Stretch Marks and Swollen Joints

by Erica Maul ‘21

Content warnings: eating disorders, body dysmorphia

I came home one weekend in October for a family wedding. After a day of studying for midterms while on two flights, I prepared for a late-night shower to ease my aching body to sleep. But when I took off my clothes, I broke down in tears looking at the foreign body in front of me in the full-length mirror. I don’t have a full-length mirror at Wellesley, and this was my first time seeing the stretch marks. I’ve had plenty in my life, and they tell the story of hips sprouting from my pre-teen body several years ago. But I’ve never had them here. Large, dark red stretch marks at the bottom of my stomach are a screaming reminder that my life will never be how it used to be.

There were a lot of screaming reminders that day. Like my knuckles swelling and burning with pain, locking up with every letter I typed as I struggled to write a study guide, or my legs aching with fatigue from a 3-minute bike ride. I don’t know this body I now live in. It was only a few short months ago that I could run up 40 flights of stairs, type a paper in one night, or fit into the clothes I own. But that version of me is gone now, since being diagnosed with my chronic illness.

Through this disease, my body has beaten itself in attempting to defeat a non-existent invader. This all happened when I felt most connected to my body, gratified and fulfilled by its capabilities. After half a lifetime of disordered eating and body dysmorphia, I was ready for treatment and to acknowledge the dark corner in my life. It’s hard to come to understand your own hunger and to feel at peace with your body when meds blow you up like a balloon and your own body is stopping you from doing what you love.

I have taken on the role of the crisis negotiator between my body and myself. I beg them to agree—following any restricted diet or eliminating food groups will trigger my eating disorder, but not doing so is contributing to my bloated stomach and tender joints. I should stop weighing myself and thinking of different sizes as “good” and “bad,” but if I dieted and dropped 20 pounds, I could eliminate some of my knee pain. Every day is a delicate walk on the fine line between caring for my physical illnesses and my mental illnesses. I don’t have any answers or miracle cures to this struggle, but this body will be an intrinsic part of me for the rest of my life, and I am going to fight for the two of us, through every amazing stretch mark, doctor’s appointment, and difficult meal. My body and I are in this together and, at the end of the day, we’re all that we’ve got.

from the October 2019 issue