Space
Having an eating disorder has impacted my relationship to space in more ways than one.
I became anorexic because I felt I was taking too much space. I shrank my body because I wanted to disappear. The thing is, this entire endeavor is paradoxical. People who have anorexia, we shrink our bodies because we want to feel as little as possible. We fear that we are a burden to others, that we are a bother simply because of our sheer presence. But we also shrink ourselves for attention. Eating disorders are really just cries for help. And when they develop into more serious forms like anorexia, they become cries of desperation.
We say it’s because we want to fit into a thin ideal, society’s mold of the perfect body, but really it’s because we hate ourselves. We hate ourselves, and how we show up in the world, so we punish ourselves.
Can’t you see me??? Do you see me over here, alone, scared, weak??! So little??! Please, I need your help. I need you to see me. I need you to acknowledge me.
That’s what our subconscious is thinking as it guides our disordered behaviors. On the surface, eating disorders are about succumbing to societal pressures of living a “healthy well balanced” life, free of “junk” — added sugars, too much fat, processed foods — and excess, whose rhythm is set by your workout schedule.
Below the surface, eating disorders are about a fundamental disconnect between your body and your psyche. Something within you — yes within — has convinced you that you are not enough, that you are lesser than. It is telling you negative things that are not reflecting the way others perceive you. In response, you decide to change your body, hoping that that change will quiet the voice inside you that is making you miserable. The reality, of course, is that the eating disorder only makes that voice louder. It’s like you fully unlocked the demon that was only quietly lurking inside you.
What does this have to do with space? As I said to begin with. I developed an eating disorder out of fear of what my presence meant for the environment around me. I subconsciously ingrained in my head the idea that I was not worthy of being fully present. That I was not worthy of taking space and being me. Really, that I was not worthy of living.
“Space” is a very broad term. It means different things to different people. It can be physical, mental, emotional. It can be metaphorical or symbolic, imagined or real. Space pretty much defines our existence. We are beings that live in and through space. Dance simply amplifies this reality, design harnesses it to enhance our well being, and food reminds us how much we occupy it.
As a dancer, I have intuitive knowledge of how my body exists in space. As a student of design, I am learning how to arrange and outfit spaces. As someone with an eating disorder, I try to control my body so that it may take the least amount of space.
In the end, my life has revolved around learning how to navigate space.
I didn’t have the courage to end my life. Most people don’t. People who have addictions, who cut themselves, who have eating disorders develop those illnesses because of the paradox that I described above: they want to disappear, but they want attention.
I want to live. There are so many things I would like to do in my lifetime — dreams I want to realize, ambitions I want to work towards, goals I want to reach. But oftentimes life just feels like too much — I feel like too much, and thus I turn to my disorder in search of a guide. It tells me what to do in times of stress — which ends up being most of the time.
I am doing better, though. I am on a path to recovery. I am healing.
Weirdly, my recovery “journey” really started to pick up only during the pandemic when we were all forced to quarantine. Funny how that works. I began to allow myself to take up more space only when the space around me began to shrink. My environment was reduced to a single household — a room really — but somehow that unlocked something inside me that prompted me to expand my horizons. It didn’t happen overnight of course, but it happened. It literally took a pandemic for me to gain weight and recover. For real this time.
Maybe that’s why I chose interior design as a path of study for college. It was my subconscious’s twisted way of getting me to organize my interior self. Arranging it in a way that establishes balance, equilibrium, harmony — all the essential qualities of a well designed, and therefore life-supporting, space. Interior design became a metaphor for the personal growth project I needed to embark on to heal. Learning how to properly design an interior would, I suppose my subconscious thought, teach me also how to design my own space, my interior space. My self.
