Guest Speaker

Monday’s class was great, the topic discussed was heavy and I thought it was admirable for Jill to share her story/testimony with the class. Although I don’t have an eating disorder I could relate to many things she talked about throughout the time she was here. One specific thing that stuck was when she talked about her boyfriend and how she thought he broke up with her because she was fat. I know for myself have judged myself on different occasions and thought that people thought I was to fat and that’s why I didn’t succeed, or wasn’t chose. I can even remember think to myself “after I loose weight, they would pay attention to me”. I can understand how those thoughts can ruminate your mind and have a psychological affect on you. One of the questions posed in the paper wrote by Jill was ‘why women starve themselves, binge and purge, or eat compulsively’ and it explained that it point towards women’s self-inflicted scrutiny of their bodies and their desire to attain thinner physiques and after hearing Jill speak it was more clear and understandable where this self-inflicted scrutiny comes from (boyfriends, friends, family). Another thing that can contribute to self-inflicted scrutiny is pressure from outside sources (i.e. media). In Jill situation I think the fact that she was a competitive dancer put another pressure on her to stay thin. Throughout her paper many forms of treatment were discussed and suggested one that was interesting to me was that developing self-love is essential for this process of treating eating disorders and I personally agree with this. In many treatment processes the main goal is to achieve and maintain normal body weight, which is good, and also to educate the person suffering from the disorder which is also great. The weight of the women can decrease and simply educating women won’t solve the problem but if the person develops a sense of self love this can impact the self-inflicted scrutiny that many women with eating disorders inflict on themselves. Another thing in the paper talked about in the treatment process was the ‘spirit’ connection which I also agree with but could be easily disputable among those who don’t necessarily believe in that.
This quote taken form Jill’s paper explains how she was comfortable with sharing her story with us and also another form of her treatment.
If women are encouraged to express their experiences of pain, these shared experiences will, as Anzaldúa writes, “articulate unnamed, unvoiced, and repressed experiences and realities” (562). Bringing these realities to the surface allows women to live without having to hide from the parts of themselves that hurt. This process also allows women to connect with each other without hiding their pain.
The experience Jill went through was traumatic and often times we talk about how some women/people have prior traumatic events happen to them that lead to their addiction or disorder. I don’t necessarily remember her mentioning a traumatic event that lead to her disorder besides the issue of her being dumped by her boyfriend but I’m happy to se that she has overcome her disorder and is able to live a normal life and openly share her experience with people.