I Am That Little Girl

My final decision to go to treatment, was not an impetus, overnight decision. It was preceded by a winding process that held a distinct and necessary. rhythm. I had to run through all the twisty-turny of Stubborn, and Circumspect and Fear first before I was able to arrive at that singularly ineluctable conclusion.

And I had to founder.

Pursuant to many iterations of failed attempts in recovering at home, one day while jogging, I realized that my path espoused only one resolution; I finally surrendered to the idea that the only plausible course was to heed the sagacious council of the authorities on all things Anorexia, and seek the highest level of care.

As I was attempting recovery at home, I had managed to regain some weight on my own.

But I wasn’t ready for it.

I hadn’t the proper intensive care that I needed in order to help me accept it. And I was awash with guilt.

And despite of the collective concern from the various healthcare professionals about the urgency of my situation, a daft remark from a clueless acquaintance suggesting I “looked good”, topped off with the icing on the cake follow-up question, “are you sure you still need to go to treatment?” made me question whether I was “sick enough” to warrant residential care.

Like the Breaking Of a Promise

You see, this is a topic that is not widely discussed, but it certainly deserves a bit of a spotlighting.

It’s sort of an inside understanding reserved to those living with ED, that even for me- someone who personally struggles with an eating disorder- still, it eluded me back then.

I was remarkably vexed, as to why an accolade attesting my health, would feel so bad?

It should have, by all accounts, made me feel shiny.

But it had the opposite effect.

What was wrong with me?

For anyone else, a flippant comment such as, “you look so healthy!” would be construed as a compliment. But it is an unequivocally sordid insult to Edie. And she gets mad. Real mad, when she hears that.

Indeed, for someone grappling with anorexia, particularly during the arduous journey of recovery, as they maunder blindly through the brumous woods, trying to navigate the foggy seas of one’s encumbered mind- it is, frankly, the worst thing you could say.

There is a constant turbulent battle raging inside the mind of an individual coping with an eating disorder.

A deeply seated desire for freedom. exhorts with an overwhelming desperation, and yet, it is met with a pertinacious resistance.

You want it. But, you don’t.

When I was 5, I spent an afternoon at a friend’s house. As the day drew to a close, my dad came to collect me and we ambled home slowly up the wontedly staid street, in the crepuscular light of a lowering night. My petite hand was threaded in his bighand, while my opposite hand was fondling a miniature R2-D2 figurine, which I exhibited to my dad with a great amount of enthusiasm.

“Where did you get this from?”

He asked.

“My friend gave it to me.”

“Oh?”

My stomach clenched.

The stillness pervading the street confluenced my abrupt reticence, and the following interval was filled with a sudden silence that seemed to roar.

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “No. I took it.”

I was beset with shame. With guilt.

I was embarrassed to my very core.

Needless to say that though it was so long ago that even the statute of limitations have given up chasing me by now, it has left such an everlasting impression on me that I remember the mortification until this day. It was the first, and last time I ever told a lie or decided to “borrow” something without asking.

Restoring one’s weight is imperative. But in spite of everything, even when on death’s bed, and within the uncompromising grasp of Edie’s talons, the act of eating, makes you feel like you’re committing an infraction against the rules, like a breaking of a promise, a breaching of some law. It makes you feel like you’re doing something wrong.

Eating, becomes a thing you are not suppose to do.

You are that little girl again, caught taking something that was not hers; a profound penitence, a regret, an intolerable grief, shame, and deep guilt engulfs one’s being for “indulging” in nourishment, or for forgoing a workout, aka Incinerate the Indulgence sesh, and it goes without saying- for any physical tumefaction.

In the mind of a serial anorexic, the. compliments on their appearance, are but an attestation to the committing of the worst kind of violation on Edie’s edicts.

Telling an individual who’s tussling. Anorexia something along the line of, “you have color in your face again”, is a blunt sucker punch to Edie’s face. It’s telling her she failed. Miserably failed. And it only reinforces the thoughts and behaviors of the eating disorders.

I wasn’t in as “bad of a condition” as I was back in February, and surely they were going to turn me away at the door at res. Laugh in my face. You?! They’d say, you don’t need help. There were others who needed my spot more.

With these thoughts in mind, in the intervening time preceding admissions I meticulously shed all the poundage I managed to accrue, and was eating even less than I had at my worst. By the time I got through the door at res, I was about to collapse.

In the days leading to admissions I’d clandestinely feed within the confines of the walk-in pantry, while everyone else had their repasts in the dining room- I could not bear to dine in the presence of others, because it would expose my ‘forbidden act of nourishing’.

Eating, felt like I was parading my naked body before the scrutinizing gaze of the world.

I was not suppose to eat.

I’d station myself by the trash bin, and surreptitiously masticate and expel entire meals without swallowing a single morsel, as crudely as expectorating globs of tobacco, just to get the taste in my mouth.

And I supplicated for time to move faster. As if admittance to treatment was when I’d finally be allowed to eat. That ultimate permission to stand up to Edie.

Admissions couldn’t come fast enough.

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