Memoirs from a Little Bitch

When I turned fourteen, I enlisted myself in a struggle I wasn’t equipped to join. I imposed suffering on myself and what’s worse is it was so intuitive that I couldn’t comprehend the constant turmoil. I couldn’t help myself against myself.

At fourteen years old, my temporary salvation and lasting detriment lied within alcohol, cigarettes, self-harm, and anorexia.

pt. I: Dysmorphic

I’d like to think that my disordered eating and body dysmorphia began in this period of time, but the reality is I grew up with jaded eating habits and expectations. Despite quitting ballet at 11 years old, I spent my childhood avidly stretching, pirouetting, rehearsing, and staring at myself in the mirror. I was the product of an expectation to be the best, and I was — temporarily. I danced front and center and received solos in productions. However, the momentary satisfaction on my mother’s face faltered the minute the glory of a show was over and instead I constantly strove to be better. In such a narrow mold to become a ballerina, I already lacked the height and the dainty bone structure. Even 10 pounds lighter than classmates of the same height, I still fell behind. In order compensate for my “genetic pitfalls”, I buried my dinner under wrappers in the trash and hid my lunch money in my dresser. This desire to fill this mold took over any other desire and as a result, crippled me. Not immediately. There were isolated incidents throughout the years, where this did incapacitate my wellbeing such as: how when I was 8 I woke up every morning feeling weak and extremely faint or that time in 6th grade when I used my arm to support me as I stood up, fell, nearly fainted, and fractured my arm. The point is, I led a normal life but this disordered eating followed me throughout my childhood to the point where I didn’t notice, although it sometimes had adverse effects.

However, I did crash and burn eventually. In light of my mother’s ambition and my constant fatigue, I began faking fevers or soreness in order to skip ballet class. This broke my mother, and this scared me. I knew my mother took pride in seeing me excel in a pool she never had the opportunity to dip her toe in. I didn’t understand my rebellion; I just knew my brain was finally listening to my indignant body in saying that it was exhausted and overworked. In an almost childlike way, she ignored me for days as though she were hoping for me to come to my senses. I never did. I stopped dancing that year and I do occasionally wonder where I’d be if I had never stopped. I don’t like the outcome.

For the rest of middle school, I had a grace period. I began nourishing myself and felt significantly less fatigued. My build became more muscular, a natural attribute of my family. However, I still had very little body fat.

Only until I entered high school did this mindset perpetuate and dehumanize me.

I moved schools and suddenly, I had lost my sense of security. I felt isolated. My casual humor and bubbly personality began to diminish and instead I became irritable and insecure. I avoided glances in hallways and imagined everyone to dislike me unless I knew them well. At some point that year, I became extremely Type A towards food. I couldn’t control my isolation and my anxiety but I could control my body. I began memorizing calorie labels and dividing food into portions, eating the same amount of food daily. I brought a container of food to school for lunch and used a same sized container for dinner. I stopped eating after 5:30 and went to sleep at 9:30, when my stomach began growling. I weighed myself after peeing, when I got home from school, after eating dinner, before going to bed. I wrote down every single measurement and my happiness depended on whether or not it changed from before.

In the first 2 months, I lost 6 kilograms.

My already low BMI dropped to 14. Perhaps in some form of irony, my isolation was the reason why no one noticed. I had an estranged relationship with my parents, I stopped talking to my brother who was in college, and my friends were there but I felt detached from them. I had isolated myself from the people in my life because I had become obsessed with this area of my life that I could control. I felt gratification when I saw that my legs became thinner and even hoped I would lose muscle mass to appear thinner. My body screamed against its horrible depravation. My hair fell out, my nails became brittle, and I almost fainted after P.E in the girl’s bathroom. These cries for help weren’t enough; I was too foolish and too caught up in the satisfaction of seeing the numbers on the scale decrease to realize that I was sick.

The initial routine began falling apart as I woke up before the sun had even risen every morning because I was so hungry. I climbed outside of my window every morning and watched the sunrise, thinking to myself how blessed I was to have waken up early enough to witness nature take its course. I was sick.

Eventually, my parents brought me to a dinner party with what seemed to be more food than I had eaten in a month. I convinced myself beforehand to eat fruit only but my body prevailed and broke down every restraint I possessed. I ate so much that my body thanked me for finally receiving nourishment but my stomach, so accustomed to hunger, couldn’t handle it. I wanted to cry out of disgust and disappointment, or sheer unhappiness. I was clearly sick, but I still didn’t know it. In the car, abusive, berating words flooded my thoughts as I felt a lump form in my throat. After this having been my fixation or obsession, I felt as though I had lost all capacity to continue. I was sick.

Later that night when my parents had gone to bed, I quietly took my bike down the driveway and biked to a 24 hour grocery store. I bought a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and biked to a rooftop my middle school best friend and I had found before she moved away. I smoked the entire pack, feeling a pain in my body. I stayed there until sunrise and biked back home.

To be continued…