Art is about making a connection

Art is about making a connection

Sunday 31 December 2017

10 New Years Resolutions Not Related to Bodies

You’ll probably see some lists like this over the next few weeks. You’ll probably also see many, many posts, and memes, and commercials with New Years Resolutions about starting diets and exercise programs, about becoming “the new you”, about how to lose 30lbs in 2 weeks, about flat abs and tight butts, about cutting out sugar or gluten or whatever other current bad foods are on the list. 


As an Eating Disorder advocate, I have done a lot of research on diets. The yo-yo weight loss and gain, as people start diets and then give them up, is much less healthy than being over what is considered an average BMI, and much more discouraging than simply eating foods that provide you the nutrients you need to consume in order to live. A large percentage of diets fail because they are based on restriction. Restricting leads to deprivation. Then your body and brain reach a point where your caloric and nutrition intake isn’t enough for you and you eat more than you intended, or you eat foods you restricted. That leads to shame. 


Even without an Eating Disorder, I’m sure many of you have been on that restrict-deprive-“cheat on your diet”-shame- restrict cycle. 


Wanting to eat differently than you currently do, wanting to feel stronger in your body, wanting to move more, are all valid and healthy. Those changes might even make you feel great! Making a resolution that you are likely to fail at, however, only makes you feel shameful, disappointed, and like a naughty person. 


I believe that making a resolution to lose weight, to diet, to exercise more, or to change your body in any way, is harmful. It is harmful because you are beginning a new year with the idea that there is something wrong with you. 


There is nothing wrong with you. You are perfectly imperfect and you are loved. 


This year, I encourage you make a resolution that is about your life, and not about your body. 


Here are my top 10 ideas:


  1. Practice self-compassion 
  2. Explore a neighbourhood that’s new to you
  3. Make space for more face-to-face time instead of screen time 
  4. Carve out at least one hour a week that is entirely for you
  5. Commit to investing time into something that brings you joy 
  6. Find somewhere you can volunteer 
  7. Read one of the books that is in your “to read” pile 
  8. Commit to regularly seeing family members who give you love and support 
  9. Look at your budget and find one thing you can spend less on 
  10. Turn “sorry” into “thank you” (eg “thank you for waiting for me” instead of “sorry I’m late”)


I hope you are inspired to be kind to yourself as we enter 2018. 


Have a Wonderful New Year!

Be kind, 

To yourself too 

Monday 25 December 2017

Let it be

No matter how full you feel tonight, your body will digest it and you don’t gain a pile of weight overnight. 





Let the satisfaction of feeling satiated with friends and family be. Just be with it. I promise it will pass. 


Be kind 

To yourself too

...

Sunday 10 December 2017

Children don’t need diets


“Many girls as young as five are aware of dieting and weight-loss.”  





“Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness — it is estimated that 10 percent of individuals with anorexia nervosa will die within 10 years of the onset of the disorder.” - NEDIC      


                 *****************************


Let’s teach our young people to love their bodies. Let’s teach them that nourishing their bodies and moving their bodies comes from a place of love and worthiness. Let’s not teach them the power of shame and deprivation and scare them from not meeting the impossible societal goals that their set point weight isn’t meant to achieve. Let’s teach our children by example.





#EDAW2018 #educator #edadvocate #edawareness #edrecovery #bopo #childrendontneeddiets #onesizedoesntfitall 

Saturday 9 December 2017

Fat


Fat is a layer under the skin. 


Not a descriptor. 


Fat is something you have. 


Not something you are. 








#bopo #fat #fatshaming #torontoart #torontoartists #queerart #colouringpage #queersrttoronto #lgbtqart #lgbtqartist #edadvocate #edawareness #edrecovery 

Friday 8 December 2017

Monday 4 December 2017

Shame

This is why I do what I do. These are only 2 examples of the comments I receive on my artwork. People are entitled to their opinions, and can share them as I do. We don’t have to agree. But don’t state “facts” that have statistics showing that those facts are false!! Shaming people for their weight doesn’t make anyone healthy.



Sunday 3 December 2017

Guest Post: How I Hid my Eating Disorder

Today’s guest post is by Polly D. Welcome to Fox Tales, Polly. 


How my Eating Disorder Remained Hidden for Decades. 

By Polly D.


I recently watched the Netflix movie “To the Bone”. So many people had told me how great it was. They were people who don’t know that I am recovering from an Eating Disorder. I tried to approach the movie with an open mind. It turned out to be yet another narrative of an emaciated young woman. This is the narrative that has allowed me to hide for more than 20 years. 


Food has always been my enemy. There are very few things that I like. I was even more picky when I was a child. Watching my parents struggle with failed diet after failed diet, food became a thing of terror. I can tell you the Weight Watchers points of almost every food I’ve ever faced. Every bite of food brings me one step closer to the dreaded descriptive word “fat”.  Even bananas are terrifying. They have the most WW points of any fruit. 


I don’t want to eat. Eating means giving in. Eating means accepting that I need to take care of myself in order to stay alive. When I was growing up, no one talked about nutrients. The messages around food were simply that there was good food and there was bad food. I absorbed the message that eating bad food would make me a bad person. Eventually I came to believe that all food was bad. 


In Middle School, I would spend the day restricting my calories to the point of not eating at all. By the time I got home from school, I was so hungry that I no longer felt hungry. I would pick at my dinner and say that I didn’t like it, or that I wasn’t hungry. At fifteen I announced that I was a vegetarian. There were no ethical reasons. It was just another way to hide how disordered my eating was. It was so easy to say “I can’t eat that, I’m a vegetarian”. 


Everyone in high school seemed smaller than me. At 105 lbs and 5”5, I believed that I was the fat friend. I wore baggy clothes, lots of overalls, and gave away my lunch to a friend who was always grateful that I shared. 


In university, I discovered that I could cut out even MORE food by becoming vegan. This was the perfect way to hide in plain sight. At night, after a day of restricting, I would be so hungry that I would eat more than I needed to. I would secretly binge on whatever vegan-friendly crap I could get my hands on. Because of this, I never became emaciated. 


Until my 20’s, my weight never went over 120 lbs, and yet my family still treated me as though I was fat. My parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, would give me diet advice. They would give me books to read. Or quizzes to take on what kind of diet I needed to be on. No one ever questioned my food choices because I wasn’t super tiny. No one asked why I wasn’t eating. People assumed that I must have eaten before, or would eat after. Or that, obviously, I ate enough because I was the fat girl.  It didn’t seem to occur to anyone that I could be average size and have an Eating Disorder. 


As the years went on and my eating habits became more and more disordered, my body began to fulfill the prophecy of my childhood. At 30, I weighed 230 lbs and all the attention on me turned into how to get me to lose weight. Decades after my mental illness developed, my weight helped me to hide much more easily. No one would look at my body and think that I miss so many meals. No one would look at me and think that if I eat food I consider “bad”, that I sneak to the bathroom and throw it up. Dieting was always an acceptable response to the offer of food. Passing up offers of food was something I was praised for. What dedication. What willpower. 


Doctors, dentists, partners, family, friends. Not one person discovered my secret. Even now, at 43, I hide my eating disorder under my folds of fat. People look at me and see a fat woman. They see my smile. They don’t know how terrified I am to eat food. 


Having a psychiatric illness with the only cure being recovery through hard work, is exhausting. There’s no medication to take to balance brain chemistry. You can’t avoid food. Humans need to eat to live. Even though I know that, forcing myself to put nutrients into my body is incredibly hard. I don’t want those nutrients. I don’t deserve them. Most of the time I feel unworthy of recovery. I think that I should go on another fad diet. I could lose a bunch of weight and then stop eating. 


I am often convinced that my disordered eating patterns are simply me dieting. That isn’t me though. That is my Eating Disorder. That is shame whispering in my ear. That is me believing that I can numb myself to my difficult emotions, or that I can control my hunger by not giving in when my body says it needs nutrients. When I am dizzy, and my hands are shaking, and I’m light-headed and weak, I will momentarily listen to my body and feed it. But I don’t feed it the nutrients that it needs. I feed it the first thing I can find, regardless of what that is. 


Most of the time when I eat, it is because there are people in my life who would be sad if I died. 


My hope is that one day I will want to eat to feed myself; that I will believe that I deserve to nourish myself. Until then, I can only cling to the fact that you need food to live. 



I would like to express a heartfelt thank you Polly, for sharing your story. 


I look forward to more guest writers on my blog. 


Wednesday 29 November 2017

Isolation leads to a cycle of symptoms

Society says you’re worth nothing, so you isolate to stay safe. The isolation does the opposite for your recovery. It’s just you and that voice repeating those thoughts. Repeating messages you’ve picked up. Repeating things that were said to you. 





The voice is loud when you’ve isolated. 


The urges become stronger and symptoms are inevitable. 


We all need people. That’s what makes us human. 


Regardless of what is being said to you, what has been said to you, and the billions of dollars spent on the dieting industry ... you are enough, just as you are right now. 


And as you are reading this, shame is whispering in your ear that its true, just not about you. Shame is whispering that I’m talking about other people. 


Tell shame (and ED while you’re at it), that I am talking to YOU. You are worthy. You are deserving. You are loved. 


Just as you are in this moment. 


I am sending you love. xoxo ❤️  


Be kind. 

To yourself too 




...

Saturday 18 November 2017

Listening


Children hear you, not only your words, but your actions and your judgement. They are always watching. They are learning even when you are not trying to teach them. 





The thoughts that lead to some Eating Disorders begin with messages children receive and their inability to express emotions. 





Food can be soothing. Restricting food can also be soothing. 

Children need to learn how to express their emotions in healthy ways so that they grow up to be adults who can express their emotions in healthy ways.

Be kind. 
To yourself too. 




...

Friday 17 November 2017

Only you


Your body. Your business. 




No one else gets to decide. 

Be kind. 

To yourself too. 


...

Thursday 16 November 2017

“Have you lost weight?”


That moment when someone asks you, “have you lost weight?” and you don’t know what to say because partly it’s a compliment but it’s also a bit shaming because it suggests that the person thought you had weight to lose ... 




Your body. Your business. 

Be kind. 
To yourself too. 

...

Friday 10 November 2017

If War Was a School Yard


I have never felt comfortable with Remembrance Day. I’ve never wanted to wear a poppy. I’ve always felt awkward at 11:00 on 11/11. 


It’s because I have a particularly unpopular belief that we don’t need to be honouring soldiers; we need to be grieving them. Whether they lived or died, their lives, souls, hearts, and families were (are) changed forever. War is loss. Loss is grief. 


I strongly believe that since the beginning of humans, wars have been acts of cowardice. The patriarch/matriarch sends out their young men (children, in my opinion), to fight and die for them. Calling it honourable, or patriotic, or that they are fighting in the name of freedom, convincing people that dying for their leader, or for their country, is somehow different than being murdered. 




If Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un want to duke it out in a room all by themselves, then that’s their choice. Training young people to fight on their behalf and calling it an army, calling it War, is simply a legal way around calling it murder. 





My strong beliefs on this topic have never made me popular. And in fact make people angry and uncomfortable. Year after year, I am obligated to sit or stand through an assembly honouring the soldiers from WW 1&2, silently observing, remembering, and showing gratitude. That makes ME uncomfortable. 


So this year I decided that if I have to be part of it, then I have the right to express my thoughts on it. 





I want to use the analogy of a school yard to explain how I see war. Because here’s the thing, we are taught in Kindergarten to keep our hands to ourselves, to respect other people and their belongings, to respect personal space, to never retaliate, to listen, to share, and to apologize. Those are agreed upon, socially acceptable rules. 


But what if they weren’t? 





What if War was a school yard? 


Setting the scene ... children are running around laughing and squealing. Playing tag, playing various sports, swinging on swings, climbing on the climbers. There is a lot of excitement and joy. 


Out of nowhere, Joey throws a rock at Ahmed. It hits him in the head and he is momentarily dazed. Julie runs over to her teacher, yelling “Miss, Miss! Joey threw a rock at Ahmed and it hit him in the head!!” 


Meanwhile, Joey’s classmates have gathered around him and are encouraging him. Ahmed’s classmates have helped Ahmed up, checked his wound, and are standing protectively around him. 


The teachers arrive. 


Joey’s teacher instructs her class to stand together and wait. 


Ahmed’s teacher instructs his class to go find as many rocks as they can. 





The 2 teachers approach each other and in quiet tones, discuss the situation. Joey might have thrown the rock, but it was Ahmed’s rock in the first place. Moreover, Joey’s parents and Ahmed’s parents have been throwing rocks at each other for a number of years. In fact, Ahmed’s teacher is convinced that Joey snuck into her classroom to steal the rock and had planned to throw it. The teachers voices are still hushed so no one knows what they are saying. It’s private. It’s confidential. It’s a matter of school security. But the kids can see the frustration and anger growing. They can already tell that the teachers dislike each other. That’s been something kids have known for years. The ongoing hate between these 2 teachers has been well-known throughout the school for over a decade. 


Each teacher returns to their group of students. They don’t tell them what they talked about. Because that is confidential. 






Ahmed’s teacher tells the kids that Joey and his friends will never stop throwing rocks at them unless they fight back. 


Joey’s teacher tells the kids that it was Ahmed’s rock. That Ahmed’s ancestors had even had rocks they threw. And that the only way to stop all the rock throwing is to fight back. 


So the teachers send the kids off to gather as many rocks as they can. They send them out into the yard to throw rocks at each other. They tell them it’s okay because they have PERMISSION this time. That yes we have rules about not hurting people and not retaliating. We have laws and police and government and voting processes and consequences. But that because the teachers have given permission, this period of time doesn’t count. 


So the teachers walk as far away from the kids as they possibly can, without actually leaving the school yard. In fact, they have collected a couple of kids to come stand in front of them because the teachers don’t want to get hit by rocks. 


Then the field breaks into a frenzied blur of screams and wails and flying rocks and blood and children falling to the ground. 





The teachers talk to the children who are guarding them and they send them back and forth with messages, with bandaids, and with more rocks. Some of those kids don’t make it back without bruises and bleeding cuts, if they make it back at all. 


As the fighting continues and there are less and less children still standing (and rock throwing), the teachers talk to each other every once in awhile. Maybe they could come to some sort of agreement. 













When it looks like Ahmed’s classmates are pretty much worn out, or have been knocked out, Ahmed’s teacher tells Joey’s teacher that they give in. 











Joey’s class can have all the rocks. And can have the larger part of the field to play in, as well as all 4 basketball hoops. Joey’s teacher also gets the first cup of coffee in the morning, the better parking spot, first in line at the photocopier, and gets the ONLY comfortable chair the school has. 


So the teacher’s blow their whistles and go inside, while the children are left to help each other up, or call for ambulances, and go back to class. 


The teachers are cranky. Especially Ahmed’s teacher. Joey’s teacher feels a bit smug, to be honest. 


The children, on the other hand, are defeated and in pain. Both sides. Nobody won. There is blood everywhere. Broken bones. And a deep, deep hatred for the other class has developed. 


For the rest of the school year, there is tension and sadness among the students. Children have flash-backs. They live in fear. Ahmed’s class plays in the smaller part of the field that has the swing set. And Joey’s class plays in the larger part with the basketball court. They also have piles and piles of rocks. 


Those rocks are terrifying. 


They evoke memories of the pain. The anger. The hatred. 


And the children are never told about the parking spot, the coffee pot, the photocopier line, the comfortable chair, or anything else the teachers declared as confidential and a matter of school security. The children never really knew what they were fighting about. Or fighting for. They only know they were defending their classmates, their teacher, and their class’s way of life. 


3 generations later, nothing has changed. The school yard is divided the same. The rocks sit there as a reminder. The teachers have come and gone, but take over from the last teacher. Maybe changing their stance slightly. 







And one day, Suzie decides she wants a goddamn rock and is fed up with not having access to basketball. With generations of hurt and fear and anger leading the charge, she crosses the boundary line and takes a rock. Chanel sees her and tells on her. But Devon has already called out for his classmates who are gathering more rocks. 


The children only know what they have been taught. What they have been indoctrinated to believe. They listen to their teachers. The teachers are their leaders. The ones in authority. The ones with power. The teachers make the decisions and instruct the students on whether or not to throw rocks. 


Suzie throws the rock at Chanel. 


Unfortunately for Suzie, she wasn’t told to throw the rock. She didn’t have permission. So Suzie ends up in the principal’s office and gets kicked out of school. 


In the end, there is no resolution. 


War never has a resolution. 


People die. People are maimed. People suffer from PTSD. People lose their homes, their families. No one wins. 


The leaders who send their soldiers off to murder each other are not the ones who have to carry out those murders or the ones who have to live with the emotions and memories of war. 









My complicated feelings about Remembrance Day don’t mean I am dishonouring the people sent to fight on behalf of leaders who never learned to share the toys in the sandbox. It means that I am grieving the loss of the life they had. I am grieving for all the people not in the armies who were and are affected by war. I am grieving for the generational trauma and for the depth and breadth of hate, fear, sadness, anger, and loss. 


My choice to turn down a poppy pin is not a sign of disrespect. It is a sign of deep respect for all those affected by wars, in all places, in all times. My absence of a poppy is a sign of my deeply rooted belief in pacifism. 







May you have peace

May you be safe

May you have comfort 

May you love yourself as you are


Be kind, to yourself too


Meaningless and quantifiable

It is not about the “reality of the number on the scale” or the “reality of the image in the mirror”, it is about the significance we place on appearance, the significance we place on weight and the words used to describe it. 






It is the meaning we attach to those words. The number on the scale could be described as a “quantifiable fact”, but it is also meaningless without societal judgement attached to it.    



Your worth is not defined by the number on the scale. 


Be kind, to yourself too. 


      

Sunday 1 October 2017

Weight does not determine health


Content Warning: explicit Eating Disorder symptoms, the use of numbers and weight-related discussion. 

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Eating Disorders are not a diet. They are not a phase. They are not vanity. An Eating Disorder is a psychiatric illness. It has the highest mortality rate of any other mental illness. 

Did you know that the only thing you can tell about a person by looking at their size, is their size? 




Weight does not determine health. There are many health-risks that can be exacerbated when a body is under or over a certain weight. You don’t know what that certain weight is for each person. 

Due to media stereotypes and the false representation of Eating Disorders as an emaciated young white girl, hundreds of thousands of people do not seek treatment for their Eating Disorder. 

One of these women has an Eating Disorder. The rest do not. One of these women is severely malnourished. She goes days without eating, and then her body functions slow down in order to conserve energy. Her brain turns off all logic because if she does not eat, she will die. So food becomes a means of survival. Because she has an Eating Disorder, her fear of food makes her start slowly and then that part of her brain takes over. She eats all the food she can find in her house until she is over-full. The shame of having eaten more than “normal”* becomes overbearing and that mean inner critic voice in her head says terrible things. So she ends up purging, getting rid of everything she just put into herself. 

*Her “normal” amount of food might be 1/4 cup of cereal, and having 2 cups of cereal may be a “binge” in her mind. When you have an Eating Disorder, all sense of normality is warped. 




Now she is feeling shame that she ate, shame that she threw up. She thinks that she doesn’t deserve to nourish herself. She is not worthy of food because of her size. 


Her blood tests are constantly a concern. She is extremely malnourished and deficient in almost every vitamin and mineral the doctors are testing for. The doctor is confused about the results, and it doesn’t occur to them that it could be an Eating Disorder because of her size. 

One of these women is praised for her size. Another is shamed for hers. Neither will seek treatment because the one who is praised can’t be sick, otherwise why would she get so much positive attention about her body. Another one can’t be sick because that’s not what a malnourished person looks like. 

One of these women has become so sick that she is now purging everyday. She sneaks to the bathroom at work after her snack of yogurt and blueberries, and throws it up. She does the same thing after her salad at lunch time. She doesn’t bother eating dinner if no one is around to notice. 




Eating Disorders are a psychiatric illness in which there are no medications take to change your brain. Treatment requires physical, emotional, and mental intervention. Changing long-ingrained thought patterns and growing new neuropathways is just as important as stopping the cycle of symptoms. 

One of these women is really sick. One of these women is slowly killing herself. You can’t tell who has an Eating Disorder by looking at them. 


Everyone has a story that you don’t know. 



Your job is to refrain from judgement of other people’s bodies.  And of other people’s lives. Refrain from commenting on bodies. Whether it is praise or shame, you don’t know what affect you will have with your words - even when those words are well intentioned. 

One of these women has an Eating Disorder. And without help, she is going to die. 



If you or someone you know are struggling with an Eating Disorder, please seek support. Here are a few websites that can help you find what you need. 


*All images are property of Fox Tales Art
**All images are available for sale with profits going to www.sheenasplace.org 

Email foxtaleskira@gmail.com