I worked as a hostess at a hibachi grill in Huntington Village when I was 22. It was dull work. Lonely, even. The only perk? Free carrot ginger dressing. I’d scoop it from the kitchen vat into tiny bowls and eat it like soup. That was enough.
At that moment, I had been losing weight for over a year on my own terms. But the context is important. Two years prior, I had just left a six-month stay in a Virginia hospital. They had treated my Binge Eating Disorder with one thing: forced weight loss. A misguided, cruel intervention.
From age eight, my body was marked as defective.
I was pushed onto Weight Watchers. Shamed by doctors. Mocked by strangers who screamed at me from their car windows. The message was uniform: change your body or you will never have a life. The result wasn’t health. It was a spiral. I spent 12 years in and out of hospitals. Two suicide attempts. One severe eating disorder that didn’t vanish—it just changed shape.
Why Structure Saved (and Almost Destroyed) Me
The shaming didn’t fix me. It trapped me.
When I was 19, after being discharged from a Florida treatment center, I interviewed at another restaurant in Huntington Village. The owner saw me. Her eyes doubled in size. She didn’t hire me. Instead, she sat across from me in a cramped office and laughed.
“How will you fit between the tables?” she asked.
“How will you fit into our uniforms?”
I took the abuse. I thanked her. I ran to my car and sobbed. Three months later, after a massive relapse, I was admitted to the Virginia hospital again.
There, I thrived.
I was the model patient. I followed every rule because I was terrified of the alternative. I watched others get locked in rooms. I saw privileges stripped. I learned that in some facilities, weight fluctuation was treated like theft. If I held onto a fraction of a pound, staff accused me of hoarding food or stealing from others. I never did any of that. But I saw what happened to those who were accused.
I survived by following rules. Strictly.
When I returned home, I relapsed immediately. Every time. Without the rigid structure of an institution, the real world felt unmanageable.
Then came the barista job.
A cafe. A schedule. Friends. Purpose.
With this new structure, I felt a shift. My life wasn’t just about treatment anymore. It was about living. And so I decided to pursue the body society demanded. I lost weight. I called it “recovery.”
It wasn’t.
The Shock of Seeing My High School Classmate
As the pounds dropped—168 pounds gone, eventually—the world shifted. Strangers smiled. Jobs opened doors. I felt like I finally deserved to take up space.
Then came the Saturday afternoon at the hibachi place.
The line was long. Double doors. Sidewalk overflow. Panic set in. I lost track of party sizes. Two-top. Four-top. Family of eight. The rhythm broke.
Then, through the glass, I saw Brenda.
Straight blonde hair. Blunt bangs hiding her freckles. Big rings on every finger.
She locked eyes with me. Then, she threw her hands up to cover her face.
“Sara!”
Most of the time, running into old classmates in my hometown was mundane. Most were still in college. I had lasted two months at the School of Visual Arts before medical leave hit. Then came the hospitals. Number three. Number four. Number five.
But today, Brenda was there.
“Sara! Is that you?!” she called out. Hysterical.
I offered a weak wave. A meek smile. An awkward laugh.
“Ha ha… hey, Brenda,” I said.
I expected small talk. Long time no see? How have you been?
Instead, Brenda started crying.
Validation Versus Shame
She wasn’t crying because we hadn’t spoken in years. We weren’t close. She wasn’t crying out of sorrow.
She was crying because my body was now “acceptable.”
To society, to my parents, to the doctors, to my high school peers—my size had always been the problem. Now, seeing me small, she was relieved. Her tears signaled that I was okay. And in that moment, I believed her.
If I was small, I was valid.
If I fit in the world, I deserved to exist in it.
Right?
I watched the tears stream down her face and felt a split sensation. Part of me was affirmed. Look, I thought. All this work. She’s crying. I’m on the right path.
But another part of me felt unbearable pain.
This scene played out repeatedly in the 16 years that followed. Every encounter with my past was a variation of this. People celebrated my look. “Keep up the good work!” they’d say. Then they’d leave me haunted by their previous judgment.
I already knew what they thought of the “old” me. That version lived in every cell. It tricked me into thinking I had swapped one eating disorder for another, healthier-looking one.
“I’m sorry…” Brenda wiped her eyes. “It’s just…”
I hugged her loosely. Feeling responsible for her tears somehow. I prayed no one in the line saw. She screamed, “You look so good!” into her hands.
The Illusion of Acceptance
It took years to realize my body wasn’t really mine. I let other people’s opinions dictate how I ate, moved, and existed. I looked at old photos of myself—a cute, funny kid—and couldn’t understand how I became convinced I was a monster.
At that moment with Brenda, I was both validated and humiliated. Confused but confirmed. The lesson was clear: small is good. Large is bad. Count every calorie. Restrict. Shrink. Do this, and the world will love you, even while you hate yourself.
For years, I tried to untangle the harm. I immersed myself in anti-diet culture and body acceptance movements. I listened. I learned.
I even regained almost half the weight.
I poured my energy into loving my body as it was. I stopped bingeing. Stopped restricting. I became a health coach to help others do the same. I lasted a short while, then left.
Why? Because the truth was ugly.
I didn’t accept myself.
Every night, I cried in bed, wishing I was small again.
My body at any size sparked opinions, shame, praise, and harm.
No therapist could help me disconnect my self-worth from my waistline. I couldn’t guide others to acceptance when I had none to give.
The Modern Weight Loss Trap
Now, with the rise of Semaglutide and drugs like Ozempic, I feel a renewed sense of dread.
The body positivity movement, which had barely begun to take hold, is being maimed. Fat bodies, finally visible on runways and screens, are being pushed back into the shadows by quick fixes. For seven years, I believed kids today might escape this cycle. I’m not so sure now.
It’s not surprising that a shortcut to weight loss reverses progress.
We know Body Mass Index (BMI) is flawed. We’ve debunked the myths linking thinness to health. Yet, four years into my recovery, medical professionals still judge me.
Doctors offer me Ozempic. A dental assistant praised my hygiene, then immediately told me to stop eating “junk food,” basing it solely on my size. A gastroenterologist, knowing my history, suggested I “live without dinner.” A fertility clinic refused IVF unless I lowered my BMI.
The clinic’s refusal nearly killed me.
It triggered a breakdown. I went back to counting calories. Back to restriction. Even though I knew better. Even though I want my future child raised by a mother who isn’t terrified of food.
I don’t know if I’ll ever live in my body without the ghost of every stranger who told me to lose weight. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop hearing the cries of relief from people who are happy I’ve “fixed” myself.
But I hope.
I hope one day I wake up with my own opinions. I hope I feel like me. I hope society finally realizes size doesn’t define worth. I hope we can all just exist.
As they are.
