Member-only story
Grief is a Trigger For My Eating Disorder
When grief triggers old trauma coping mechanisms
trigger warning I discuss eating disorders in this piece
I still remember the last time I starved myself. Well, consciously starved myself. I was in my early thirties, a few years out from cancer.
I had struggled to lose the chemo steroid weight I had gained during treatment.
Yes, cancer made me fat, not elegantly starved like the cancer girls in the movies. I gained almost thirty pounds during my treatment.
At a friend’s wedding, her sister said something unintentionally (I think) cruel about my appearance. She said she hadn’t recognized me in a photo she had seen after my cancer, but that I was starting to look like my “old self” again.
Part of the after-effects of my cancer was the trapped lymph fluid in my neck and face (I had lymphoma, a tumor in my chest that caused a thing called superior vena cava syndrome which caused a blockage of fluid as well as one to a major artery into my heart) on top of the steroid bloat/moon face.
I really did look nothing like I used to for a while. I never will look like I did pre-cancer. It is something I have learned to live with, but I fought it for a long time with attempts to control my weight (which…
