When I was about a year into my eating disorder, about 13 or 14, I had one of the worst experiences of my life. I was in orchestra, took so much pride in it, first chair of the viola section, looked at my director as a role model. I hadn’t eaten lunch the entire year and he knew this. He had a habit of stopping class to tell random ass stories that nobody gave a shit about. He starts telling us about a woman he used to work with, her name, how old she was and so on.
And then he started describing her eating disorder.
She was bulimic, and every single day, she’d go into the bathroom and throw up whatever it was that she ate that day, She was so skinny, he said he tail bone was starting to pop out of her skin (I doubt any credibility behind that). he started talking about how he heard her once, in the bathroom, and how disgusting it was. He apparently confronted her about it soon after, and she stopped showing up to work.
Despite her not showing up to work anymore, he continued this horrible speech.
This wasn’t a self-love speech.
He started saying how disgusting and weird it was. Talking about “you girls care so much about your appearance, you’d actually do something this disgusting and weird?”
Me, having anxiety and panic attacks, i started crying in front of the entire class, and all I could hear was the class talking about what an ugly freak she must have been. How weird it was. How if they ever saw her, they’d force her to eat something. The director noticed how shaken up I was, but didn’t stop. I managed to ask him if we could please stop talking about this, quiet enough to where nobody else heard, and he said yes. We stopped, and continued on with class like it was nothing.
Every single day, I’d get a salad, with just tomatoes and lettuce, and I’d throw it away every day. My class started noticing and started saying stuff like “What are you, a fucking anorexic?” and of course it was followed by a “ Of course not, look at her”. and so on and so forth. I had two suicide attempts later that year, both by pills, both didn’t work, both nobody knew about.
Please stop mocking eating disorders. Please.
Please stand up and say something if you hear someone mocking eating disorders.