Toti O’Brien

Alight

1. The Law

A law was passed in France in 2016, specifying the minimum body mass required for a fashion model. Models need to be thin, yet not thinner than what the law declares. The same rule was proposed years before but it didn’t pass. It wasn’t hold back by civil rights associations, humanitarian agencies or the general public—its discriminatory flavor apparently shocked no one. Only the fashion industry feared side effects on its profits.

In 2016, slightly amended, the article was approved. Again, only the fashion industry reacted though in a moderate way, mostly limited to a ‘no comment’. A single objection was raised by the French Workers Union—the new measure, it said, “could contravene workplace anti-discrimination laws, by making it difficult for extremely thin models to be employed.” ‘Could’ instead of ‘does’, ‘making it difficult’ instead of ‘forbidding’. The wording is amazingly kind considering its source. No answer was reported and the debate was dropped.

Models are of all genders, of course. Yet Dr. Olivier Veran, the law’s promoter, only used feminine pronouns in his public addresses. Did he notice? To make sure, only girls’ pictures—tons of them, with no exception—were in the press. Unequivocally the law talks female. Does it matter? I think so and I will explain why.

First, let’s picture a girl applying for a job, being put on a scale then accepted or denied in reason of her weight. Nothing new, we could realistically gloss. Wasn’t a woman’s career always tied, at least partially, to her looks and size in particular? For example bra size? Yes. But no president of the French Republic had yet sanctioned the practice as legal.

Which imagery does emerge when we think of folks measured prior to employment, then regularly re-checked? First of all slave markets, alas. Next in line immigrants counters filtering desirable workforce (checking muscles or dentures). Next in line, cattle come to mind, meaning creatures believed not to have a soul, therefore uniquely gauged by their physical attributes.

These flashbacks, after centuries of women struggles and victories—plus the sweated consciousness of owning one’s body—are not as disheartening as they are vertiginous. How did civilized Europe nonchalantly retrograde? Is the new law an historical revenge against imposed gender correctness? Do physicians, politicians, legislators—those neat suit-covered fellows—wish to regain control over women’s bodies? Apparently.

2. Body or Soul

But the issue is complex. Too thin models must be denied work, say the legislators, in order to abate anorexia. The measure (no word could be more appropriate) has to do with mental health, not with expressing judgment on physical shapes. Anorexia nervosa yearly kills tens of thousands in France, statistics report. Too thin models need to be barred from sight because they encourage the illness. Upon such assumption, employment discrimination for non-work-related motives is allowed, bluntly tampering with basic rights yet causing no wonder, no protest.

Are we sure that the sight of slim figures with 18% body mass doesn’t cause emulative thinning, while the sight of similar figures with 17.9% body mass does? Do we know if the main cause of anorexia is the enticement of fashion? No consensus was ever reached on the subject. No authoritative study, credible literature, deep research, coherent statistics, backs up the claim. The amateurish ways adopted to support the hypothesis are appalling. But such airy theory became law. Pointedly, it became an offending, quasi-medieval law.

Are we sure that the sight of slim figures with 18% body mass doesn’t cause emulative thinning, while the sight of similar figures with 17.9% body mass does? Do we know if the main cause of anorexia is the enticement of fashion? No consensus was ever reached on the subject. No authoritative study, credible literature, deep research, coherent statistics, backs up the claim. The amateurish ways adopted to support the hypothesis are appalling. But such airy theory became law. Pointedly, it became an offending, quasi-medieval law.

As I said the issue is complex. Are the girls rejected because they are too thin—therefore potentially inspiring anorexic outbursts—or because they are anorexic? On this smudged line, revealing controversy took place. Most objections from the fashion industry pressed upon such distinction.

How can you tell? Very thin might be perfectly healthy. Slightly heavier might be surreptitiously ill. Ultra thin is ok, anorexic is not—the industry operators agree, firmly trusting their diagnostic ability. While they of course employ thin, they conscientiously avoid the mentally sick: “When some international designers have been questioned about the problem, such as Karl Lagerfeld in a 2012 interview, they have denied having ever worked with anorexic models.”

Thus the focus dramatically switches. The intended target isn’t the woman whose shape might induce in temptation (does it ring a bell?) but the mentally ill, who shouldn’t be employed. “Designers have spoken out in favor of using ‘healthy models’ and promoting healthful lifestyles.” “It’s important that the models are healthy…”

Wait a moment. Should models affected by all sorts of conditions be fired? Diabetic? Anemic? Asthmatic? Of course not. ‘Healthy’ equates in this case ‘not affected by eating disorders’. The point, perfectly understood by the industry, is to penalize anorexics in hope to eradicate the condition. Law and press adopt a same language, unequivocally nailing the concept. The coherence of terminology is stunning.

“Lawmaker and doctor Olivier Veran says he's on a crusade against the mental eating disorder anorexia.” “President Francois Hollande's government lawmakers also made it illegal to condone anorexia.” “…supporters of the bill say is necessary to combat the persistence of anorexia.” “They recommended an array of steps to attack the problem.” “The measure is part of a campaign against anorexia by President Francois Hollande's government.”

Attack. Combat. Campaign. Crusade. Against. Against. Against. The analogy with US “War on drugs” is too clear to be ignored. There’s a culprit, and a punitive operation is needed: this much is undeniable.

Isn’t it too small a matter to mobilize a government? Don’t France and Europe have more pressing issues to solve? Does an illness ask for political action of the belligerent kind, attired with terms of battle, repression, extermination?

As I read the press of 2016. I realize not a single journalist employs the word ‘suffering’. None of them ever speaks the word ‘cure’. Please, verify. Are we talking about an ailment, or what? What exactly are we supposed to fight?

3. Identity or Illness

In Far from the Tree, Ph.D. Andrew Salomon explores the impact of children born with unforeseen peculiarities over their families (their parents in particular). The book is divided in sections, each dedicated to a potentially challenging scenario. Among the explored domains are homosexuality, autism, schizophrenia, deafness, and other.

“To propose that anorexics are merely exploring an identity is as morally lax as accepting the belief of gang members that they are merely pursuing an identity that happens to entail killing people.”

Chapter after chapter, the author asks himself a main question—are we talking of pathology or of diversity/identity? It’s a delicate edge and the answer is never clear-cut. There are implications. If the status of identity/diversity—inherently ruling out stigmas and negative judgments—seems consistently preferable, on the other end the label of illness promotes intervention, support, facilitation, and tolerance. Still, claims of identity are the dominant trend for most differences, previously confined in the pathologic domain.

While reporting such state of facts, the author adds an unrequired proviso—the identity status, of course, doesn’t apply to all. Not to anorexia, for instance: “To propose that anorexics are merely exploring an identity is as morally lax as accepting the belief of gang members that they are merely pursuing an identity that happens to entail killing people”. “It’s clear that identity is a finite concept. What’s not clear is the location of its boundaries”.

I had to put down the book for a moment, take a break and digest a sudden déjà-vu. I had had a similar reaction—incredulity, hilarity, alienation—years before in a different context. I was reading a book on Jesus Christ by Pope Benedict XVI, alias Cardinal Ratzinger. Absolutely brilliant—I have never found a smarter analysis of divinity at large. The author is a solid scholar, unafraid of daring interpretations and mind-blowing insights—until a curt statement, tucked within a list of god’s qualities, trips the reader. Here is one thing god isn’t—female. Why? There is no why. God isn’t female—affirms the future pope—for the scriptures say so. Rather, don’t say the contrary. It just can’t be—meaning that his mind can’t take it, his heart doesn’t comply, and his taste revolts. I wasn’t as struck by gender contempt as I was by blunt irrationality allowed in the midst of rigorous reasoning.

Same with Dr. Salomon’s. The intolerance implied by his statement is shocking in the context of his open-mindedness. Yet it shows the same frame of thought underlying the French Body Mass Index Law.

The words ‘morally lax’ briskly cross from the medical into the ethical domain. So does the homologation with gang members. Anorexics are compared to criminals—fines or jail, as implied by the law, therefore make sense. And the term ‘exploring’—while expressing what anorexics don’t do—primes the reader, introducing a concept of game-playing and idle provocation. The words choice skillfully suggests what the sentence denies.

Even the author’s take on gang members is weird—it is known how such affiliations are dictated by peer pressure and context, not by whim or caprice.

“It’s clear that identity is a finite concept. What’s not clear is the location of its boundaries.” Please. Identity’s finiteness is not clear at all, as identity expands together with the field of human awareness, experiences and possibilities. It increasingly articulates itself as more silenced voices find a way to expression. Thank god, boundaries are constantly redefined.

Should I wonder why an author would drop such a rough, superficial and disparaging statement in the middle of a progressive research? I assume he cared little, because chances of being rebuked were minimal. The anorexic bunch is a mute minority no one credibly advocates.

4. Illness or Identity

Dr. Salomon denies to anorexia the honors of identity, yet remaining unclear about what the thing is. The blame tainting his words doesn’t quite apply to a mere illness. Then what?

Maybe it is time to reflect on gender. See if—as I believe—it plays a role in how anorexia is perceived. The disorder, we are told, is mostly found in females. Doubts arise because—as the fashion operators highlight—a fine line (is it discernible?) separates healthy thinness from disease. And because anorexia-(or extreme thinness)-related problems aren’t usually brought to attention until the time of emergency. Therefore, statistics are unreliable. Still we are told that anorexia is mostly found in females.

Why? Is there an x chromosome-related factor? If yes, attitudes of punishment and blame are, of course, absolutely pointless. If, instead, anorexia hits women without a genetic cause, then (gender) identity must be part of the picture. The anorexic phenomenon, then, necessarily intertwines with female identity building and that is where it should be observed, understood, potentially solved.

Doubtlessly, judgments cast upon anorexia mirror judgments regarding women. Viewing it as misconduct more than suffering echoes commonplace thoughts about hysterical symptoms—another quintessentially feminine phenomenon, also interpreted as capricious make-believe. Like hysterical symptoms, anorexic symptoms are deemed a display aimed to attract attention and gain control—part sly, part naïve.

But the data remain unexplained. We only know that anorexia is a women’s plight—not much information, yet enough to associate the disorder with vain appearance concerns and accept fashion obsession as its main cause. Prejudices on femaleness color attitudes towards anorexic behaviors—therefore, blind vanity can be assumed as the sole culprit of a life-threatening condition.

Doubtlessly, judgments cast upon anorexia mirror judgments regarding women. Viewing it as misconduct more than suffering echoes commonplace thoughts about hysterical symptoms—another quintessentially feminine phenomenon, also interpreted as capricious make-believe. Like hysterical symptoms, anorexic symptoms are deemed a display aimed to attract attention and gain control—part sly, part naïve.

When not burned at the stake, as the French regulations suggest, anorexics are treated like hysterical patients were—condescendingly. Those were given placebo, these are put on a scale then sent home to finish the soup. Behave, girl, and watch out. Next time you’ll go to the madhouse, or to jail.

5. Take it Personally

I am an adult anorexic, having been a child and a teen anorexic. Otherwise why would I choose this subject? It is a distasteful topic, and consistently shunned. Look up anorexia if you like and you’ll find inaccessible scientific articles, focusing on details such as medications’ doses and side-effects, or frustratingly inconsistent statistics.

Otherwise, a few sensation stories pierce the silence. They come in two kinds—death of a fashion model (obviously told by someone else) and inspirational tales by repented subjects. These last ones—the redemptive novels—are success books confectioned with all needed ingredients. I have read many, hoping to find something of use, something honest. I have dropped such expectancy long ago. I have learned nothing besides how terrible things were before and how splendid they became after healing. I have painstakingly looked for ‘what’ and for ‘why’, motivations and reasons, steps taken to switch form a status to another. I have found vague evocations of damned yesterdays versus blessed todays—healing being usually caused by magic yet unspecified outer interventions.

These books are the repetitive story of bad—at least unfortunate—girls (with one male exception), who at some point let themselves become good and beautiful. There’s no more to be learned. Did I choose my subject to fill a gap in the related literature? I wouldn’t have bothered, I’m sure, if I weren’t anorexic.

Do I deem anorexia a disease? After a lifetime I don’t know. If the word signifies something causing an individual to suffer, was such effect produced? Perhaps. Less than what a number of other things caused. Saying anorexia protected me from more acute pains would be truer. I have consistently used it as a tool for steeling specific areas of my self. Kind of a costly tool—but some are worth spending.

Anything I can put after the words I am defines me. Let be it—there’s no denying of identity. Does such fact exclude for the attribute to be an illness? No. I could say I am diabetic, and I’ll name an ailment together with a state of being. Which is just what I am doing.

Do I deem anorexia a disease? After a lifetime I don’t know. If the word signifies something causing an individual to suffer, was such effect produced? Perhaps. Less than what a number of other things caused. Saying anorexia protected me from more acute pains would be truer. I have consistently used it as a tool for steeling specific areas of my self. Kind of a costly tool—but some are worth spending.

As an anorexic, I have been intermittently labeled insane. Intervention was sought for me and in adult age I have sought intervention. Paradoxically, I was consistently assured of being mentally sound, then sent home with advice or injunction (depending on how rigorous the approach) to eat—that of course never worked, because it wasn’t the point.

Did the above scenario imply that my disorder was mild? It wasn’t. The inconsistency of diagnoses and treatments I received only proved the confusion in attitude towards the anorexic phenomenon, simultaneously addressed as a syndrome in need of medical care and a perverse intention—a bad will the subject should be capable of modifying. Each time, I came in as a patient to come out—after a mere shift of labels—as the individual in charge I knew I was to start with. Does it mean that I could have dropped anorexic behaviors-or-symptoms at will? Not at all. It means I should deal with them on my own, negotiating them into the complexity of my identity, which of course includes them. And which I won’t let anybody define, except for myself.

6. The Range

Thinking on anorexia and its mysteries—our society’s mysterious response to it—I was often impressed by a gross incongruity. I’m talking of range—the margin of action. Meaning the exiguous weight loss required for switching from normality to pathology—compared to the same notion applied at the other end of the spectrum.

I intend that a person can take up hundreds of pounds without entering the domain of illness—especially mental illness, while a shift of ten pounds drops a subject from the realm of fit, thin-but-trim, into the crazy bunch. A petite dancer is fine at ninety-five pounds, but at eighty-five she is sick. Only ten pounds went by yet the stamp landed on her brow, inked red.

Why does losing ten mean a plunge into madness while taking, losing, taking again fifty does not? Someone will object taking is easy and it might involuntarily happen, while losing is hard and requires a choice, a conscious effort. False. Of course, it is a biased opinion. Losing weight can be as simple and unaware as fattening up. Gaining back the lost weight can be horribly painful, on the verge of impossible in spite of good will.

Now, if it takes some messing around with diet—some altering of consumption habits—to lose ten, it takes twice as much to gain twenty, thrice as much to take thirty, and so on… Most of the western world’s inhabitants spend their life running marathons back and forth the scale, with a total adding up to a few tons. But until they reach extreme obesity—and yet—their sanity is not under question. The disparity in judging a same behavior at the two ends of the line—rather in two opposed directions—is incoherent at least.

Why does losing ten mean a plunge into madness while taking, losing, taking again fifty does not? Someone will object taking is easy and it might involuntarily happen, while losing is hard and requires a choice, a conscious effort. False. Of course, it is a biased opinion. Losing weight can be as simple and unaware as fattening up. Gaining back the lost weight can be horribly painful, on the verge of impossible in spite of good will.

Therefore, where does the double standard come from? The behavior in cause—the same one, only diverging in sense—should be morally neutral. We are talking of food intake, body size—adding or subtracting should be equivalent acts, both pertaining to the private domain like growing or shaving a beard, dying one’s hair this or that color. Why is anorexia as alarming as to inspire a measure of law, while obesity (way more diffused) doesn’t call for belligerent actions? One quick answer—because anorexics may die. So may overweight people—damages to the system are equally obvious.

Overweight, though, is not demonized. Quite the opposite is true. Conscious efforts are made to include overweight in the normality zone, even praising its peculiar esthetics. Thanks god, we are taught to accept it from a very young age—not to point at obese individuals, not to tease. When weight accumulation is huge, a dysfunction is often suggested, dissociating obesity from behaviors as greed and intemperance as well as emotional problems. Such hypotheses should be dealt with in appropriate settings, not shared in the open. Therefore, society agrees on protecting those weighing too much—leniently categorizing what ‘too much’ means. But no courtesy is due to those with little on their bones. Towards them the attitude is perfectly specular—a reversed mirror, a dark one. Within a narrow margin, skinny ones are cast aside, labeled insane. More— they are blamed instead of excused. Physiological causes are never called for.

I have reflected before typing the word ‘never’. I have considered ‘rarely’ or ‘seldom’. But I’ll stick with my first choice—physiological causes, like dysfunctions or such, are never called for. Even by definition anorexia is ‘mental’. The adjective doesn’t simply denote a condition affecting the brain or the personality—as I have said, it underscores a will. By universal agreement, anorexics don’t eat because ‘they don’t want to’. They choose not to—it is steadfast popular culture. By common belief, they could eat if they so wished. Nothing impedes their proper feeding except for a plight of their intention, impossible not to read as perverse.

Then, a crucial nuance is attached to the branding—more than to the mind, the illness is ascribed to the soul. Therefore, demonization. Therefore, the belligerent quality of all related vocabulary, the adoption of punishment instead of cure. Of exclusion instead of compassion. All justifications are valid at the heavy end of the scale, none at the light end. Lots of reasons up there, down here only one—the bad will of the subject. Patient… subject… which one?

7. A Worthless Cause

Where does the double standard come from? After years of searching, one reason emerges based on mere observation. Overweight, as a bodily state, is extremely advantageous—financially speaking—to a great number of businesses. Getting heavy, losing pounds, regaining them, losing them again is a money-spending, profit-producing deal A to Z. This is why so much advertising incessantly addresses the issue. Being overweight pleases consumerism in each of its folds, while epitomizing a continuous loop of acquiring and wasting. It comports daily inputs of more food and drink than a body needs. It enlarges bodies to sizes needing more clothing, more cleaning products, wider furniture, wider cars, wider everything. All expands with the expansions of body masses. Anything that expands makes some one richer. Then, oh well, getting rid of the expansion when it feels uncomfortable, goes of course with acquiring ‘expansion-eraser’ items, processes, devices, operators, institutions. The nutritional, dieting, training, gymnastic, cosmetic, therapeutic, counseling, analytical, medical, psychological, social markets attached to weight loss are a bottomless mine of gold. Bottomless because it loops within itself—weight gain and weight loss are one lifestyle, one preoccupation, a swing going back and forth.

Anorexia ‘embodies’ instead what our current norms most blame and apprehend. Anorexics not only consume less than average, less than expected. They consume ‘less and less’—quite a vertiginous concept.

I don’t know how much income ‘more developed’ countries derive from the interwoven profits of food sales and weight-related businesses. Certainly understating the truth, let’s say it is a lot. But what I find more striking is the role this whole matter plays at a symbolic level, as it shows our society at large, summarizing all that capitalism values and promotes.

Anorexia ‘embodies’ instead what our current norms most blame and apprehend. Anorexics not only consume less than average, less than expected. They consume ‘less and less’—quite a vertiginous concept. They don’t pay their share to the market, not only on a primary (consuming) mode—also secondarily. Ironically, while overweight people—once passed the comfort level—actively seek to be helped regaining their shape, anorexic hide. They deny having a problem and especially refuse cure. Should they starve themselves, then periodically crowd luxury clinics or pop massive amount of costly medications to be re-plumped, they would become acceptable. Should they adopt such conciliatory attitude, their outbursts of illness might be called ‘crises’ and find justification. Alas, it doesn’t happen.

Adding to their imperviousness to cure, anorexic subjects do not compensate underuse of edibles with other indulging. A general attitude of renunciation and misery is associated to the anorexic profile. These are individuals who tend to dress poorly and sloppily. They don’t go to the hairdresser. They don’t do their nails. They introvert, self-erase, vanish.

They negate, in other words, all that our society asks from its participants. Which perfectly explains why blame and exclusion are common sentiments towards them.

8. Whose Pain

I have chosen the word ‘sentiment’ to further highlight the tinge of irrationality coloring views of anorexia. The term ‘view’, in fact, doesn’t apply. There isn’t much to see—the show goes under cover, hidden both by the carriers and by society. This last ‘sees’ the condition only as a target for poisoned arrows. In this case, the drape is pulled down and knives thrown at the flimsy figures of the accused. Otherwise, observation (a ‘view’) isn’t applied to the matter. Rather, feelings are felt.

Those, as I have witnessed firsthand—as I could swear in court—are never nice. In the section devoted to the French law I underlined the absence of the word ‘cure’ in the press, with no exception. Quite a revealing fact when the subject matter is illness. I have experienced such omission in the actual discourse, conversation, interaction or action, about and around anorexia.

Suffering is often mentioned, yes. Not that of the patient. What is constantly brought to the anorexic’s (and general) attention is the pain caused to others—the anguish that affected individuals cause for their families, friends, or close context. As for drug addicts or alcoholics, devastating effects on the surroundings are highlighted. Although, in case of addiction, the hardships of those mainly concerned are taken at least into account. Their not being in control—but controlled by a compound of physical and psychological binds—is usually admitted. Damages that drug-addicts inflict to the context are assessed and fought, but so does their ordeal itself, even partially. Notions of help, therapy, rehabilitation, are present—in the best case actively implemented.

How strange. No one blames a cancer patient or a paralyzed individual for the annoyance she represents. Resentment against such illnesses arise, of course, but is buried in the unconscious or elaborated through therapy into acceptable feelings. While resentment against an anorexic subject is fine. After all, she should grab her fork and all would be solved.

While, for anorexics, the burden imposed to the context seems to float in a vacuum, not to be a side effect of the earthquake having its epicenter—of course—within the individual concerned. Worry and shame meted out to the families are seen as results of deliberate action—something that anorexics choose to impart and could discontinue at their wish. The accusations of meanness and cruelty, insensitiveness and egotism, derive from such point of view.

How strange. No one blames a cancer patient or a paralyzed individual for the annoyance she represents. Resentment against such illnesses arise, of course, but is buried in the unconscious or elaborated through therapy into acceptable feelings. While resentment against an anorexic subject is fine. After all, she should grab her fork and all would be solved.

Parallels with drug-addicts are sound (they just could stop using and all would be fine—someone says). Yet some strata of society show sympathy to alcoholics and such. I have noticed tighter similarity between how anorexics and suicide victims are treated.

Here, again, blame wins over empathy, if this last were ever elicited. A great deal is made of the damage suicidal persons inflict to their relatives, friends, close circles. I have read an article blaming Sylvia Plath (decades after she passed) for causing her son Nicolas’ death. She was treated as the murderer of her son, her own tragedy disregarded as a collateral accident. Besides this absurd anecdote, I have listened to many educated arguments pointing at suicide’s effect on others as the matter—the main tragedy being wholly ignored.

Don’t be fooled by the ‘victim’ label. In most cultures people who take their own life are considered sinners, their spoils banned from consecrated ground. A diffused objection is made against their course of action, also felt (not seen) as an evil choice the individual responsibly made instead of a sensible one.

Here, again, blame wins over empathy, if this last were ever elicited. A great deal is made of the damage suicidal persons inflict to their relatives, friends, close circles. I have read an article blaming Sylvia Plath (decades after she passed) for causing her son Nicolas’ death. She was treated as the murderer of her son, her own tragedy disregarded as a collateral accident. Besides this absurd anecdote, I have listened to many educated arguments pointing at suicide’s effect on others as the matter—the main tragedy being wholly ignored.

The predicament of those who take their own life is understated at best, as for anorexics. What is causing such callousness? When compassion is bluntly denied, guilt must be the reason. The object of our guilt unfailingly becomes ‘bad’, to avoid for such quality to befall ourselves—a spontaneous reversal. When a kin takes her own life—an act so opposed to instinct, it betrays unbearable suffering—our default answer should be consternation. How not to feel bad since we didn’t notice, didn’t help, didn’t stop, couldn’t prevent? The closest we were to the victim, the most we feel involved in her final act. What did we do wrong? What did we miss?

Such doubts—says a shared opinion—are the damage caused by suicide to survivors. Such doubts, in my sense, are a fair, human, natural reaction. They aren’t the problem. Even death might not be the problem. What should gather attention, of course, is the immense pain provoking it. But it doesn’t. It is overlooked, then obliterated. People who committed suicide are (rationally) deemed insane, and (emotionally) considered mean. The two attributes don’t agree, yet the paradox remains unnoticed. Irritated consciences and denying minds do not compare notes.

Anorexics are also judged insane and mean, simultaneously. Also to them suffering is denied—or it falls in a pit of darkness, unsaid and invisible. Guilt is called for in this situation as well, then shifts into blame. Friends and relatives, alas, fear they might have a role in the distress revealed by anorexic symptoms—in the weakening of life instincts they betray. A subliminal doubt, not less bothering. Getting rid of it by means of accusing is best.

I am not advocating the hypothesis of parents, relatives, society being the cause of eating disorders. I don’t believe in merely external reasons for any situation/event, just as I don’t believe in strictly endogenous ones for most. But I find the kin’s self-pitying excessive, the denial of the subjects’ suffering ludicrous, and the blame absurd.

Didn’t I say the suffering caused by anorexia—at least in my case—wasn’t striking compared to pain due to other causes? I did. I also roughly defined anorexia as a tool for dealing with pain, not as the main damaging factor—such as a bone fracture, muscular degeneration, tumor or blood poisoning would be. The entire gamut of problems arisen by anorexia—death included—are easier to manage than the pain it tries to contain. Just as for suicide, overwhelming distress must be present or extreme behaviors wouldn’t occur. If it sounds completely obvious, such awareness remains amazingly unapplied.

Both in case of anorexia and suicide, ‘lack of taste’ is also resented, in the form of evocation or plain showing of death—which in modern societies, of course, is taboo. Death is our pornography. We like lots of it but on screen, as a kind of cartoon. Otherwise, its presence must be camouflaged. In the Western World we don’t die, not among our circle of peers. Only remote folks do. When they get close to death we make them remote. Suicide breaks the rules, unforgivably bringing death into the living room, splattering it all over the den. Anorexia does worse, spreading death’s picture over time—a constant reminder emulating the medieval memento mori, showing the skull under the skin. This kind of torture is gross.

9. The Cure

Until more research was performed—somehow widening the horizon, but exclusively within the scientific world—the onset of anorexia was linked to fashion-related worries and concerns about body image.

To extend my experience and conclude aesthetics are probably never the cause would be tempting. I can’t generalize, yet my guess is based upon a number of commonsense observations. If the purpose of self-starving were to beautify their bodies, anorexics would be satisfied with results, convinced to be more desirable. No such attitude is displayed that I know. Anorexics don't dress and pamper themselves, don’t show a hint of seductiveness. On the contrary, they have a self-mortifying attitude concerning attire and lifestyle. What would be the purpose of sculpting a shape conform to fashion dictates, then bagging it up and concealing it?

I know that these didn’t induce my condition. To extend my experience and conclude aesthetics are probably never the cause would be tempting. I can’t generalize, yet my guess is based upon a number of commonsense observations. If the purpose of self-starving were to beautify their bodies, anorexics would be satisfied with results, convinced to be more desirable. No such attitude is displayed that I know. Anorexics don't dress and pamper themselves, don’t show a hint of seductiveness. On the contrary, they have a self-mortifying attitude concerning attire and lifestyle. What would be the purpose of sculpting a shape conform to fashion dictates, then bagging it up and concealing it?

For as much as these data are worth, anorexics are usually ascribed a more than average I.Q. Which implies they would know how ugly they look. Of course, errors in body image perception are considered part of the syndrome. I am not sure where such idea comes from. How many anorexics were asked, “Do you think you look beautiful?” I wonder how many would have bothered answering. “Do you think you look fat?” Would replying the truth—no, I don’t, but I won’t/can’t/should not eat anyway—make sense? To deem anorexics incapable of telling the effect they have on others, or decoding the image reflected by the mirror, equates calling them stupid or blind. Speaking for myself, I knew how I looked at all times, and I knew I looked bad. But it mattered less than other things did.

I have long inquired, in depth and in earnest, about reasons for anorexia’s onset, recurrence, persistency. Other reasons, I mean. I have looked for specific literature, gathering just fragmented pieces of jargon. I’ve sought testimonials, only finding bestsellers by people I’d call ‘converted’ or ‘repented’. In this kind of narrative, I said, only the healing counts. Malady is a mere negative, an inverted mold, not an entity worthy of true—open, unprejudiced—attention.

Due to lack of valid reading I have looked into history, nature and tradition, for the situations where fasting spontaneously occurs. That is, I searched for the elements that an illness shares with ‘normality’, for its ‘healthy’ roots. Under which conditions do humans and animals voluntarily starve? Do they? Quite a lot. Could I find such conditions in my own life, see how they related with my starving? I have gone down this path and it brought me home in the end, as it was to be expected.

10. Nature, Nature

There are four specific contexts in which humans and animals discontinue eating—fear, grief, captivity and protest (this last might pertain to humans only, though we really don’t know). And few minor scenarios—chronic illness and the approach of death, on one side. Religious motifs such as purification or propitiatory sacrifice, on the other.

The above covers a wide range of crucial yet common experiences. I wonder how consistently and deeply they are searched while dealing with anorexics. Are they grappling with any of the above realities and related emotions? Are they by any chance struggling with more than one, or them all? Did they recently, or in the past? Do they have unresolved grief? Are they controlled or abused? Are they frightened by something or someone? Do they experience the impossibility of either fighting or fleeing, thus recurring to fast as a form of silent protest? Are these questions even asked? No one ever asked me, no one worried or inquired.

Once, as an adult anorexic, I was fighting not with my illness—by then I had understood its ebbs and tides, and I had learned how to accept its possible outcome—but with its effects on others, hoping to possibly minimize them. I sought help from a religious guide—also a therapist, but I asked within the religious mind frame. I kneeled, truly questioning why, notwithstanding my desperate wish to sit at the family table and eat, I couldn’t possibly. No one in my condition could, was the answer. Truly? How so? “You can’t eat,” my guide said, “because you are scared, and because you aren’t free.”

Once, as an adult anorexic, I was fighting not with my illness—by then I had understood its ebbs and tides, and I had learned how to accept its possible outcome—but with its effects on others, hoping to possibly minimize them. I sought help from a religious guide—also a therapist, but I asked within the religious mind frame. I kneeled, truly questioning why, notwithstanding my desperate wish to sit at the family table and eat, I couldn’t possibly. No one in my condition could, was the answer. Truly? How so? “You can’t eat,” my guide said, “because you are scared, and because you aren’t free.”

Evidence jumped to my eyes. As soon as I could remove the reasons for fear and resume basic freedom, I could feed myself. Thus the lesson was learned. Since, each time my body went down the fasting edge I immediately inquired: ‘Am I scared? Am I trapped?’’ And I learned how to add: ‘Am I mourning someone? Or am I revolting against something I can’t verbally fight? It has worked since. I am persuaded that other questions apply such as: “Am I atoning for a fault I assume I have committed?” “Do I want to expel something from my being, to resume integrity?” at a spiritual level. Or: “Do I feel too weak, too old in order to keep living?” at a merely organic level.

I have come to negotiate anorexia when—for lack of other ways out—I have welcomed it in the realm of normality, looking at my body-mind attitude not as deviant, but as meaningful and expressive. If I wanted, as I wanted, to survive, I should not espouse the combative attitude surrounding me. I shouldn't consider myself as the enemy, take a gun and shoot inward as suggested—the gun being hospitalization, medication, IV and similar tools. I should treat myself as an organism seeking solutions for problems, taking a path carved in instinct, long ago, for a precise purpose.

11. Caged

Animals and humans starve when in fear, subjection, captivity, because such states (all limiting freedom) subtract meaning to life. In the extreme, they deny life itself and survival isn’t pursued, which appears as a respectable choice. Rather instinct. Either proper conditions for life are reestablished, or its prolongation isn’t welcomed.

Fasting is the form of protest we adopt when our mouth is barred from its expressive use. I mean when speech is denied (by fear, subjection, captivity). Look into North Ireland’s prisons or in any other enclave of oppression.

Anorexics’ mouth has been shut, or they have renounced it since they didn’t have a say. To be silenced is a common occurrence. To choose silence isn’t usual but it has precedents. You can opt for dumbness to keep a dangerous secret, to avoid forced lies, forced alliances, or to save your life until your context evolves allowing you to speak the truth. When you seal your mouth close, you can’t eat.

Having pondered about anorexia since childhood, I have repeatedly torn the word into pieces, knowing a riddle was stuck within the definition. Food is mentioned nowhere. Official etymology lists the suppressive prefix (an-) plus Greek orexis—desire. But the main lexical evidence is ore, which in Latin means ‘mouth’ as well as other body openings. Xia is a Greek variation for a female forename— Xenia, the stranger. Welcome the mouth-less weirdo, then.

Anorexics’ mouth has been shut, or they have renounced it since they didn’t have a say. To be silenced is a common occurrence. To choose silence isn’t usual but it has precedents. You can opt for dumbness to keep a dangerous secret, to avoid forced lies, forced alliances, or to save your life until your context evolves allowing you to speak the truth. When you seal your mouth close, you can’t eat.

Fasting, as a social or politic protest, challenges the oppressor by stating, ‘I will die if you don’t grant my requests’. Those requests are for freedom in various forms. Fast as a protest is coherent with spontaneous starving while in captivity—it shows the unacceptability of life without liberty.

The election of this pointed form of self-murder isn’t casual. Should protesters kill themselves with a rapid action, blame would still befall the oppressor. But the slowness of death by self-starving has advantages—for a long time it could be stopped and reversed. The delay offers the oppressor a number of possibilities. Day by day, he could concede and death would be avoided. He is given a chance. The obvious trade-off is the hunger striker’s prolonged pain. As I said, there are costly tools worth the price.

We also lose our desire for food when we truly mourn, because our adhesion to life is temporarily in doubt. Until grief it resolved we keep pondering choices. We may question our wish for survival—only a path among others. Being endowed with free will, we can pause for as long as needed considering options. We might choose to depart with the departed. Staying on earth is not a binding condition. Amazingly, even animals do it, hence revealing how deep such behavior belongs.

Grief is not always visible. It can go entirely unnoticed. It can last for an uncannily long time. When looking for signs, we must look way under the surface.

Grief is not always visible. It can go entirely unnoticed. It can last for an uncannily long time. When looking for signs, we must look way under the surface.

Fasting is a natural form of expulsion. If we add nothing, the body eliminates older contents, getting rid of intoxicating materials. This belief underscores all purifying rituals, always implying a collusion of psychic and physical cleansing. Fasting is a healing instinct, not a self-damaging one. Damage is provided indeed by the opposite action—the ingestion of alien, poisonous substances. Fasting is a counter action trying to undo (with reasonable hopes of success) the dangerous intake, either self-induced or externally caused as a form of punishment, torture, control, intimidation.

Body cleansing by fasting in not-too-remote civilizations occurred prior to feats requiring bravery, heroism or extreme focus—such as battles, athletic endeavors, state decisions, sacred rites, divination. Fasting tempers the will, enhancing our capacity for endurance, postponing, resisting. We all know it, if unconsciously—our body/mind has its own wisdom. It takes the instinctual path of food avoidance when the situation requires it.

12. Deliver

Why, though, aren’t anorexics able to stop in proper time? Some are. There is spontaneous healing. Solving. Many anorexic experiences go unnoticed. Mostly, tragic ones are reported. I suspect they become tragic essentially because of bad handling.

On the other side, anorexics don’t stop in time when the causes of their behavior don’t change, either because they can’t change them (symptoms wouldn’t appear if action were possible) or because they haven’t consciously identified them. Awareness, of course, would be the thing worth acquiring, if respectful listening were offered in a non-belligerent setting.

Anorexics don’t timely stop also because weight loss is a spiraling process, quickly escaping control. Gaining weight back implies complex side effects, never taken in proper account by therapeutic approaches.

Anorexics don’t timely stop also because weight loss is a spiraling process, quickly escaping control. Gaining weight back implies complex side effects, never taken into proper account by therapeutic approaches.

If the causes for self-underfeeding aren’t removed, no coerced intake will succeed. On the contrary, authoritarian measures enforce schemas of captivity and fear, while denying basic freedom as well as self-ownership. Hence, attempted cures often result detrimental, hasting negative outcomes.

Could I, when I most needed it, have imagined helpful intervention? I could have. I could have used the cure some of the Golden Bridge’s jumpers hoped for. It sure would have helped if someone, when I was at my lowest, had put a hand on my shoulder and said my death would grieve them because my life counted. But it should have been true, not some piece of righteous bullshit. Dumb, yet not an idiot perhaps, I would have known.