(Based on the
book “Breaking Through My Limits: An
Olympian Uncovered”,
copyright 2012, by Alexandra Orlando)
As related by Ms. Orlando (prior to the
2004 Olympic Qualifiers):
To be clear, I was muscular, almost 17
years old at 5’7” and about 130 pounds; which is pretty normal. I’m not saying I came back grossly overweight
for my age. In fact, the very idea that
I was “overweight” was disgusting and hysterical. I can only see it like that now, years later
after I’ve had time to come to as much peace as I can with what was done to me,
and what I was made to believe.
Unfortunately, for my sport, what you
look like is just as important as what you do out there on the floor. The typical rhythmic gymnast should be as
tall and as skinny as she can possibly be:
a deadly stereotype that has driven girls to the hospital. The top girls look more like starved
ballerinas than athletes. Even when my
weight wasn’t an issue, I still never looked like that. I always had muscle and a body type that was
not accepted but tolerated. Now, all of
a sudden, after I just had the worst year of my life, not only was I not good
enough to make it to the Olympics, but now I was too heavy to be competing for
Canada.
I had come back to the gym in the fall
with a few months to train before my first national competition in front of our
whole community. Until then, I loved being among my teammates
from coast to coast, showing the judges and coaches how much I had improved and
how much I wanted to be there vying for the top spot. I was at my best when I was at a competition
getting ready to do my thing; I lived to perform. It was my time.
Within two seconds of walking into the
gym, all eyes were on me. I could hear
the whispers, and feel the once-overs scanning me up and down, in shock at this
new Alex. “What happened?” was the question of the
week. My coach got attacked by everyone:
parents, coaches and judges. The looks
of pity, sadness, and just plain confusion were priceless. My confidence plummeted. Hit rock bottom. And then I had to squeeze myself into a
skintight suit that left nothing to the imagination, and parade in front of
hundreds of people who thought I was fat, and attempt to perform at my best. That small pain inside my chest that day was
just the start of a hole that was being created inside me; the beginning of the
eventual damage it would all cause, leaving me hollow and empty inside.
After the competition was over, and I
had won my second national title regardless of being so “overweight”, I
couldn’t even be proud of it as I saw them come right for me: coaches, judges and advisors. All I remember from those “meetings” were
certain words: “heavy”, “lose weight”, “eating habits”, etc. I could barely look any of them in the eyes,
and I sat there like a stone, head hung so low, biting back my tears and only
moving slightly to lift my chest and take in small breaths. But, I could never hold them back.
I began to look at myself differently
from that very first day, and would never see my own beauty through my own eyes
again. It was gone, not that I didn’t try and fight
them. From that moment on, the
conversation was always about my weight.
I saw their eyes on my thighs, my face.
It was as if they knew exactly where that pound I gained yesterday went
on my body. And, if I lost a pound, it
didn’t matter because if it wasn’t 10 pounds, then it wasn’t worth a
comment. I would show up in the gym to
train every day, and cringe as I rolled on my thin black tights, tiny shorts
and sports bra. Only this time, instead
of the snug tank top I used to put on, I began to hide within my clothes,
finding baggy t-shirts to throw on instead.
I would layer and layer to somehow shrink inside them: thigh-high leg warmers, loose shirts…anything
that hugged my curves was thrown under my bed and kept there.
My family must have seen what was going
on, but what could they do? I was a
quiet, moody, private, high performance 16-year-old athlete. I came home right after training, and the
last thing I wanted to do was talk about my weight. My mother saw the inevitable breakdown, and
how it went from bad to worse faster than she could have imagined. There were
too many triggers and emotional traumas to count, but enough to get me to a
point where I hated myself, and where hurting myself seemed the only option.
Those first international competitions
with “The New Alex” brought ever more attention and more pressure for my
immediate weight loss. There were
no nutritionist consultations, no intelligent, healthy advice – just lose at
least 5 kg by next week or the next competition. It was as if I was supposed to change
dramatically overnight. With straight
and absolutely dead serious faces, they would say that if I just at lettuce and
some lean protein, then all our
problems would be gone. I wasn’t sure if
they ever really cared about me as a person, or cared more about what I could
do for them. The future of our sport was
on my shoulders, it seemed, and I felt the hawks hovering over me.
The funny thing was that I would never
admit how deeply damaged I was.
My friends and family knew I was battling with my body, trying to lose
weight and make everyone happy, and they were there for me in the only way they
knew how to be. My girlfriends would
always watch me to make sure I was eating; and, if I wasn’t, they would gently
confront me about it. And I thank them
for that. It must’ve been so hard to
watch me self-destruct, but also be so strong at the same time. I got pretty good at making people think that
everything was really “okay, I swear”.
It became a part of my life, a persona that I took on that hid my dirty
little secret.
I poured my heart out in journals that I
can’t even read today, and masked my problem from the world. I would pretend that I didn’t care, getting
angry instead of hurt in front of my teammates, and using an “I could care
less” attitude in public when actually, all I cared about was my body. I became obsessed with mirrors, trying to
catch a glimpse of myself in windows, making sure I looked okay, that I was
hiding myself, and that everything was perfectly in place. I would spend hours devising outfits to look
like I didn’t hate my body, when all I did was pick myself apart. I was never happy with what I saw staring
back at me. Shopping became a horror
where I hated anything I put on and overanalyzed the sizes. Nothing was ever good enough, and I couldn’t
lose weight as fast as I wanted, and didn’t understand why it was so hard.
I would stand in front of my mirror at
home pinching my fat, sucking everything in and imagining what it would be like
if I was that thin. I would
take pictures of myself and compare them from week to week, getting a sick
pleasure out of seeing my body shrink in front of my eyes, only to gain it all
back in a few days. This was my crash
diet phase. All I could think of was how
to lose weight. It consumed me. All the while, I was training like a maniac
and starting university, thrown into a new world of pressures to face. I read every magazine, every article, every
piece of advice on speeding up your metabolism, shrinking sizes and dropping
weight. I would see my girlfriends
around me able to do it, so why couldn’t I?
It was infuriating to wake up every day and hate myself, never wearing
jeans because it showed too much of my body.
Long sweaters became my life.
(to be continued in Part C)
copyright 2014, Anne Shier. All rights reserved.
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