Gosh, I look so skinny in the mirror! My arms and legs are slender like chopsticks, just like Chloe, an influencer I've been following for quite some time now.
I couldn’t help but marvel at the reflection before me, my heart racing faster, beating with a sense of triumph. Her graceful fragility has always been something I aspired to. I soon realized it wasn't the excitement of finally achieving what I thought was a perfect body that caused my heart to race; it was hypoglycemia creeping in. All I could do was clutch onto the water-stained sink with my trembling right hand, while I felt the strength in my legs draining away bit by bit. My heart was pounding as if it might break free from my body at any time; the next second, I was plunged into a blinding sea of white.
When I returned to consciousness, my whole body was drenched in sweat. Struggling to overcome the whirlwind in my head, I crawled out of the room. When I finally lay on my back in the dormitory hallway, I felt a strange numbness enveloping me, as if I was detached from my body entirely. I used my last bit of strength to cry out desperately, my feeble voice echoing in the empty corridor.
"Tick, tick, tick, tick," was the sound of the heartbeat monitor or perhaps the sound of water dripping from the glucose infusion bottle.
"She has hypoglycemia caused by severe malnutrition."
"Doctor, does she have any other health issues?"
"We can’t say for sure about other illnesses yet. We’ll still have to keep an eye on her condition down the road."
"Doctor, is there any solution for her hypothalamic amenorrhea?"
"This treatment can only bring the child back to normal weight. Her anorexia nervosa has to be treated immediately; we can’t delay it any longer. Prolonged amenorrhea poses a high risk of lifelong infertility."
Hearing this, a surge of irritation welled up in me and I buried my head under the covers. Still, my ears captured the sound of my mom trying to carefully enter the room, but the crinkle of a McDonald's paper bag in her hand grated on my nerves, making me more irritated and even scared.
"Baby, I got your favorite fries. Do you want to get up and try some?"
No! That evil bag of fries haunts me like a demon. The warm, crispy indulgence was once salvation whenever I was hungry, yet as I got obsessed with losing weight, the salty, savory aroma of potatoes became a temptation that I had to defy with all my determination. Now, mired in my struggle with anorexia, even the sight of it disgusted me.
I tried to turn my body away from it, but the smell of the fries wrapped around my body. My limbs trembled uncontrollably, and I felt I might explode in a flash of frustration and despair. In that desperate moment, my mom rushed to me, her arms encircling me in a warm, comforting hug. Only then did I slowly calm down a little.
I slowly made my way out of my hospital room, walking aimlessly down the corridor. As I came to sit down on a bench in the garden, a girl approached me. I could not help but notice the sound of her thighs rubbing together, and the creaking of the wooden bench as she sat down made me cringe. When she finally sat down next to me, I had nothing but disdain and disgust in my heart: "One of her legs is thicker than both of mine combined."
I pondered, "How can anyone bear to have so much flesh dangling on their arms? Doesn't she look in the mirror and get grossed out by her size?"
"Gosh, you're so skinny!" She didn't seem to care and continued to chat with a smile, "but I think you’d look better if you were fatter."
What? It was the first time someone had ever told me that I'd look better if I were fatter. What was wrong with her?
Those were my initial responses. However, a different thought began to surface: What would I actually look like with more weight on me? Unattractive? Or perhaps better looking?
After a few moments absentmindedly responding to her chitchat, I took the quick trip back to the hospital. In the same department as mine were many girls even skinnier than me, with protruding kneecaps and matchstick-thin legs. As I took a seat in the corridor and watched these girls being helped to walk, the sounds of them falling and crying reverberated in my brain. Where would I find myself if one day, I am reduced to a skeletal figure like them?
That night, after my mom took me home from the hospital I stood in my pajamas before the mirror in the doorway. The 85-pound me stared back at me. Sometimes, I felt a gust of wind could blow me away. Every time the canteen auntie would heap my plate with rice, I would walk straight to the trash can to dump it. A year ago I weighed 105 pounds.
"You’re fat!"
"You look like a bucket."
"How dare you wear a dress?"
The cruel comments about my body felt like daggers in my mind.
After the painful suppression of my appetite came eight months of menopause, leaving me with only half of my hair, countless hours of fainting, and severe hypoglycemia. The girl who confidently wore whatever she liked and embraced her body was long gone. The mirror seemed to whisper to the 85-pound me at this moment, "I miss the person you were before."
"Food isn't scary," I chanted it in my head, as if it were a magic spell that could dissolve my fears. On the first day that I decided to resume a regular diet, food was arranged in front of me like colorful corpses on white dinner plates. I gazed at the bread on my plate and the two lumps of cream seemed like eyes gazing back at me, waiting for me to take a bite. As I slowly approached it, suddenly I heard the bread screaming at me. I backed away in shock. My mom, sensing my distress, came over and picked up the bread, helping me to take a bite. Her face mirrored my anxiety as I hesitantly sank my teeth into the buttery bread.
I tasted my own tears, salty and bitter.
The top layer of the soft bread had been soaked with my teardrops. I managed just two bites before I broke away from my mom's grasp and desperately ran to the scale. Nothing in the world could make me sadder than seeing that 0.1-pound increase at that moment. My fear of gaining weight clashed with my determination to make peace with food.
My mom and I placed a planner on the fridge, reminding me of my daily eating routine. My days passed with emotionless eating and constantly blaming my weight for keeping me down. I went through all the closets in the house to find garments that would cover my entire body. My online shopping cart was full of hats big enough to hide my face. I started to hate the mirror in the doorway. Every time I passed by, I tried to ignore it, avoid hearing it say to me: "Good morning, you look great today. Want to take a look at your body?" Logging into social media had become another source of fear; influencers flaunting their perfect bodies and being showered with compliments only served as a constant reminder of my fading slenderness.
Countless times I combed my hair after showering and a handful fell onto the shower floor; countless times I didn't dare to face any camera or take even one photo; countless times I touched my expanding waistline and ran to the toilet to vomit; countless times I've felt guilty after a full meal and relied on laxatives to ease my anxiety. Still, every morning, I pushed myself out of bed for a morning run in order to recover; every day, I adhered to my doctor's high-calorie food suggestions and ate four meals to meet my weight gain goals; every Sunday, I took a two-hour bus ride halfway across the city to meet with my psychiatrist. And every time I looked out the car window in disbelief, a warm hand from my mother held me steady.
A new plus-size women's clothing store opened in our neighborhood. I used to pass by it regularly during my morning runs. The owner had plastered posters of plus-size models all around the store. They featured models in sleeveless dresses with visible flesh on their arms, their waists are oval, and their legs are made up of flab. Yet, it was their round, confident faces that stood out, beaming with self-assuredness. On the wall outside the store, there were also posters featuring the owner herself, with her protruding belly and thick thighs. Strangely, I found this acceptable because whenever I gazed at that poster, I was drawn to that confidence radiating from her warm smile, not her body.
One day, on my way home from the grocery store, I passed by the store again. I kept the brim of my hat down as the owner approached me and said: "Sweetie, you're so pretty, would you like to try on a couple of our dresses?" I noticed how she always spoke confidently and graciously about her clothes with her customers. I stared at her face, my mind racing with thoughts. Is the skinny me really better looking than the slightly chubby me? Do I really need to gain confidence by getting thinner? Do I really need to sacrifice my health for this? When I finally stepped into the plus-size store after the owner’s several invitations, I took off my hat and faced a mirror. The answer came to me,
"No, I don't need to."
"My face is pretty and my body isn’t as fat as I'd imagined."
In that moment, a realization dawned upon me -- getting fat wasn't unacceptable. What was really unacceptable was the low self-esteem I felt because of my size. I don't need to be ashamed of my flab. On the contrary, I can be proud that it's part of my body, because it's a symbol of my vibrant and confident life.
Six months later, I stood on the scale again. 105 pounds. But at that moment, I felt nothing. I've stood in the same position countless times, breaking down and crying and ranting about how my body was too fat. However, my family and everything around me kept telling me, "You're beautiful, more beautiful than Chloe or any other social media influencer, as long as you are healthy and confident." I walked to the mirror in the doorway, revealing my face under the black hat. I took off my jacket and turned around in a circle, and I heard the mirror’s gentle voice, "You're beautiful."
I went to the McDonald's and ordered my favorite fries. As the aroma of potatoes filled my nostrils, I could not wait to take my first bite, crispy on the outside, yet wonderfully soft and warm on the inside. My pleasure for food had finally been reawakened.
A message popped up on my phone screen. I clicked on it— it was from the plus-size women's clothing store in my neighborhood, I’d followed them on social media a few days back. They just followed me back. The store owner had been sharing photos of herself in the clothes they promoted, and under her latest post, I found a comment that read: "How dare you send it out when you're so fat?"
I couldn’t help but reply: "Come on, she looks absolutely amazing!"