With recent events focusing on bringing an end to “Fat Talk” and the increasing number of commentaries I’ve seen on why “you’ve lost weight” compliments are ultimately more damaging than not, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the ways in which we’re influenced on outside barometers.

I know people who can have their days totally made with a simple question of “have you lost weight” – even if their responses are focused on how the truth is anything but, even though they’re trying. I have friends who hate shopping because clothing just doesn’t fit right.

A couple of weeks ago, while out to dinner with a long-time friend who was talking about not getting why someone acted the way he did, was only able to understand when I explained it like this: “Do you remember back when eating disorders and diets were a big part of your life, and you’d go a week without restricting and purging and think, ‘damn, I feel a lot better – maybe there’s something to be said for this,’ but the next week went right back to denying yourself and thinking that you had to restrict to maintain your body? This is his version of that.”

I have a friend who I see fairly often who tends to be fond of giving me a hug, and, after, commenting on how nice it is to find that I don’t feel breakable anymore. While it sometimes frustrates me, I know that it’s because she was genuinely afraid of hurting me in the past, just by giving me a hug. In fact, I don’t remember being touched by her much at all when I was younger and far less healthy. This habit of hers is something that I can use to see myself a little bit more clearly – and to see more clearly the impact that my anorexia had on people around me.

This weekend though, I had a completely different experience.

I was a tangled mess of anxiety all last week leading up to a trip to New York to see a musician I first met almost 20 years ago put on a show. Admittedly, some of the stress was about the travel itself – and money, of course. Some of it was about seeing a lot of old friends with whom I’ve bonded over music, all people who knew me in what often feels a lot like a past life. We talk mostly online, and I haven’t been sharing a lot of recent photos, so even though they know me and know of some of my life changes, initially – well, initially they had no clue who the hell I was. Which is awkward. And which left me feeling an awful lot, well, like I should have known better than to go.

I was an outsider most of the night – though one friend had indeed tagged me as being present.

This extended a bit until after the show. I decided to stick around and say hi to the performer. She knew my partner immediately, but had no clue who I was. Greeted me like a stranger – until I called her out, said, “Um, you *do* know me; I didn’t think I’d changed that much.” She covered her mouth, looked e up and down, said “oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I do” and hugged me. Pulled away, said, “wow.” Hugged me again. And then we talked for 20 minutes about life, and love, and whether I was as okay and happy as I looked, and about family, and about music. She talked to me while other people were having their pictures taken with her.

And I realized two things:

1. It’s true, I really haven’t changed all that much.
2. But I’ve changed so much that I’m unrecognizable.

Much of that, for me, is about having finally developed the confidence and self-assurance necessary to undertake one of the most drastic reinventions of self that a person can go through. But a lot more is the fact that I would have never been able to make these changes if not for having gone through the recovery process.

Just as my friend confirms for me – from the outside – that I am now healthy, another friend confirmed something even bigger for me this weekend: that I really am transformed, and really have made huge strides, even if I’m nowhere near where I want to be.

I’m hoping that that will ease the struggle some. I’m hoping that, while I’m still trying to build the stamina needed to let time run it’s course and to put the right conditions in place, it will be enough to help inch me away from the despair that I’ve been feeling.