Harvey Mudd senior Elaine Shaver reveals how a per\u00adfectionist academic atmo\u00adsphere and family influences indirectly led her to become a bulimic \u2013 and how she learned to respect her body.<\/p>\n
Has the Mudd or Claremont commu\u00adnity affected how you view your and others\u2019 bodies? <\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n Indirectly, I guess. Mudd in particular has a perfectionist attitude. Almost ev\u00adery Mudder is really, really driven. This is something you probably didn\u2019t know about Mudd, but among the ladies, there is a high secret incidence of eat\u00ading disorders. We\u2019re very stressed and perfectionistic, so it\u2019s easy to get into the negative cycle. When I went to col\u00adlege, I had the framework all set up to get bulimia. I was really a perfectionist. Everything had to be just so. When I got to Mudd, my stress levels went a lot higher than they had been.<\/p>\n What was it like having bulimia? <\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n By the time it got to dinner I\u2019d want to relax, so I\u2019d turn to food as a comfort item, but because of the eating disorder, I wouldn\u2019t allow that, so I\u2019d start feel\u00ading guilty and hurt. I purged every day in tough times, but when stress would die down it would go away again. I was worried about hiding it from my suit\u00ademates. I usually purged at night and they were late-nighters<\/p>\n How did purging make you feel? <\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n After purging, I felt guilty that I\u2019d done it again, that I was still in the cycle, but a lot better. And I didn\u2019t like the feeling of how heavy my stomach was. I had mixed feelings.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n How did you get over bulimia? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Christmas my junior year I told my best friend about it. Seeing how she reacted to it made me realize that it was actu\u00adally really serious, because I\u2019d been denying to myself that it\u2019d been a prob\u00adlem.<\/p>\n How did she react? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n She started crying. She made me prom\u00adise to go speak to someone. I went to a Mudd counselor who\u2019s an eating-disorder specialist. I started going to her weekly. She made me identify why food was the focus of my relaxation. We found the root causes and once we understood the causes, it was a lot eas\u00adier to change my mental attitudes. It sounds silly, but the moment of change was when she made me realize there is no good food and bad food. Before, I used to think that eating foods like ap\u00adples would give me good person points, and that eating foods like pizza would give me bad person points.<\/p>\n Did your boyfriend at that time make you feel beautiful? <\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n This will sound weird, but he was so subservient. There was a power imbal\u00adance. He was the more dependent one. When he\u2019d tell me I was beautiful, I\u2019d hear the words, but think \u2018Well, you think so.\u2019 He said the right things, but I didn\u2019t really feel beautiful. Working out made me feel beautiful. During the summer I would work out everyday. I exercised to burn calories. If I was too busy to work out, it would contribute to thoughts like \u201cI\u2019m being so bad, I just sit all day doing homework.\u201d<\/p>\n How do you know you\u2019re 100% over bulimia?<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I guess it\u2019s gonna sound simple, but my attitude changed. I\u2019m okay with my\u00adself, just as I am. It\u2019s okay to eat the pizza if I want to. Maybe tomorrow I\u2019ll eat an apple and my body can handle it and I\u2019ll look good. I get to enjoy having a body that can have fun, walk, and lie under the sunshine. I\u2019ve started to talk about it some. I\u2019ve reached the point where that was a different me. I\u2019m a proctor and I told my girls, \u201cPlease, if you start feeling this way, come talk to me. You\u2019re normal, not crazy. It\u2019s something we can work through.\u201d<\/p>\n Has the media played a role in your experience of bulimia?<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Mom keeps Shape <\/em>magazine always around the house. In my obsessive state of mind, I\u2019d read \u201cGood foods to eat,\u201d or other similar articles. It would feed that part of me. My mom is a jazzercise instructor. I\u2019m pretty sure she\u2019s addict\u00aded to exercise, literally.<\/p>\n Have you told her about having bu\u00adlimia? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s not something we ever talked about. We\u2019re not particularly close anymore. It\u2019s something I would like to share with her. It seems like it\u2019d be pertinent to her own life. She diets and watches calories a lot. She\u2019s been com\u00adplaining about fat thighs since I could talk. I was too perfectionistic to com\u00adplain about that. I wouldn\u2019t say to my friends, \u201cI think my thighs are too big,\u201d but in front of the mirror, I would say to myself, \u201cYour thighs are looking a little big.\u201d<\/p>\n What is your favorite part of your body?<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I love my arms. I\u2019m a rock climber, so I\u2019ve got some burly arms.<\/p>\n Does your current boyfriend make you feel beautiful?<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Absolutely. He\u2019s been my best friend for 1 \u00bd years. When he said it, it just mattered more somehow. We basically lived together over the summer. He\u2019s seen all parts of me. When he said I was beautiful, I\u2019d have to believe it.<\/p>\n Do you think it was more your attitude change than your boyfriend change that helped you get over bulimia?<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Absolutely my attitude change. I really think that if I\u2019d been more accepting of myself, I wouldn\u2019t have had that voice in the background saying, \u201cYou think I\u2019m beautiful, but you\u2019re just dumb.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Harvey Mudd senior Elaine Shaver reveals how a per\u00adfectionist academic atmo\u00adsphere and family influences indirectly led her to become a bulimic \u2013 and how she learned to respect her body. Has the Mudd or Claremont commu\u00adnity affected how you view your and others\u2019 bodies? Indirectly, I guess. Mudd in particular has a perfectionist attitude. Almost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,234],"tags":[152,35,37,151,108,38,14],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","category-vol-1-issue-1","tag-boyfriends","tag-bulimia","tag-eating-disorders","tag-elaine-shaver","tag-laura-passarelli","tag-lisa-kau","tag-relationships"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}