Читать книгу Living FULL - Danielle Sherman-Lazar - Страница 11

Chapter 3

Hello, Bulimia

My premonitions about high school were spot-on. Elizabeth kept on having fun, flirting, and making new friends, while I spent the first two years wrapped in my schoolwork, soccer, and, most of all, dieting. Strangely, I never knew how much I weighed. I feared the scale because I knew it could trigger a downward spiral. Not being under one hundred pounds would be a disaster, so why torture myself? I was a pragmatic anorexic.

Once in a while, I would slip and eat more than I should, and when I say more than I should, I mean I would stuff anything in sight down my throat. Then, feeling horrified, self-hating, and completely out of control, I would try to throw it all up, but I couldn’t. I would gag over the toilet until my throat hurt and my eyes were teary. Slamming the toilet seat in frustration, I would hate myself even more. What kind of idiot can’t even puke? One-word answer: me. To compensate, I would work out extra-long the next day.

I was pretty good about sticking to my diet, but because of those occasional binges, I didn’t lose an excessive amount of weight in a short amount of time, which helped me stay under the anorexia radar.

By the summer before my junior year, self-control was no longer winning out. So I found what I thought was the answer to my dieting prayers: Laxative bulimia.

I know, cringe.

We were in Nantucket over the summer and I had been constipated for a couple of days. Anyone who has ever experienced constipation can vouch—that shit (pun intended!) hurts.

There I was, fifteen years old and running down the soccer field. I had terrible cramps and could hardly breathe, but that wasn’t stopping me. No! I was so determined to play well for my team, I kept going in what felt like slow motion. Suddenly, though, I became so overwhelmed with chest and belly pains I couldn’t go on. I’m having a heart attack! Subbing myself out, I sipped water while sprawled on the green grass, awaiting death. To express the pain properly, I can now only use acronyms because there was too much discomfort to form actual words: OMG (oh my God) and FML (fuck my life), to put it mildly.

My parents, seeing my distress, quickly bundled me into the back of my dad’s black Lincoln Navigator. I screamed my lungs out shamelessly as my dad careered toward the hospital.

“I’m pretty sure I am dying,” I moaned, gripping my stomach.

“Where does it hurt?” my dad asked, speeding over potholes, speed bumps—every barrier in his path.

“Where my heart is. It’s a…” I paused, taking a deep breath in, the pain making its way through my chest. “I think it’s a heart attack.”

“You’re not having a heart attack. When was the last time you went to the bathroom?” my mom asked, concerned but rational.

“I am having a heart attack and you are questioning my bowel movements? Ouch.” I pushed my knees against my stomach and clenched hard.

“You’ll be fine, just try to relax.” My mom flipped her hair out of her face. Her freckles were extra prominent, standing out against her sun-kissed skin. She didn’t like how they looked, but I thought they were so cute. I started counting them, a good distraction, trying not to think about the pains—ouch, not working!

Well, we got to the hospital, and, lucky for me, or unlucky for me: (1) it was not a heart attack, (2) my mom was right; it was constipation and dehydration from not drinking enough fluids, and (3) the volunteer EMTs at the hospital went to my high school, and I totally made eye contact with a group of them on the way in. Awesome. I didn’t need a heart attack, because I died of embarrassment the moment we locked eyes. It ended in an enema, with me squealing like a pig. Literally, imagine, “SQUEEEEAAAAAAAAAALLLL!!!” I’ll let you take that scene in. Yep.

So, that summer in Nantucket, my mom bought me ex-lax to prevent the Squeal Heard ’Round the World, Part II. The first time I swallowed two pills and experienced horrible stomach cramping, I was a little scared. But then it seemed like everything that was in my stomach forced its way out, and I felt lighter. What an amazing discovery: I was Christopher Columbus landing in the New World! Eating and clearing my system with just a few pills was a miraculous weight-loss strategy. How did I not know about this? I kept the bottle and used it throughout the entire vacation.

Using laxatives made me feel good. They gave me the same empty feeling that starving myself did, but I was allowed to eat and be temporarily full. It was perfect for the days when I slipped and couldn’t help but binge. Yes, it was painful, but that made the crime fit the punishment. But there was a catch. I just wasn’t aware of it. Yet.

FULL Life, October 2013

I had just left a therapy session with Dr. Blatter and walked into the icy winterscape that was New York City’s Upper West Side. Dr. Blatter is a quiet, medium-sized man, always well dressed in a suit and tie. His office is in a building with a green awning on Columbus Avenue and 73rd.

I had been seeing him for about five years. For most of that time, I had talked about my problems with work, lack of reliable friends, my family, things that pissed me off. I hadn’t been honest about my extracurricular anorexic/not-so-sober activities because I was ashamed to tell him, or maybe afraid he would send me away or hospitalize me, because, yes, I was hurting myself.

I’d started seeing him after spending a long weekend in Vegas for my mom’s fiftieth birthday. Observing my eating patterns, Mom made sly little comments about my eating all weekend. On the last day, she finally erupted.

I’d been pushing my food around and hardly eating anything. I’d thought I was doing a pretty good job at disguising it. Apparently not. Mom’s constant meal commentary should have been a clue.

“Dani, I can’t watch you do this to yourself anymore. You need help!” she’d screamed, which prompted me to run onto the Vegas Strip in hysterics. A dramatic eruption deserves a dramatic reaction. She demanded I see a therapist, and to get her off my back, I agreed.

“You know how paranoid moms are?” I’d explained to Dr. Blatter at that first session. “Especially crazy Jewish moms—it’s their joy, I swear! I used to struggle with my eating, but I am fine.” I knew he would understand how paranoid Jewish moms are, being a religious Jew himself—plus, it underplayed her concern, proving my point. Nice touch, Dani. My hands were crossed on my lap, eyes looking straight into his.

It had taken five years. Five years, countless nights of misery, and a terrifying health scare. But we were finally talking about my real problems, and as I turned the corner and hailed a cab, I knew I was on my way to really being fine. A driver stopped, and I hopped into the back of his cab. Thank goodness, I thought, as my breath had been visible in the frigid air.

“Traffic, that sucks,” I said, observing the back-to-back bumper traffic around us.

“Yes, it’s bad traffic tonight for some reason,” the driver answered and put on the radio to some soft African music. It was pretty catchy, and I let the driver know that. He laughed, smiled, and turned the volume up a little more. I stared out the window and into the stream of traffic. The horns honking, none of it bothered me.

As I often do, I thought about the time I’d lost to my ED, short for “eating disorder,” an abbreviation coined by author and eating disorder survivor Jenni Schaefer in Life Without ED. I was always thinking about what ED took from me because, let’s face it, it took a shitload, especially the last four years of my adult life. When I was mad at my eating disorder, I was mad at myself, but recently, I’d found it helpful to separate the two in order to stop blaming myself. I had been reading The Eating Disorder Sourcebook, and in it, author Carolyn Costin describes two versions of yourself—your eating-disordered self and your healthy self. The idea is that your healthy self will eventually heal your eating-disordered self.

Dr. Blatter and I had just talked about that, and about what I would write if I wrote a letter to my eating-disordered self.

Dear Eating-Disordered Self,

Well, what can I say? You sure put me through the wringer. You isolated me, harmed me, made me extremely depressed, and gave me a lot of health complications. You convinced me that we were codependent. I know I could never ever be as hard on someone else as you were on me. I think that is why I am oftentimes considered too cautious of everything I say and have a bad “sorry” habit. The last thing I would ever want to do is make someone feel as bad as you made me feel. You beat me down, ruined my relationship with not only food, but also everyone, and pushed my healthy self into submissive invisibility. I am now braver, stronger, and more carefree since I defeated you. Though I may have my down days, when I hear your whispers I know I have conquered you because I used to hear you in screams. Though we have spent so much time together, I am too happy living life to ever see you again.

Best Regards,

My Healthy Full Self

I posted my letter on Facebook when I got home. Then I took my dog, Teddy, in my arms and enjoyed his butterfly kisses. I’d had Teddy, a four-pound Shih Tzu, since I was nineteen years old.

I’d named him after my love for teddy bears as a child, when I was young and innocent, and everything seemed so easy and attainable. Back then I used to go to FAO Schwarz, where I’d marvel at the big ticking clock and marching soldiers as “Welcome to my World of Toys” played its sing-song lyrics in the background. My mom and dad would let me choose one bear per visit. I would stare at the bears until my parents were blue in the face. I would always pick the one that was a little disheveled, the one whose eyes were uneven or had a crooked nose: the corduroy bear of the bunch. I wanted to help the one that was different or looked like no one else would buy it. I thought its flaws were what made it adorable—loveable even. Too bad it took me a while to feel that way about myself.

I looked back down at Teddy, a great companion, but he couldn’t be my everything. Unfortunately, he couldn’t fix the whole mess my eating disorder had caused; actually, he couldn’t fix any of it. I needed to be my own Lisa, the girl who helped Corduroy like himself the way he was. Yes, I needed to sew my broken button back on and put the pieces of my life back together. I needed to like myself again before anyone else could. All I knew was that I was well on the way, with my healthy full self now running the show. This self deserved to be liked and maybe even loved.

When school started up again, I devised a plan for stocking up on laxatives. After school or during a free period, I would drive to a drugstore out of town. I’d never make a direct line to the right aisle, even though I knew exactly where the magic pills would be. Instead, I’d browse the makeup aisle, then make a right and a left in the baby aisle by accident, then over one to pretend I had a headache, until finally I got to my destination. Turn left, turn right, coast clear, and I’d grab the box, my preference at the time being the ninety-count ex-lax.

They came in handy, especially on late nights when I was the only one awake. All day I would not eat anything, thinking, this is the day when I start my diet, but after playing soccer for a couple of hours and starting my homework late, I needed a lot of willpower to stay up on an empty stomach. Often, I was not strong enough. One night in particular, I tiptoed into the kitchen and took a cinnamon raisin bagel, paused, and on second thought, slathered peanut butter on it. It was like an orgasm in my mouth—or at least what I imagined an orgasm to feel like. I went back to the computer room to study my notes and textbook and eat it.

Between bites and turning pages, my tired mind wandered to what had happened in AP history earlier that day. With my cramping hand, I had been transcribing everything the teacher had said. A friend had looked over at my notes and laughed out loud, signaling to the boy on the other side of me to look at something on my desk, but I still wasn’t completely paying attention to my periphery, until he too broke out in laughter.

“If something is so funny, I think you should share it with the class,” the teacher barked at my friend and the boy, annoyed by the interruption in his lesson plan.

“Dani just wrote down the joke you made,” my friend explained through her giggles.

That was the moment I put my pencil down long enough to realize they were laughing at me. Personally, I didn’t think it was that funny. Like, seriously, “Ha, ha, ha?” And my actions were totally explicable! I hadn’t realized it was a joke because I’d been too busy writing down every word the teacher said, to read later. But of course, I wasn’t going to explain this—and I wasn’t going to admit my processing issue—so now the entire class had a good laugh at my expense. Thanks, friend.

It took a lot for me to keep up with the naturally smart kids. Now everyone knew I was dumb. I slammed the textbook closed. What was the point of trying to stick to my diet? I had already failed today. The moment I decided to eat that bagel with peanut butter sealed the failing deal. I went to the kitchen for:

Two more cinnamon raisin bagels with peanut butter and jelly

A wide slice of ham-and-cheese quiche

Honey-roasted peanuts (by the handful)

Raisin Bran with skim milk

And so began a new habit. Each time I studied and thought about something that had happened that day that upset me, I would eat away my anxiety. I consumed the food so fast that there was little enjoyment of the taste, but it felt so good going down. However, no sooner did it thump into the pit of my stomach than I’d feel remorse. My protruding belly was the proof of my gluttony. I am so gross.

And off I went to my stash of laxatives: ninety pills, one by one. It was one thing I was truly excellent at—pill-popping—a skill that I would grow to appreciate and continue to hone. It would take me less than ten minutes to get all of those blue pills down, which ironically tasted quite sweet on the outside. All night long, I’d hold my stomach in the fetal position. I’d hear noises and, at times, think something was bursting inside of me, but I deserved it—all of it. The pain, the remorse, and the hatred I had for myself. I would then erupt in a secluded bathroom downstairs, with the sink water on full blast to help mask the noises.

My mom found evidence of these binges on multiple occasions. I would hide a jar of empty peanut butter that I’d consumed the night before in a drawer in the computer room, along with wrappers and anything else I’d had to peel open. She mentioned these findings a couple of times, but I uncomfortably brushed them off. My mother would nag that I would attract mice and bugs, but she didn’t understand. I didn’t want to throw my evidence in the garbage. It seemed more visible in the garbage, like I had accepted that I had eaten it.

By the second half of junior year, my bingeing and purging turned into a nightly ritual. I was in denial of the effects until I was forced onto the scale at the doctor’s office for a checkup: 124 pounds! Did I see that right? Shit. I. Did. I had managed to gain twenty-four pounds in a couple of months. This was surely a record of Guinness proportions! Why hadn’t the laxatives worked? They were supposed to clean out my system. Imagine how big I would have been if I hadn’t taken them. All that pain and for what? To wind up an even fatter pig. Out of shame for how I looked, I tried to think of ways to convince my parents that they really didn’t want senior-year pictures of me, which I had to take at the end of junior year—lucky me. That didn’t work. When I got them back, I looked like a large slug-like alien, maybe a cousin or sister (the resemblance was that uncanny) of Jabba the Hutt. Where did those two chins come from? I was horrified and ripped one of the five-by-seven pictures into tiny pieces, crying angry tears. Even my mom admitted it wasn’t my best picture.

So began my crash diet. No food until dinner and only healthy steamed foods when I did eat. I wasn’t going to binge anymore either. I needed to face my reality, and the truth was, I was fat. That night I went into my bathroom, turned the shower water on to mask what I was really doing, and locked the door. I stripped down to fully examine my reflection. My face had become so round and puffy. The backs of my legs had cottage-cheese cellulite on them. My stomach was slightly protruding, and I don’t even want to get into how big and flabby my butt was. I held a chunk of my lardy ass in my hand.

I despised the person looking back at me. This person lacked self-control. She lacked basic discipline. I flopped onto the cold marble floor and lay there, sobbing. All I could see were the naturally skinny girls in school, the girls who didn’t worry about their weight and ate whatever they wanted. I always had to be on a diet, I always had to study extra hard. The more I cried, the more I conjured more proof that not only was I fat, but I was a failure, and the whole world was in on that secret way before me. Like the time at the blood drive at school, when the nurse saw right through me:

Nurse in the blood truck: “How much do you weigh?”

Me: “I haven’t weighed myself in a while, but I think I’m around a hundred fifteen pounds.”

Nurse (scanning me from head to toe): “Oh honey, you are way more than that.”

As my blood filled the bag, the nurse’s words echoed in my head. I must look like a monster! Why would she say that otherwise? “You are way more than that.” I am so fat and ugly. “You are way more than that.” I hate myself. Maybe this blood will drain out of my body, and I’ll disappear. She is telling you the truth, and she is unbiased! “You are way more than that.” Listen to her.

I did it, voice, I listened good and hard.

Why had I let myself get to this point? I had to pull myself together. I slowly got up off the bathroom floor and put my clothes back on. I wiped away my tears and turned the shower off. This was my fault, my doing, and I would be the one to fix it. I put my fake smile on and went downstairs to do my homework, passing my mom on the way to the computer room. She was reading a book at the kitchen table.

“How’s it going?” she asked, eyes following me as I came toward her.

I gave her a kiss on the forehead and shot her a smile. “I have a lot of homework to do, but I’m good.”

“Don’t study too hard. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” I answered, shutting the door to the computer room and, at the same time, on the pathetic fat girl whose reflection stared back at me in the mirror. So long, Jabba’s cousin, sister, whoever that hideous creature was looking back at me. The one I didn’t recognize, and didn’t ever want to get to know. The truth was, if I had a choice about which Star Wars character to resemble, I would much rather be an adorable Ewok—a skinny as fuck one.