"If you eat better, you'll be more in tune to your surroundings."
"Write down everything you eat today, text it to me, show me so I know you're eating."
"Did you eat today? Anything?"
These questions have been spinning in my head lately.
They're things that I, as my therapist character Paige in a new play I'm working on, ask my eating disorder-riddled client Joelle when she comes to see me each week.
Playing Paige gives me this semblance of control and care, and when I say her lines and ask Joelle these questions, I feel in control and put together.
That's not the case so much in real life.
How do you play a character who combats eating disorders for a living when you, in your very real and messy life, go to therapy for just that?
Hint: you do so my crying at rehearsal sometimes. You do so by opening up occasionally and briefly and sometimes only after a few glasses of wine to a handful of your cast mates.
You do so when your director sits you down and asks you if there's anything you'd like to tell her about your life that might make a difference in your character's life.
And you say yes, that you have a Paige of your own.
That you can't be a Paige yourself because you're not ready.
Because even though you read the play and it spoke to you and you felt compelled to audition, the actual weight of playing an eating disorder therapist when you have an eating disorder is weird and hard and undeniably tricky.
I can memorize lines and say them the way that my director wants, but that doesn't stop me from freezing up when I get to rehearsal.
I can be ready to play this character, but still be terrified of costume fittings where everyone in the room will know my size.
As much as I love this craft and this show and even this character, I'll still cringe at opening night photos, judging myself and my imperfect body, telling myself how fat and unworthy I am.
My struggle with an eating disorder is a work in progress. I'm not over it, I'm not healed, and I'm not in a place to look at Paige from a safe place of wisdom.
I have an eating disorder. I don't always feed myself and at times I hate my body.
The thing I love most is letting my play an eating disorder therapist and I'm pretty sure that this is a weird step in my recovery.
Image: sheknows