Hi Julia, I have been troubled with disordered eating almost my entire life. I've been anorexic, and I've been very overweight. I'm am currently very overweight. I refuse to refer to myself as morbidly obese because it's a charged, shaming label created by the insurance industry and by the fatphobic medical community. And eating disorder is definitely not something someone can just stop with willpower. It runs so much deeper. There are lots of avenues to healing, and for me, what's been very effective is a 12 Step program that addresses eating disorders with kindness and compassion and emphasizes attaining balance, eating healthfully, and discourages restriction of any kind. There are no good foods and bad foods. We do not call ourselves food addicts as another program does. We are encouraged to stop weighing and measuring––our food and our bodies. It's been super successful for me, and combined with working in therapy and with a nutritionist trained in working with people with eating disorders I'm on my way to being free of behaviors. It's not a straight line to recovery, for sure, but every day it gets better. One of the takeaways for me that's been most powerful is that it isn't about gaining (unless one is severely anorexic and dying because of it) or losing. It's about accepting oneself as one is, and taking the best care of ourselves as we can. I have a newsletter on Substack called The Next Write Thing. Many of my essays are about my recovery process. I hope you'll give it a look! Thank you for writing this piece. It's so important to have this conversation.
Well said, Nan. I understand your resistance to the term morbidly obese; I use it here advisedly to differentiate between people who are by genetics going to be big, and it's how they are made, and people who are in the 400lb+ range and it's having very serious impacts on their health in all areas. I was 85 lbs overweight, big but it's not the same. I have a different response to the term, but completely understand your take. The way I hear it, it's when people's weight is so profoundly dangerous that it threatens their lives. That said, like all terms it gets bastardized. As I went through similar iterations I heard all the ugly terms, too. It's remarkable how much body hate there is out there, and most of it is self-directed but expressed towards others.
I hear what you’re saying. And I understand the context within which you’re saying it. The term is overused and shaming. And yes, the weight can be very dangerous. I’m glad you wrote this essay. Very important. Thank you!
It’s one of the worst of all topics, Nan, because if we write about it from any angle there is going to be someone who is triggered no matter our best intentions. That saddens me particularly as someone who has lived this. Thank you back.
The BMI scale is utter rubbish. If you put an athlete or someone with high muscle mass on that scale they’ll probably show as morbidly obese. It’s an arbitrary scale that simplifies what is a much more complex human thing. I would also dislike strongly the ‘morbidly’, I searched the definition to check if I had it right. I didn’t, I thought it was in relation to death but it’s in relation to disease. Although thankfully searching BMI it seems it’s in much less use (in what came up in my search). Looking forward to reading some of your stuff, I really enjoyed your comment.
It’s used everywhere! It’s used in infertility, even though it wasn’t used against me it infuriated me it was even monitored. We knew why I was infertile and it’s nothing to do with my weight. Great conversation you’ve opened up! Feeling my passions rising.
Thank you for addressing the important topic. I e struggled with food issues since I was 14. I am sad how I abused my body - alternating between over eating and then starving myself. For years I kept it a secret - out of shame- now I can talk about it and in doing so hope to help others come out of the shadows.
Maureen, the only thing that really heals is light: light shone on the problem, the lies, our abusive society, all of it. With light may come grace. All I know is that being nearly skeletal didn't do anything for me but make me very, very ill. Discussion really does help. We can heal this thing.
I have found that as l get older, l eat less. I have increasingly gone off meat though l do eat it when my body tells me it wants it. I am aware l can be an emotional eater like so many of us, so l keep the treats like potato chips as that - a treat. I think the best weight for people is whatever they feel comfortable with, whatever enables them to do (activity wise) what makes them feel good. Like you, l am active so l work on building my core strength and flexibility so l can keep active. I am far more mindful about what l eat these days, now l better understand about giving our bodies the best fuel we can. 🙏
Very wise, Simone. As we age I focus far more on the inside than I do on the outside. Taking care of myself from the inside out makes a lot more sense these days!
This was so interesting to read. I go through phases of meat and being repulsed by meat, I argue it was my predominant veggie upbringing. I love that you let your body lead the way. I very much struggle with emotional eating and using it for stimulation in my adhd. But I forgive myself and try and make swaps that are even a little bit better for me 💚
This is SO important a topic, especially for women, perhaps even more especially for women like us who came of age in the era of Twiggy (famously 5'8" and under 100 lbs) and Jean Shrimpton — who I really believed I was supposed to look like if I hoped to be any good at all. I never had a full-blown eating disorder but I came damn close, and it makes me sad to think of all the energy I wasted obsessing over the diameter of my thighs. As you point out, Julia, it becomes a deeply ingrained self-perception and is neither quick nor easy to dislodge.
Thanks Jan. I”m so glad it never got you. An old BF of mine wanted me to be Cher- that was the BF who verbally beat me enough so that I developed anorexia. Oy.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that, and I truly get it: I had more than one BF who felt completely justified, even obligated, to critique my body and monitor what I ate. It amazes me now that I didn't tell them to go eff off into the sun. It's not our fault; the culture was working against us (including those guys).
Thank you. This rings so true! I’ve known several older women who this has happened to. In all those cases, one thing at play was that eating (or not) was one of the only things they had autonomy over in their lives. It was/is really sad. I wonder how often eating disorders, especially in older populations, are dramatically precipitated by event outside of their immediate control and it feels like all they have left. Heartbreaking. 💔
Liz you could legitimately argue that for many of us, food is the one thing we CAN control, that gives us pleasure. That is its unique role in how complex disordered eating is.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I grew up in diet culture and ate a restrictive diet for many years. The cycle is generations old and I’m happy to say that I stopped dieting in my late 40’s. I feel joyful about food and at peace with my body. Not easy but so worth it.
Such an important topic. Thin is overrated. And yet, the idea of thin being what women need to be in order to be attractive and happy continues. Being thin isn't the answer to anyone's problems. One of my memories of childhood is about how bad I felt being the chubby one of my siblings. They actually had a chubby section in stories, and it was humiliating to be sent there when my grandma, mother, my sisters and I went shopping for school clothes every summer, especially when my two sisters were not. It still stings. Shaming shouldn't happen, no matter what a person weighs. Good health and fitness should always be the goal, not a number on the scale. Thank you for this excellent piece.
thank you so much. I recall my father's wrath when my hips expanded. As if I could control it- he took it as a moral failure of his, that my body would expand like his sisters' had.
That graphic brought me back to a day in my life not too long ago. A family tragedy and entering perimenopause put me on a trajectory to developing a disordered eating pattern and unhealthy relationship with food and my body. It took my body crashing for me to take action, and at that point, I had no choice. I've been working with @JanePilger to get the message out that reaching midlife is a common time for everything to either come to a head or even to develop tendencies when they were never a part of your life before.
Thanks for writing about this article! Sharing the story and including a photo - it makes it real and possible.
So much truth in this, Shelby. Midlife is a turning point in so many ways, and not everyone walks through the available doors. Sometimes it's too hard or too much, and reverting to or developing a new negative behavior can sometimes feel like an escape.
I don’t think we can discuss eating disorders without reference to the patriarchy and all it’s requirements and standards for women. In addition we have to examine capitalism and it’s need to sell product to women and the ways it creates images to do so. I stopped buying womens magazines almost 30 years ago and I curate my social media ruthlessly. Of course I can’t extract myself from the societal influences but if we have open discussions on what these things are doing to girls and women of all ages we can begin to push back. I accept that these are broader discussions than your personal story and so I wish you health and wellness on your own journey.
Sky, from Medium to my blog to here I've written extensively about this very thing. The problem is that it's so vast that to take this on in every article is to overwhelm. Sometimes the point of an article is just that point. I've long recommended books, writers and materials to better understand the greater context in which all of us operate, and the fact that men suffer from the patriarchal rules as well. Everyone does. Dismantling it one brick at time is both individual as well as social; we as a society have been screaming backwards while we decry what happens in India with its rape culture. We're no different; we just like to shake our shaky moral values at other countries while trying hard to hide what's going on here. I agree completely. I just can't do that with every single article, to your point.
That’s good to hear. I’ve only just come across you on Substack so I’ll be interested to see what else you’ve written on this - it is a particular interest of mine being non-binary, neurodivergent and a health professional myself. Again, I wish you well on your journey.
Julia, The stories you shared pained my heart. I didn't know that eating disorders affected older women, too. I want to be a little thinner (but not too thin), but you've put that desire into an intelligent context for me.
Sandra, it's a common misperception that eating disorders affect the young, and mostly white women. Not only is that patently untrue, but those women age and many of us don't beat them. Men have them, and all colors have them, all cultures have them. They are an equal-opportunity killer. Thanks for your kind words. People can stop drinking (with hard work) but we have to eat. So it's a very different story with food disorders.
This is such an important and essential read for anyone who has even remotely tried to control their body image and achieve thinness at all costs. I've had mild cases of disordered eating in my youth and obsessed about staying thin in order to look good in ballet. Of course, the male gaze was also in the back of my mind. There was also this element of moral superiority that you mentioned. When I was a health coach, midlife women came to me in search of solutions for weight loss. Although I had a holistic and balanced eating plan tailored for each, I realize now that some of them came for reasons that should have been examined more closely. There was a woman who had very low self esteem and wanted to lose weight to be more attractive to her husband. I'm not trained to work on emotional and disordered eating so I could only guide her toward eating whole foods suitable for her body type. However, in hindsight sight, I think she was deeply unhappy and lonely in her marriage. Much was unsaid. Her husband traveled a lot for work. From my current perspective after having heard the stories of hundreds of chumps, I suspect there might have been cheating in the background. Issues like thus affect more women than we ever talk about. And sadly, women default to the pick-me dance, which I did too. And one way to get the partner to pick you is to lose weight and be more "attractive." Alas! Cheaters don't always go for the more attractive, not even if you're a VS model. They go for much younger and impressionable women who are more easily manipulated, so they with their low self esteem can feel like king of the mountain again. I know it sounds like I've gone off tangent but I think it's all related. Which is why I encourage women to stop and look inward and at their relationships as well, for what drives them to want to lose weight.
This is criminally true across all spectra of society and for all women, in virtually all societies. I have no answer for it. It is so universal and so awful. It's a miracle we do what we have done in the face of how we are shamed for our female-ness.
Well said, Julia! While we don't have an answer, we can hold one another's hearts with warm regard, knowing that we women share the same burdens and traumas through the ages, and that our unity and wisdom will be the strength that hopefully will lead to some answers in the future (if men don't destroy our planet first).
Women continue to be defined by outer appearance instead of substance. And it's insidious the way we buy into it. I grew up taking dance lessons and the instructor constantly hammered home how important thin was, so by the age of twelve, I knew to order a hamburger without a bun, salad with no dressing. Later I discovered amphetamines which would completely kill my appetite. (I'm lucky they didn't kill me!)
Like you, I'm very active, and now I eat healthy meals on a regular basis -- but always in the back of mind lurks the messages from childhood that exalted thin over everything else.
You raise an important shadow, Julia, one that we'd do well to face, not just because of our own health, but also in how we model for younger women that health is a balance, not a weight destination. Thanks for an informative and compassionate post. You've given me a lot to think about. ~S
So important. I am 'lucky' I stay at same weight and never had issues around eating. I thank my amazing body for being strong. I work out for strength and flexibility. I want to feel energetic enough to live well.
I might not recognise me in the mirror or reflections I glimpse as I go about my day. However I love my grey hair and my wrinkles, I earn all of that and I am alive.
I really hope this stupid thin models stuff finally ends. I feel like we have spoken about this for generations. So sad we worship still at the altar of thin, when people still starve across the world.
The first generation to elevate skinny to a standard was that of the Roaring Twenties, just as the Depression was taking hold. Before that, a lush, plush body was very much in, TP. In no time, right about the time we discovered PR and advertising the world had a new way to body shame.
Julia, I resonate with all of this at 17 I left home with diet pills from a quack—slipping away. I called my mom and said "Help me I’m dying." She was disappointed in my 'weakness' I was to be the strong one. I was able to get help later. I appreciate your body of exquisite vulnerability and powerful stories.
Honestly, we all have such stories, and it is heartbreaking, Prajna. The “strong one…” is a prison. I’ve lived in that one all my life. We aren’t allowed emotions.
Hi Julia, I have been troubled with disordered eating almost my entire life. I've been anorexic, and I've been very overweight. I'm am currently very overweight. I refuse to refer to myself as morbidly obese because it's a charged, shaming label created by the insurance industry and by the fatphobic medical community. And eating disorder is definitely not something someone can just stop with willpower. It runs so much deeper. There are lots of avenues to healing, and for me, what's been very effective is a 12 Step program that addresses eating disorders with kindness and compassion and emphasizes attaining balance, eating healthfully, and discourages restriction of any kind. There are no good foods and bad foods. We do not call ourselves food addicts as another program does. We are encouraged to stop weighing and measuring––our food and our bodies. It's been super successful for me, and combined with working in therapy and with a nutritionist trained in working with people with eating disorders I'm on my way to being free of behaviors. It's not a straight line to recovery, for sure, but every day it gets better. One of the takeaways for me that's been most powerful is that it isn't about gaining (unless one is severely anorexic and dying because of it) or losing. It's about accepting oneself as one is, and taking the best care of ourselves as we can. I have a newsletter on Substack called The Next Write Thing. Many of my essays are about my recovery process. I hope you'll give it a look! Thank you for writing this piece. It's so important to have this conversation.
Well said, Nan. I understand your resistance to the term morbidly obese; I use it here advisedly to differentiate between people who are by genetics going to be big, and it's how they are made, and people who are in the 400lb+ range and it's having very serious impacts on their health in all areas. I was 85 lbs overweight, big but it's not the same. I have a different response to the term, but completely understand your take. The way I hear it, it's when people's weight is so profoundly dangerous that it threatens their lives. That said, like all terms it gets bastardized. As I went through similar iterations I heard all the ugly terms, too. It's remarkable how much body hate there is out there, and most of it is self-directed but expressed towards others.
I hear what you’re saying. And I understand the context within which you’re saying it. The term is overused and shaming. And yes, the weight can be very dangerous. I’m glad you wrote this essay. Very important. Thank you!
It’s one of the worst of all topics, Nan, because if we write about it from any angle there is going to be someone who is triggered no matter our best intentions. That saddens me particularly as someone who has lived this. Thank you back.
Absolutely, it's so true. xo
The BMI scale is utter rubbish. If you put an athlete or someone with high muscle mass on that scale they’ll probably show as morbidly obese. It’s an arbitrary scale that simplifies what is a much more complex human thing. I would also dislike strongly the ‘morbidly’, I searched the definition to check if I had it right. I didn’t, I thought it was in relation to death but it’s in relation to disease. Although thankfully searching BMI it seems it’s in much less use (in what came up in my search). Looking forward to reading some of your stuff, I really enjoyed your comment.
BMI has long been debunked but insurance companies love it because they can use it to raise rates even on uber healthy people. Parasites.
It’s used everywhere! It’s used in infertility, even though it wasn’t used against me it infuriated me it was even monitored. We knew why I was infertile and it’s nothing to do with my weight. Great conversation you’ve opened up! Feeling my passions rising.
Thank you for addressing the important topic. I e struggled with food issues since I was 14. I am sad how I abused my body - alternating between over eating and then starving myself. For years I kept it a secret - out of shame- now I can talk about it and in doing so hope to help others come out of the shadows.
Maureen, the only thing that really heals is light: light shone on the problem, the lies, our abusive society, all of it. With light may come grace. All I know is that being nearly skeletal didn't do anything for me but make me very, very ill. Discussion really does help. We can heal this thing.
I have found that as l get older, l eat less. I have increasingly gone off meat though l do eat it when my body tells me it wants it. I am aware l can be an emotional eater like so many of us, so l keep the treats like potato chips as that - a treat. I think the best weight for people is whatever they feel comfortable with, whatever enables them to do (activity wise) what makes them feel good. Like you, l am active so l work on building my core strength and flexibility so l can keep active. I am far more mindful about what l eat these days, now l better understand about giving our bodies the best fuel we can. 🙏
Very wise, Simone. As we age I focus far more on the inside than I do on the outside. Taking care of myself from the inside out makes a lot more sense these days!
This was so interesting to read. I go through phases of meat and being repulsed by meat, I argue it was my predominant veggie upbringing. I love that you let your body lead the way. I very much struggle with emotional eating and using it for stimulation in my adhd. But I forgive myself and try and make swaps that are even a little bit better for me 💚
That’s really all we can do, Sheila, it’s a lifelong dance.
It is indeed a life long dance 💃🏽 I like that as an expression!
Excellent article for all of us at any age.
Thanks so much.
This is SO important a topic, especially for women, perhaps even more especially for women like us who came of age in the era of Twiggy (famously 5'8" and under 100 lbs) and Jean Shrimpton — who I really believed I was supposed to look like if I hoped to be any good at all. I never had a full-blown eating disorder but I came damn close, and it makes me sad to think of all the energy I wasted obsessing over the diameter of my thighs. As you point out, Julia, it becomes a deeply ingrained self-perception and is neither quick nor easy to dislodge.
Thanks Jan. I”m so glad it never got you. An old BF of mine wanted me to be Cher- that was the BF who verbally beat me enough so that I developed anorexia. Oy.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that, and I truly get it: I had more than one BF who felt completely justified, even obligated, to critique my body and monitor what I ate. It amazes me now that I didn't tell them to go eff off into the sun. It's not our fault; the culture was working against us (including those guys).
Thank you. This rings so true! I’ve known several older women who this has happened to. In all those cases, one thing at play was that eating (or not) was one of the only things they had autonomy over in their lives. It was/is really sad. I wonder how often eating disorders, especially in older populations, are dramatically precipitated by event outside of their immediate control and it feels like all they have left. Heartbreaking. 💔
Liz you could legitimately argue that for many of us, food is the one thing we CAN control, that gives us pleasure. That is its unique role in how complex disordered eating is.
Terrific article. And here's another great resource on this topic:
Deb Benfield's "Aging with Grace and Body Liberation"
https://www.debrabenfield.com
Deb is all about the intersection between internalized weightism and internalized ageism, and how to get past them both.
I just reached out to her. Thanks
Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I grew up in diet culture and ate a restrictive diet for many years. The cycle is generations old and I’m happy to say that I stopped dieting in my late 40’s. I feel joyful about food and at peace with my body. Not easy but so worth it.
I so related. While various issues with my organs keep me from enjoying a great many things, I can eat, for which I am beyond grateful.
Hi Julie,
Such an important topic. Thin is overrated. And yet, the idea of thin being what women need to be in order to be attractive and happy continues. Being thin isn't the answer to anyone's problems. One of my memories of childhood is about how bad I felt being the chubby one of my siblings. They actually had a chubby section in stories, and it was humiliating to be sent there when my grandma, mother, my sisters and I went shopping for school clothes every summer, especially when my two sisters were not. It still stings. Shaming shouldn't happen, no matter what a person weighs. Good health and fitness should always be the goal, not a number on the scale. Thank you for this excellent piece.
thank you so much. I recall my father's wrath when my hips expanded. As if I could control it- he took it as a moral failure of his, that my body would expand like his sisters' had.
That graphic brought me back to a day in my life not too long ago. A family tragedy and entering perimenopause put me on a trajectory to developing a disordered eating pattern and unhealthy relationship with food and my body. It took my body crashing for me to take action, and at that point, I had no choice. I've been working with @JanePilger to get the message out that reaching midlife is a common time for everything to either come to a head or even to develop tendencies when they were never a part of your life before.
Thanks for writing about this article! Sharing the story and including a photo - it makes it real and possible.
So much truth in this, Shelby. Midlife is a turning point in so many ways, and not everyone walks through the available doors. Sometimes it's too hard or too much, and reverting to or developing a new negative behavior can sometimes feel like an escape.
I don’t think we can discuss eating disorders without reference to the patriarchy and all it’s requirements and standards for women. In addition we have to examine capitalism and it’s need to sell product to women and the ways it creates images to do so. I stopped buying womens magazines almost 30 years ago and I curate my social media ruthlessly. Of course I can’t extract myself from the societal influences but if we have open discussions on what these things are doing to girls and women of all ages we can begin to push back. I accept that these are broader discussions than your personal story and so I wish you health and wellness on your own journey.
Sky, from Medium to my blog to here I've written extensively about this very thing. The problem is that it's so vast that to take this on in every article is to overwhelm. Sometimes the point of an article is just that point. I've long recommended books, writers and materials to better understand the greater context in which all of us operate, and the fact that men suffer from the patriarchal rules as well. Everyone does. Dismantling it one brick at time is both individual as well as social; we as a society have been screaming backwards while we decry what happens in India with its rape culture. We're no different; we just like to shake our shaky moral values at other countries while trying hard to hide what's going on here. I agree completely. I just can't do that with every single article, to your point.
That’s good to hear. I’ve only just come across you on Substack so I’ll be interested to see what else you’ve written on this - it is a particular interest of mine being non-binary, neurodivergent and a health professional myself. Again, I wish you well on your journey.
Julia, The stories you shared pained my heart. I didn't know that eating disorders affected older women, too. I want to be a little thinner (but not too thin), but you've put that desire into an intelligent context for me.
Sandra, it's a common misperception that eating disorders affect the young, and mostly white women. Not only is that patently untrue, but those women age and many of us don't beat them. Men have them, and all colors have them, all cultures have them. They are an equal-opportunity killer. Thanks for your kind words. People can stop drinking (with hard work) but we have to eat. So it's a very different story with food disorders.
This is such an important and essential read for anyone who has even remotely tried to control their body image and achieve thinness at all costs. I've had mild cases of disordered eating in my youth and obsessed about staying thin in order to look good in ballet. Of course, the male gaze was also in the back of my mind. There was also this element of moral superiority that you mentioned. When I was a health coach, midlife women came to me in search of solutions for weight loss. Although I had a holistic and balanced eating plan tailored for each, I realize now that some of them came for reasons that should have been examined more closely. There was a woman who had very low self esteem and wanted to lose weight to be more attractive to her husband. I'm not trained to work on emotional and disordered eating so I could only guide her toward eating whole foods suitable for her body type. However, in hindsight sight, I think she was deeply unhappy and lonely in her marriage. Much was unsaid. Her husband traveled a lot for work. From my current perspective after having heard the stories of hundreds of chumps, I suspect there might have been cheating in the background. Issues like thus affect more women than we ever talk about. And sadly, women default to the pick-me dance, which I did too. And one way to get the partner to pick you is to lose weight and be more "attractive." Alas! Cheaters don't always go for the more attractive, not even if you're a VS model. They go for much younger and impressionable women who are more easily manipulated, so they with their low self esteem can feel like king of the mountain again. I know it sounds like I've gone off tangent but I think it's all related. Which is why I encourage women to stop and look inward and at their relationships as well, for what drives them to want to lose weight.
This is criminally true across all spectra of society and for all women, in virtually all societies. I have no answer for it. It is so universal and so awful. It's a miracle we do what we have done in the face of how we are shamed for our female-ness.
Well said, Julia! While we don't have an answer, we can hold one another's hearts with warm regard, knowing that we women share the same burdens and traumas through the ages, and that our unity and wisdom will be the strength that hopefully will lead to some answers in the future (if men don't destroy our planet first).
Women continue to be defined by outer appearance instead of substance. And it's insidious the way we buy into it. I grew up taking dance lessons and the instructor constantly hammered home how important thin was, so by the age of twelve, I knew to order a hamburger without a bun, salad with no dressing. Later I discovered amphetamines which would completely kill my appetite. (I'm lucky they didn't kill me!)
Like you, I'm very active, and now I eat healthy meals on a regular basis -- but always in the back of mind lurks the messages from childhood that exalted thin over everything else.
You raise an important shadow, Julia, one that we'd do well to face, not just because of our own health, but also in how we model for younger women that health is a balance, not a weight destination. Thanks for an informative and compassionate post. You've given me a lot to think about. ~S
So important. I am 'lucky' I stay at same weight and never had issues around eating. I thank my amazing body for being strong. I work out for strength and flexibility. I want to feel energetic enough to live well.
I might not recognise me in the mirror or reflections I glimpse as I go about my day. However I love my grey hair and my wrinkles, I earn all of that and I am alive.
I really hope this stupid thin models stuff finally ends. I feel like we have spoken about this for generations. So sad we worship still at the altar of thin, when people still starve across the world.
The first generation to elevate skinny to a standard was that of the Roaring Twenties, just as the Depression was taking hold. Before that, a lush, plush body was very much in, TP. In no time, right about the time we discovered PR and advertising the world had a new way to body shame.
Julia, I resonate with all of this at 17 I left home with diet pills from a quack—slipping away. I called my mom and said "Help me I’m dying." She was disappointed in my 'weakness' I was to be the strong one. I was able to get help later. I appreciate your body of exquisite vulnerability and powerful stories.
Honestly, we all have such stories, and it is heartbreaking, Prajna. The “strong one…” is a prison. I’ve lived in that one all my life. We aren’t allowed emotions.
I hear you. Thank you for your kind words. I am no longer caged in. I got out. And want this for everyone.
Hugs