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WEIGHED DOWN ONE JAYPLAY WRITER SPENDS YEARS TRYING TO COPE WITH BODY IMAGE ISSUES
// LINDSEY SIEGELE
Narrow-minded: At 12 years old, Lindsey Siegele weighed about 120 pounds, but she thought she was enormous. She stopped eating lunches at school and her weight obsession started to get worse.
I'm seven or eight years old. I'm at my grandparents' house in Arkansas, and I'm getting ready to take a shower. I've been out on the lake all day with my family, learning how to waterski and soaking in the sun.
Contributed photo
I can't remember when I first started obsessing about weight, but when I try to, one vivid memory snaps into my head:
My older sister is with me in the bathroom. At that age, we did everything together, and that included showering. I don't remember how our conversation started, or how she was prompted, but I remember her issuing this statement as I removed my bathing suit: "You're not fat — you're pleasantly plump!"
It's a hilarious incident to look back on. I'm more than a little embarrassed that one of my most traumatic memories includes the phrase, "pleasantly plump." Nonetheless, my weight obsession ran so deep from such an early age that my sister might as well have wrung my neck with a bath towel right then and there.
I asked myself whether I had an eating disorder over and over again. Did I have an eating disorder when I was in grade school and refused to sit cross legged because it made my thigh fat protrude an inch? How about when I was 13 and didn't eat lunch in the school cafeteria for fear that someone might have a remark about the heavy girl eating french fries? (At 5 feet 8 inches and 120 pounds, I was hardly fat, but my friends were all shorter and lighter than I was.)
Reading about girls with eating disorders was like looking in the unflattering mirrors to which I had become so accustomed. When I was in high school, I counted the calories I late every day, making sure to burn off practically all of them on the treadmill. I attempted to purge my meals on a few occasions, always failing, and hating myself that much more as a result. I starved myself for days at a time, or ate ridiculous diets of a few Oreos and Goldfish crackers a day.
But there was a difference between me and those eating disorder girls you see on TV, in magazines and in the news. Those girls are
skinny. So skinny, in fact, that their elbows and knees look perpetually swollen and their eyes bug out from their sunken faces. Their illnesses were obvious to me, and I knew that I wasn't one of them. In high school, I remember thinking that the only difference between them and me was self control. They had it, I didn't.
Always, my aching, starving stomach would lead me back to a large meal and a pint of ice cream. Any weight I had lost would come rushing back, leaving me bloated and upset.
I started college in the worst possible way. It was 2004, I was severely depressed (something I was being treated for) and I had gained about 15 pounds the previous summer. The idea of leaving my dorm room was terrifying, let alone making new friends and attending classes.
Sweatpants were my best friends. My old clothes didn't fit me anymore, and I refused to go to the store and buy the size 12s I needed. I know now that lots of college freshmen deal with gaining weight, but I felt infinitely alone. I stopped going to classes, and I dropped out of school during my second semester.
Despite months of therapy and soul searching, I never discovered a trigger for the severe sadness I experienced during that time in my life. I had a great life and family and all of the opportunities in the world. Weight was an easy scapegoat for a complex problem that defied obvious answers.
My slow healing process began with the realization that much of my food obsession didn't actually have anything to do with food. When I was depressed, I blamed food. When I got my depression under control, my hatred of food began to dissolve.
Today, I'm not fixed. I'm better, in that my weight doesn't mean as much to me as it used to. A year ago, I was able to get on the scale, when I knew the result wouldn't be pretty. I was able to buy the size 12s that I needed without sobbing at the checkout.
I became a vegetarian and then a vegan as part of a graduate research project, and the experience took my involvement with food away from selfish loathing. I started to view
food as an ethical decision — a commentary on my personal values — and once eating became a part of something larger than myself, I was able to get my weight back under control in a healthy way that didn't involve deprivation.
I still fight the urge to over-exercise, and I know that I find too much satisfaction in a good day on the scale. I envy my friends who eat what they want without fear of emotional consequence. I still have to persuade myself to believe that it's OK to have a handful of Skittles now and then.
Other girls go through what I've experienced — I've been friends with some of them. We hide our problems behind average-sized hips
and second and third slices of pizza.As a collective, we can and should find solace in the fact that the perfection we seek in our bodies is mirrored in the obsessions and addictions of those around us: the tanorexics, the people pleasers and the workoholics.
We're all on a journey to better ourselves, despite the consequences. The key, at least for me, has been to find a limit — the point at which "good" is good enough, and "perfect" isn't worth the risks.
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"In the summer, the trees get real full and there less people here. You
A barn and open landscape, unorthodox in the modern suburban setting, testify to the legacy of this historic site.
The Miller House, 1111 E. 19th St., served as a hideout for escaped slaves, a pit stop for Quantrill and his band of raiders and, now, is home to retired professor Dennis Dailey and his wife.
the winter rouse, the largest item in Dennis Dailey's history collection. The house, built in 1858, was never meant to draw attention, and is perhaps why it survives as one of the area's only remnants of the Underground Railroad.
"They found out about this place down at the visitor center or something and they just drive in. I go out and welcome them and tell them the story and it is absolutely astounding watching their experience at this place, tears — it's just amazing," Dailey said.
"I've always had kind of an interest in history, just in general," Dalley said. "Like in college I was interested in history classes, but when we began to live in this home, it reeked of history. It just reeks of history and I became fascinated with that."
People still explore the Lawrence landmark today.
When anti-slavery activist Robert Miller moved his family to Lawrence from South Carolina they built a farmhouse that served as part of the Underground Railroad. Escaped slaves would hide in a treed area to the east known as Miller's Grove or sleep in the smokehouse before moving onto freedom.
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many of the community's buildings. But the residence has history with William Quantrill himself, a Confederate guerrilla leader.
Chris Neal/KANSAN
"My kids will be living here. The foundation of this house is remarkably solid," Dailey said. "The work that we've just put into it to restore it, if people want to live here another 100 years they certainly could without any difficulty, no difficulty at all."
The barn onside the Miller House stands out in the modern suburban setting of today. The Miller House was built in 1858 and was a part of the Underground Railroad during the Civil War.
It was Quantrill's first stop on his way to Lawrence, revisiting the site after possibly scouting the community several weeks before.
Quantrill's visit is well documented, even recounted in a letter written by William Miller years later that Dailey reads to visiting elementary school students, which he said gave him chills each time.
The Miller family lived at this residence for nearly 100 years before the house was sold to the Eller family and finally the Dailey's. Dailey said he hoped he could continue the legacy for another generation of Lawrence residents.
"They fed him a meal. There's some evidence that he spent the night. In other words they befriended him, and he chose not to kill them," Dailey said.
"So sometimes you're sitting here thinking, 'The man spent the night.' That's a little weird." Dailey said.
Dailey and his wife replaced the entire west wall and restored the fireplace to its original visage as part of the many investments the couple has made to maintain their home's integrity.
- Edited by Marla Daniels
ics yees their time
begin their prison time
BY ALEX GARRISON
aqarrison@kansan.com
Kassie Liebsch, former systems analyst for the department, is serving her 37-month sentence in a minimum-security federal prison camp in Greenville, Ill.
Two of the former Athletics employees convicted in a conspiracy to steal and re-sell at least $2 million in tickets have been sent to federal prisons following their sentencing in March.
Her projected release date, according the Bureau of Prisons' website, is Jan. 7, 2014.
Rodney Jones, former director of the Williams Fund, is spending his 46-month sentence in a minimum-security camp for men in El Reno, Okla. His expected release date is not listed.
Co-defendants in the case Charlotte Blubaugh, former associate athletics director in charge of tickets, and her husband, Tom, a former consultant to the department, are still awaiting their detainment destinations. Charlette Blubaugh was sentenced to 57 months and Tom to 46 months.
— Edited by Sarah Gregory
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JOE'S BAKERY | 3A Keeping the light on for you
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The iconic Joe's Bakery sign will be in the Hawk's Nest on the first floor of the Kansas Union.
AWARDS|10A
Kansas Athletics Hall of Fame to include two new members in fall
A track and field star and a former baseball All-American are the two athletes chosen to be honored in September's induction ceremony.
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