. I know – it seems silly because I’m PREGNANT. I won’t be in maternity clothes forever, but my past keeps this entire topic a really big struggle to deal with.
I guess the saving grace in all of this though is that this entire experience has become a form of exposure therapy. All the things I’ve feared more than anything in my life are my reality right now and sitting with it all gives me no other option than to just exist with the discomfort and find healthy ways to cope. Don’t get me wrong – I HATE exposure therapy. I always have. But I’d be a damn liar if I said it doesn’t work. In fact, it works better than most therapeutic tactics (for me, anyways.) I remember during rehab for Bulimia, I hated doing group sessions because they were exposure therapy; full of people who were all at different stages of recovery. Some were on day one, fresh off the high of engaging in behaviors hours before enrolling into the program, while others had almost completed the program, but their recovery was so fragile that one triggering moment or comment could be the difference between graduating and relapse. In the clinic, they treated every brand of eating disorder as well as alcoholics (the addiction and patterns with eating disorders and alcohol abuse are painfully similar.) When I was at the end of that spectrum of healing and close to being done, I remember going through groups one day with a brand-new patient who was there for Anorexia. I always envied Anorexics because their tactic was complete restriction and in the most extreme cases, they looked the way I always dreamed of looking (like a walking skeleton.) As a B.E.D. and Bulimia patient, my drug of choice was obsessive intake and output (binge/ purge episodes) and that meant my body never took the shape of what the general population understood as “having an eating disorder.” My weight fluctuated in a twenty-pound range that never really dipped into the realm of causing concern to anyone who didn’t know what I was going through. Anyways, this girl came in – stick thin – with pale, translucent skin, brittle hair, gross teeth, and clothes that looked like pillow cases on her frail figure and my fresh tool belt of recovery tactics all of the sudden became useless. Our group session timeline was:
- Show up
- Go around the circle and give three feelings off the “feeling wheel” we were experiencing ( I HIGHLY recommend use of this tool if you struggle with emotions, coping, or communicating feelings.)
3. Talk through them and figure out where they were stemming from
4. Go to group dinner with our therapist present and face whatever emotions or urges came up during dinner while following a strict hunger cue scale the entire time.
By the end of that second step that day, I was PANICKING. I could not come to terms with going to eat next to this girl who was the embodiment of everything my disorders wanted me to be. I had gained about twenty pounds since starting rehab and looking at my own body next to this girl sent me into a spiral. I had to stay back with the group therapist for twenty minutes while everyone else went to get ready for dinner because I went into an overwhelming panic attack. She calmed me down, I went to dinner, hated every second of it, but got through it and didn’t go home to engage in a binge purge episode. Exposure. Facing the weight gain from pregnancy has given me that same exposure. I will say, the biggest difference in this weight gain is that every time I go to the doctor, they mention how little boy is right on track, his heart is always magnificently strong, and he’s active as all get out. My fiancé is convinced it’s because I’ve eaten enough, am still getting in my movement, and I’m taking care of myself for our son. I think he’s right and if I’m going to go through this, THAT’S 100% the payoff that makes it all worth it. If I would have let my disorders take over when I found out I was pregnant, I could have stunted his growth, given him or myself health complications along the way, or even experienced early loss which would have broken me.
As a performer, there has been a constant pressure I’ve felt to “bounce back” once my son is born. I’ve always hated that mentality but now, being in the thick of pregnancy and body changes, how DARE anyone in this world have such a take on our bodies. It’s so normal to either expect that of pregnant people, or to hold that belief ourselves as pregnant people. I’m guilty of it and I hate it. I had a co-worker go through her first pregnancy during our time with the Disney stunt show. Every stage of her pregnancy, I paid close attention to see how she coped, how she changed, and how she adjusted so I could be prepared in case my ex and I were to end up pregnant. She was my blueprint for how to go through pregnancy while working that show and she handled it like a champ. In talking to her a little, she had a slew of struggles, fears, and challenges that she faced with so much grace and strength. I admire the ever living shit out of her for everything she went through and then coming back to the show just FIVE months after giving birth. It also scared me because she looked FANTASTIC when she came back. My own fears got louder: what if I DON’T look like I did pre pregnancy and they don’t approve me to come back? What if the costume doesn’t fit and I have to try and actively lose weight? What if that sends me back into my disorders? (and before anyone tries to say “JuSt Do It ThE hEaLtHy WaY,” these are eating DISORDERS meaning the “healthy way” doesn’t exist for my brain. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve tried to lose weight “the healthy way” and landed right back in a relapse.)
These are still fears that plague my mind everyday as a member of an industry that often only accepts certain bodies for roles. In some instances, I get it; with Disney for example, you have an IP to match and casting body types that are drastically different from that IP can make for lower show quality. However, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck to have been told “no” by that same company for roles because my “silhouette didn’t fit the character.” They denied my fiancé a role unless he came back in a few weeks having “shrunk his shoulders and calves.” We’ve seen them take role approvals away from people who have experienced a bit of weight gain. Two years ago, my fiancé went through a life-threatening bacterial infection where he lost about sixty pounds in a matter of a couple weeks. When he was healthy again and came back to work, I was mortified by how many people (management included) praised his body even AFTER explaining to them that he almost died from an infection. Every entertainment break room or set I’ve been on always has people talking about diet culture, their own dissatisfaction with their appearances, or people who will always notice bodily changes in others before anything else. I HATE when people say things like “wow you’re so skinny/ fit/ lean!” or “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.” It makes me cringe because of how many times I heard those comments while starving, throwing up five times a day, or obsessively forcing my body to shrink. If you want to comment on a body, keep the focus off of how it looks and centered on how amazing they are for what they do for us (or – JUST DON’T COMMENT ON BODIES.) Entertainment can be really horrible when it comes to body image, expectations, and self-worth. I know a lot of people who believe pregnancy is a death sentence to the careers of entertainers. All of these norms contributed to the ultimate reluctance I’ve always had around having kids. I think life worked out in a beautiful way for me. My show was taken away before I could lose it to pregnancy. I’m secretly hoping that with the expansion of the area our show was in, we’ll have the opportunity to perform in a capacity similar to that one once again in the future. I’m lucky to say that the timeline possibility for that should line up perfectly with my body having had ample time to recover from pregnancy/ birth, and I should even have had time to adjust to parenthood. Kind of a dream come true if it were to work out that way AND my fiancé and I got to work together again. Here’s to manifesting the ever-living crap out of that.
No matter what your relationship to your body looked like prior to pregnancy (or even if you’re not pregnant!) it’s safe to say that it can be excruciatingly difficult to face the changes our bodies naturally go through. I hope there are some of you who read this and say “actually Riss, I LOVED my pregnant/ changing body!” because that’s fucking awesome. That’s the kind of internal monologue I hope for all of us to have when our bodies change in any way as they naturally do throughout life. I think for majority of us though, that’s not the case. I’ll encourage you to remember that your body is an incredible machine and it’s doing everything it can to keep you safe, healthy, and happy. Our bodies know what we need (a fever is literally our immune system saying “something ain’t right in here. Burn it down”) and while it can be hard to remember that amidst the pressure society places on us to make them LOOK a certain way, it’s imperative we fight back for our bodies. This body is all we’ve got in this life. We live in it for the entirety of our time on earth. They deserve grace, acceptance, and at least a little loving while we have them. Trust me, I know it’s nowhere near as easy as just “loving yourself.” It takes work and consistency to build habits that change the narrative the world programs us to have. One of my earliest practices I learned in rehab was to stand in front of the mirror, look into my own eyes, and let whatever feelings come up, come up. Following those emotions with saying loving phrases out loud (and that part is important) to our reflections lets your brain hear and process positivity directed at yourself. Our words hold immeasurable power and our brains believe the words we say. It’s the core principle of manifestation: say it out loud as if it’s already true to make it real. Even on days we may not fully believe the words we say, it still makes a difference to say positivity out loud. Day by day, you’ll notice you start to feel it, believe it, and embody it as YOUR truth. It’s a free, simple way to start rehabbing your relationship to your body and I think we all deserve to have a bit more love for the bodies that carry us through change after change. I encourage you to try something today that shows some love to your body – a fancy body scrub, a massage, some meditative breath work, a positive mirror affirmation, some movement that feels good, some rest, some yummy food without judgement or shame, or anything else that lets your body know you’re in their corner. It can be jarring to feel like a stranger in our new bodies during pregnancy, but the only way we go from being strangers to friends with anyone is by getting to know each other and growing to love them for who they are. We wouldn’t put so much pressure on our friends to look any certain way, especially while they’re going through such a life changing transition. Why should our own bodies be any different?
