A fireside storytelling for World Mental Health Day this Saturday, Oct.10 – with a message of thanks to those dedicated, hard-working parents of the world who put in the extra effort.

Looking back at Anorexia Nervosa, I figured that eventually, with maturity, it would go away. As I’ve discovered, there’s an “on” switch and a dimmer, but never an “off”.

There are two common types of Anorexia: Binge/Purge Type and Restrictive Type. I don’t know anything about Binge/Purge. But the individual suffering from Restrictive Anorexia is often perceived as highly self-disciplined. This person will restrict the quantity of food, calories and often high fat or high sugar foods (or if not, they might rake themselves over hot coals for eating said things).

An individual afflicted with this eating disorder has an intense fear of gaining weight and a distorted perception of weight as they associate their self-worth with thinness. Individuals dealing with anorexia place a significantly high value on controlling their weight, shape, and overall appearance, and go to extreme measures to maintain their thin appearance, which can greatly interfere with their lives.

At its worst, Restrictive Anorexia is a heartbreaking form of self-starvation. At best, a means of practicing a more extreme form of self-control to avoid complete mental self-obliteration.

It would be easy to confuse my ability to eat on a strict diet for a show like Vancouver Naturals for WNBF with Restrictive Anorexic behaviour.

Funny thing is… or probably, not so funny but I’m still here so I get the last laugh for now… I know the difference between anorexia, and eating for optimal sport conditioning.

Disciplined eating for sport conditioning, or “shredding” as it’s called in the sport of aesthetics, was quite easy for me. At first it was a slow boil calorie drop on a strict plan over a long period of time, with plenty of daily calories for my body type and needs to function at work.

I knew exactly what macros to eat and when, bringing meals into meetings if I had to. I refused to eat “anything but” the exact measured amounts as per my Coach, even avoiding heavy flavourful meals available at dinner parties, and stressing on the odd occasion if my tracking was off. I wanted my stage presence on show day to be a best-possible representation of the muscles beneath which I managed to grow during the bulking and building phase. 

I’ve gone through this show-prep process three times over the last two years and I rarely developed any memories of my youthful self-destructive headspace. At least not until… two weeks after that first bodybuilding show when the natural process of reverse-dieting filled out “the shred” and made me look normal again.

What’s so bad about “looking normal” you ask? I can’t answer that in a short read. What I can tell you is that I didn’t know I was anorexic when I was, as a kid. All I knew then was “the darkness”. The long walks home from middle school or swimming lessons with a cloud over my head. I’d had enough of being teased for being “chubby” by innocent kids and not-so-kind extended family, and I finally decided to do something about it.

The hope that if I was skinny like the other girls with Dad’s who still lived at home, maybe my Dad would come back to live with us – made me glow. Or at least he might commit to spend more time around me beyond every-other Sunday dinners at his house. Despite pushing myself to A-grade scholastic recognition, I believed I didn’t really matter to him and eventually rationalized that if I could disappear slowly I would be less of a nuisance to my mother, or maybe, just maybe, he would love me better.

That’s it in a nutshell. I’ve spent years on a well-expensed sofa (or ten) to crack that nut. Whoot! That sense of abandonment at nine developed into restrictive eating by 13, and anorexia was the only path I knew to achieve or attempt to receive – paternal attention. It was a cry for help.

As a tween/teen, without knowing what I had the power to do, I was training my neurons to believe that the immense hole I felt in my heart from parental loss was best-served by starvation. Best served by the distractingly (temporary) painful stomach grumbling from eating three to seven Premium Plus crackers per school day, for four months straight, until I lost 30 lbs.

Then, I pleaded with my mother in desperation, this woman who held down three part time jobs and still couldn’t afford a vehicle of her own after her marital/financial loss, to take me by bus across town to Weight Watcher’s so that I could get on a costly plan to make sure I lost another 20 lbs.

Based on the positive social response I was getting, I was convinced that more weight loss would make “everything” work out better.

I can still picture the almost sad look on the Weight Watcher lady’s face when she tried to help me understand that their program wasn’t for me. She shared drastic “Before and After” photos of mostly adult female clients. She explained the rate card with my broke mother, aghast with her ongoing guilt, bearing the brunt of this child’s mental health problems on her own.

Despite being told the program wasn’t for me, I left with clouds parting above my head seeing that maybe the lady was right! If we couldn’t afford the meal plan, I would go to the local fitness centre, pay the student rate and work my buns off!

That’s when I found high impact 1980’s aerobics. I dedicated four to five days a week after school to group classes, which consisted mostly of me and the same dedicated adult women. By 14, I looked the part of a very fit young lady, boys noticed me for the first time, and I could eat a bit more than crackers. But my father didn’t change.

I was hungry for the kind of love that no empty belly would cure. No withering down to what my father might comment on as “pretty” was going to make him a more committed parent beyond our occasional visits.

By university I transferred the need to be thin into a need to do well, until I gained weight after graduation and chastised my “fatness” as the source of all problems. In my mid-30’s I opted out of having a second child over an intense fear of “getting fat again” and was overwhelmed by what having a more relaxed postpartum abdominal area might do to my head. I had one beautiful soul of a child who needed me, sane. I refused to break myself all over again just to give her a sibling. I still needed ways to cope with an already challenged postpartum body from child one. 

And cope I did. During the most challenging, sleep deprived times as a parent and wife, whenever I wanted to run away from everything (because I knew what that looked like), I did not run away. I went running instead. And eventually, I went back to the gym.

I did everything I possibly could to stop myself from being just like my father. I saw the positive impact my husband was having on our little girl and I refused to be the reason she didn’t get what I never had.

On the contrary, I made sure that despite my mental blocks, she would be the reason I would get to witness once and for all what a healthy father/daughter bond looks like. I have been blessed every, single day since, from my decision to fight my demons that much harder. This is my Thanksgiving.

Nonetheless, the anorexic switch appears to be on a dimmer. Just two weeks ago, I was driving to the gym and when I drove over a speed bump I felt a little layer of subcutaneous fat jiggle over my chiseled abs. I was, until mid-August, getting show-ready for the next Vancouver Naturals until it was cancelled again due to COVID. But reverse-dieting means fat cell expansion and after that speed bump I heard a wee voice in my head whisper: “You’re getting fat. Watch it, or you won’t be loved.”

I listened. I heard her out. Then I told her she’s wrong. Though the switch that sends this message is one I can’t seem to control no matter how rationally I try, I do wish I could somehow release the subconscious thought that body mass has anything to do with love-ability. Lots of body types are loved. I will be loved no matter what body type. I am loved. I love myself.

Friends, the damage a truly absent parent causes is irreparable. We owe it to our own children to be present, be involved with them, and keep talking to them. The world is challenging enough to navigate. Don’t make them do it alone. Feed your children with attention and their lives will always be full.

By Penny Greening