Been told I’ve become fat…

I come to Indonesia, I’m reunited with my relatives whom I haven’t seen for two years, and I get told I’m now fat. Okay, so maybe not quite that way. But that’s my interpretation of it.

“You’re not so skinny anymore, that’s good huh?” my uncle remarks to me. I give a humourless laugh in response.

The next day, my grandma comments to my aunt in Hakka, a Chinese dialect, “She’s grown fatter.” “Do you know what she said?” my aunt asks me in Mandarin. I confirm in the affirmative. A minute later, I’m being offered food, deep fried food, and is it any wonder I decline? “She’s not going to eat, now that you’ve said she’s gained weight!’ my aunt chided, speaking Hakka to my grandma. “When we (her and her husband) saw her at the airport, we noticed she had gained weight too, but we didn’t tell her so!” Gosh, well thanks for telling me now, though indirectly and in a language you think I cannot understand.

I don’t have the symptoms of an eating disorder anymore, except for the occasional binge and purge. For the most part I’m glad to be rid of it. The obsessive weighing. The lying and sneaking around. The absoulte disgust at one’s self. The hunger. The physical effects on your body. But comments like these, I almost find myself wanting to go back to those days where I was underweight and if comments were made it was on how skinny I was- not how fat.

Logic tells me I’m not fat, a BMI of 18 is still on the lower and of the ‘healthy BMI’ scale. Everything else is telling me otherwise.

I also received a call today. A social worker from the Self Harm And Crisis Counselling Service. Finally. It’s only been… over a month since I was discharged from the psych ward. The result of that phone call is, I have an appointment with their counselling service on 8th of Febrauary. Let’s see how this turns out then…