The Teddy Bear Experiment, (a view into my mental health)
TRIGGER WARNING: METNAL HEALTH, BODY IMAGE, EATING DISORDERS
I want you to imagine a toy. Take this toy and make it as tailored to you as possible. This teddy bear, this toy? Is not yours. Oh, you want it and you know it's perfect for you, but you can't just have it like everyone else.
No, you have to quietly watch on for years as you see people with this toy, constantly complaining about it, but every "flaw" they see makes it perfect for you. One eye kind of crooked, the fur not the right color for the person holding it, Name it, and it makes you yearn for it more. Rather, society celebrates when someone destroys the toy. You don't understand why, because the toy looks fun for you.
Finally, one day, you come up with a plan and try to start making the toy your own, after seeing one person FINALLY be of neutral opinion on their toy. They don't hate it, but they acknowledge it's there. And that muse is enough for you to try and make your toy real.
Years you toil on it, every thread you sew through the fabric, every time you see it coming together, you know it's a labor of love. All the while, people don't see how happy you are, how much you struggle and are constantly embattled making this toy a reality. Until finally your toy is done, nearly perfect, as you always imagined. You hold it proudly, you are elated over the toy's completion!
No one seems to be there to celebrate with you. They quietly see you carrying the bear around, not knowing you worked so hard to make it. Many with a quiet scorn in their eyes.
Then, one day, you trip.
The bear tumbles from your arms as you see it fall, the threads become unwravled in what feels like eons, but is mere seconds. Your friends and even your family, celebrates your teddy bear's lost. "You never needed that musty old bear. You can get a better toy." "How did you destroy it? You made it looked so easy!" "Congrats on getting rid of the horrid bear. you must feel great!"
Outside, you have to play along in thier Masquarade, but you spent so long on making that toy a reality, that toy was YOURS for only a split second before, you fell.
This experiment, is me. This experiment is what I've been through when it comes to body image, fat, and anorexia. Replace toy, Bear, Teddy, with fat, and it's literally my life. What some would argue seems small and insignificant.
It hurts so much trying to support other people. I want to be happy for them, I want to support their endeavor. Yet, all the time, I can't escape it. Twitter, Youtube, Movies, Twitch, Instagram, Television, Radio, TikTok, Not even BOOK STORES are fully safe with entire sections and magazine racks dedicated to weight loss. No matter WHERE I go, I feel so isolated and alone as I am bombarded by people "wanting to lose weight," "I need to get in shape."
It took me almost 20 years to get to 287 pounds. In five months I lost over a hundred pounds from 287 down to 178. "You're in such amazing shape, how do you do it?"
How do you explain to someone that the thing the find herculean literally happens from depression? From a loss of will to exist? Of wanting to disappear?
I don't expect any answers, I just needed to release over 20 years of hidden emotion in one major burst.