Making Change: Understand More, Fear Less.

This is a awesome guest post by an awesome girl who has awesome things to say.  It was originally a speech done at a Morning Meeting at our prep-school. I'll leave it at that because her the quality and honesty of her words need no introduction. Just read it and let your soul simmer and your heart flutter. And after that, consider how you too can go and make your little bit of positive change in the world. 

Good morning Taft, for those who do not know me, my name is Juste Simanauskaite. I am a junior and I came to Taft as a sophomore last year from my homeland Lithuania. During these two years in the United States, I have come to understand that everyone is capable of making a change. Now I am trying to become one of those people. I am attempting to make a change by fighting for gender equality. The story that I am about to tell you is very personal and important to me. By no means, am I trying to make you feel sorry or pity me; my goal today is to reveal the unfortunate reality that we all live in.

My life has truly been a rollercoaster. Going up and down every single day, experiencing the little joys and struggles of life. However, right before coming to Taft my rollercoaster shut down, the controls broke, and I was not sure whether they would ever go back on. I wish I could say that the situation that I have been through was only 1 of a kind; however, what I experienced is relatively common for the 21^st century. So what happened, you ask? Well, here is my story:

Three years ago, I was a completely different person. I was a 15-year-old girl, just like many of you here at Taft. September of 2012, I started a new high school in my hometown. I was extremely excited to meet new students, teachers, and jump right in into my high-school years. It was one of those feelings you get when you wait for something so much that you can’t even fall asleep, just like waiting for Santa on Christmas eve. However, the excitement was soon gone. The more the year went on, the more alone and isolated I felt. I saw all these socially and academically gifted people making new friends, having fun, and enjoying their time there. However, I was not like all those girls who could talk and flirt with boys for hours and hours. I thought I was not pretty enough, not funny enough, not skinny enough to do so; I felt that I was just not enough. However, that was the standard that a popular girl had to live up to, otherwise you would end up feeling just like me, unwanted, unnoticed and unheard. Up until December of that year, my insecurities and thoughts were slowly killing me from the inside. Every day at school reminded me of a nightmare. Nevertheless, no one knew because I smiled through all the pain and got used to the idea of being a nobody.

As if that was not enough, one day, my dad came home with a new purchase of which he was very proud. A brand new scale, with the fancy options to calculate body and muscle weight, water percentage, and what not. Of course, he wanted all of us to try it out: my mom, my little brother, and me. My mom made the first step and I followed. At that moment, as silly as it may seem, my heart and mind were torn apart. I found out that me, a 15-year old girl, weighed 15 pounds more than a forty-year old woman did. That was it. That final factor was the last trigger that influenced my unfortunate, stupid, and unwise decision, which has irreversibly altered my life.

A year later, I was already facing the doom and consequences of anorexia. After the “scale - incident,” I started out by challenging myself to change my eating habits and began exercising on a daily basis – or what I called it living a “healthier lifestyle.” I read all the articles and books that I could find about what was good for my body, when and what to eat, what to cross out of my diet. My head poured with ideas and thoughts of becoming healthy. First, I took out sweets, and junk food. This of course, most of you would agree, was not a bad thing; however, after a month or two this progressed into no bread, no fats, counting calories for every meal, and making every portion size as small as possible. Control, control, control, no cheating, and control – those words were always in my mind. I felt guilty for eating “too much,” I felt guilty for not exercising for one day, I felt guilty if I ate something after 6pm. Nevertheless, the worst was yet to come because I did not realize that my behavior was leading to a dangerous disease. I thought of this as a positive change: making myself healthy, feeling good about myself, becoming more confident about my body because I felt that this was the only way to be recognized and noticeable. Months passed, and I started seeing the changes – my waist was slimmer, my legs were skinnier, my collarbones started pointing out from my chest. I was proud of myself, I was proud that I finally was approaching the accepted standard of a girl that I wanted to become. What was even more flattering – were the compliments from my classmates, especially guys because they also noticed my shape change. “Juste, you look so good.” “Juste, have you been working out?” “Juste, would you like to go out for coffee sometime?” For the first time people recognized me, they wanted to talk, hang out, and spend more time with me. Therefore, after all of this feedback I saw no point in stopping; however, I did not realize what I was doing to myself until the damage was already done.

After a year of living under my “healthy” rules, I started feeling exhausted all the time, my body temperature was never higher than 96 degrees Fahrenheit, my blood pressure was also very low, and my periods were gone. My parents were concerned; however, every time they said I was not eating enough, I responded “I am, you just never see me eat” or “I ate soooo much at school, I’m not hungry” and by sooo much I usually meant 2 apples and a banana.

All of this became even worse. It took me a while until I understood that maybe feeling cold all the time, drinking 10 cups of hot tea during the day and not having the energy to stay up past 8pm was actually not a good thing. This affected my mood, my academics, and most importantly me! People around me started noticing that I was fading away, day by day there was less and less of me left, both physically and emotionally. However, I could not admit that something was wrong with me and I wanted to prove that everyone else was wrong by saying that. So I looked up the symptoms of anorexia, the disease that people were accusing me of because I wanted to prove them wrong. It turned out that my so called “healthy lifestyle” was not healthy at all, rather the complete opposite. I scrolled down through the symptoms for the disease: 1. Skipping meals, 2. frequently making excuses for not eating, 3. lying about weight loss or the amount of food eaten, 4, adopting an extremely limited diet including only a few certain “safe” foods, 5. cutting food into tiny pieces, 6. obsessively and repeatedly weighing oneself, 7.frequently checking in the mirror for flaws, 8. complaining about being fat, 9. wearing baggy clothing to hide small size, 10. excessive exercising, fatigue, and lack of emotion. I was shocked when I realized that I could identify myself with every single one of those symptoms. I felt as if someone was reading my mind. It took me a year to realize devastating effects of my attempt to be “socially acceptable.” But by then I was a 16-year old that had lost 40 pounds, completely damaged her health, and forgot what it meant to enjoy life. All the stress, anxiousness, starvation, self-discipline, and exhaustion.  All of that for what?

When I try to think of reasons why I had to change in this way, the only thing that I can come up with is that I was trying to fit in; I was trying to live up to the standard of a woman that would be attractive and noticed by others. Even though I managed to recover, I managed to understand my mistake, and I had the willpower to change once again, only this time, for the better; unfortunately, after going through all of this, I am truly concerned and devastated that I am not the only one.1 in 5 women in the world struggle with an eating disorder. That means that out of the 296 girls at Taft, 59 are likely to be affected by this disease. In addition, 53% of 12-year-old girls feel unhappy with their bodies, 78% of 17-year-old girls feel unhappy with theirs and 95% of people with eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25. What do all these numbers indicate? Probably the fact that my story is similar to many of those girls out there. The standards, however, are not only for body shapes, they are created for everything: social media, jobs, ethics, and much more! Therefore, the stories are endless. Women are raised to want to fill the social roles in which society needs them. And unless we talk and become aware of the issue, the outcomes are not going to be positive

            As you may have all heard, I was screening a movie here at Taft called “Miss Representation” just a couple of weeks ago. Right after it more than 30 students gathered and discussed the gender issues that we are facing today. Why is this so significant? Well, the more we talk and discuss, the more stories we share, the more aware we become of the current situation. Yes, you may think that Taft is like a bubble, isolated, and far away from the issues and problems of the world. However, I would like to argue that actually our bubble just represents a smaller model of the bigger world around us. I guess, I will only speak the truth when I say that the issue of stereotypical gender standards is present at Taft as well. Right now, I want everyone to just take a moment and think how could we all prevent those stories from happening, how can we as a community make a change? What will it take us to get rid of those social standards and how are they affecting each one of us personally? Just think. Today, my goal was to make you think and realize that we all together, women and men, make this environment a better place for all of us, we can stop the harm of unhealthy social standards, and we can make this change happen. That we can do by listening, admitting, and talking about the problem. My life may have been different if I had seen enough images in society accepting me for who I am. I now clearly see that the roller coasters we all ride in are controlled by us and influenced by others. I hope after hearing my story we will all be more kind to others and ourselves and embrace the words of Marie Curie “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”  

Find the video of her speech here: https://vimeo.com/155022762