Letters
There is a shelf dedicated to books about eating disorder therapy in the library where I study. Occasionally I pull down a book and look at it. Here I share some of my discoveries.
Recently, I was having a very stressful evening in the library. Homework, exams. A perfect stage for a binge episode (multiple binge episodes…). I strolled to one of the shelves, pulled down a book on cognitive behavioral therapy for bulimic and anorexic patients, and began leafing through it. One of the first suggested exercises was having the bulimic/anorexic patient write two letters to their eating disorder: one letter where the disorder is treated as a friend, the other where the disorder is treated as an enemy.
Immediately inspired by the text, I returned to my desk and began crafting my own letter to BED and bulimia.
To bulimia and BED with hate
Dear bulimia and BED,
this is a sad fact, but I don’t recall a life where you two have not been involved one way or the other. Age four, I was treating an emotional problem with food, age 8 I went on a diet, age 10 I really started dieting, age 12 I discovered how powerful weight loss made me . But when you really entered my life, was when I turned 13 and went to 7th grade. It was a turbulent time in many ways: you were expected to shave, wear bras and be attractive. No one was attracted to the silent fat girl, who tried disappear behind stacks of books ( and mountains of chocolate bar wrappers). For some reason, this fat girl hung out in a group of girls very different from her: smart, intelligent, beautiful, and most importantly (at least for the fat girl) thin and athletic. She wondered why they ever chose to be friends with her. But soon even they started to get tired of her boring outfits, the fact that her hair was always in a pony tail, that she never wore make up. They began making her school days tough to get through. They commented. Someone figured out that “walrus” would be an innocent enough nickname if said with a giggle. Sure, she laughed with them, just so she wouldn’t have to cry alone. She laughed with them in the cafeteria, in the hallway. She joined in their jokes, calling herself a whale. Jokes, jokes. Of course, we’re joking. You should know that. Where is your sense of humour?
But things were very different when she went home. The words that she so innocently gobbled accompanied by the tinkles of laughter, became sharp daggers in the silence of her mind. She had to drown them. She got off one stop early from the school bus, and proceeded to the neighbourhood shop. Release, release in the form of cookies, candies and food was there waiting for her. Shelves full of friendly food. Food that never said anything. Food that loved you no matter what size you were. More, more, BED whispered in her ear as she piled ice cream jar upon ice cream into the shopping basket. When she went home she would lie on the sofa and consume everything, in huge gulps, watching television, wishing she was as thin as the movie stars: the beautiful, successful women, who seemed to have it all.
But befriending BED has a price. Pounds packed onto her waist, legs, abdomen. Soon, she was standing in the dressing rooms of malls with her disapproving mother, crying, because the largest pants in the teen’s section no longer fit her.
That is when bulimia started creeping into her life. But it took a few years to take root. Meanwhile the fat girl graduated from middle school, and went to high school. She separated from her old friends, and was embraced by a new group of thin, successful girls. By this time she had already tasted the power that “thin” gave an adolescent woman. She had struggled through two diets, crying, feeling dizzy, yet euphoric when the pounds melted away.
This way, she thought, she could have the best of both worlds. It was only an experiment, not a permanent solution, a solution until she learned to manage her bingeing urges on her own. But of course nothing is ever simple. Soon every mouthful that slid out of her system, was an euphoria, a release, a relief. The pounds fell. The admiration grew.
She wanted to let go of bulimia. But by this time she was in too deep.
The cycle of throwing up and binging, losing weight, gaining weight became her life. She changed supermarkets frequently so that the sales ladies would not recognize her. She hid vomit everywhere. When she could not vomit, bulimia made her hands sweat. Anxiety flooded her body.
Another thing was happening too. She was applying to universities and colleges. If I get into University X, I’ll stop, she promised herself, as she looked at her bloodshot eyes in the mirror. Some blood had begun appearing in the vomit. She had trouble falling asleep, because bulimia made her stomach cringe. But it was just temporary, until she would get into University X, the fulfillment of the academic dream she had been working so hard to attain.
This was temporary. Binging on chocolate and diet sodas so she could study all night. Then the letter came. An invitation for an interview. Her sacrifices had paid off.
But bulimia was here again, reminding of its presence. Focusing on school work was hard. As soon as fat girl came home, she binged on anything and everything, and then purged until little specks of blood appeared in the vomit. The room spun in her eyes, there was so much vomit everywhere. She cleaned it, washed her hands and rinsed the sour taste of stomach acids from her mouth. Then she collapsed and slept. She couldn’t study, she couldn’t do homework. During classes she let her gaze wonder outside, planning the next binge and purge, how she would start with ice cream, then cookies, then candy. The euphoria. She had finally learned the trick.
The interview date came. She blew it. Her mind had purged its knowledge, drained its strength. Bulimia destroyed the dream.
In January, she learned they had said “No”. She would not be going to University X. She fell apart, stopped eating at school. She was fat. Fat girls don’t deserve to eat lunch at school. She dropped breakfast too. Hunger was her penance. But bulimia was there to pick up the pieces. And she embraced it like a lover, passionately consuming calories and then letting them flood out of her, like some purifying ritual. Nothing matter anymore, grades, schoolwork, friends. When she was supposed to be studying for her final exams, she couldn’t bother. She had a relationship, a friendship with bulimia. The only friend who didn’t judge. The friend who destroyed everything and gave her another life.
To this day, the girl lives with bulimia, in bulimia, along with bulimia, whatever. She goes to College Z, she binges, she throws up. Bulimia stole her dreams, and she hates it. Hates it so much. But hate is just love misunderstood, they say. Sure.
Yours,
-thecageofhunger-
The Cage of Hunger 