2007. 17 years old. 6’3″, 28″ waist. Throwing up twice a day.
Warning: Some of the following language could be triggering to those suffering from an eating disorder.
So it’s National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. Considering my disorder is what’s foremost on my mind every waking second of my life, you could probably guess it’s not my favorite time of year. Nevertheless, this annual milestone does help me reposition and distance myself ever so slightly from worse times, and maybe, for a few fleeting seconds, muster some pride. It’s been 15 years since the first time I made myself throw up. It’s been 11 since I was committed to Bryn Mawr Psychiatric after a suicide attempt. It’s been 6 since my last relapse. And I’m still here. I’m married to a loving and supportive woman. I have the same friends I did then, and then some. My family’s still got my back. I’ve got a decent job I’m good at that pays me in real money. The following is a piece of mine from one of my last writing seminars when I was 23 – heavily edited, of course. I took out a lot of bad poetry and melodrama. My purpose in posting this is not attention-based, which, as a narcissist, most of my actions usually are. It is most certainly not for pity, nor to open a dialogue (at least with me). My aim is merely to communicate. For once. To shed some light. To stretch for some understanding. If you find your eyes rolling at any time, I’m sorry. I know these are privileged problems, but they are my entire life. Some of you may think you’ve had a conversation with me. Maybe many conversations. But you haven’t. I wasn’t there, and I’m so sorry. I was listening and responding as much as I could, but my attention was elsewhere. It always is. On how my shirt is lying against my chest. On sucking my stomach in. On my double-chin or swollen cheeks. On positioning myself before you in such a way as to take up as little space as possible. Interaction is secondary, and it has been for 15 years. And I’m so tired. Tired of walking into glass doors because I can’t look ahead for fear of catching my reflection. Tired of tugging on my shirt and contorting my posture. Tired of not being able to a wear a T-shirt without a sweatshirt or flannel to hide under. Tired of the manic cycles of binging and restricting, drinking and sobering up. Tired of controlling and hiding. The number of times my wife has seen me without a shirt on is in the single digits. We’ve lived together 6 years. That’s so fucking insane, and I shudder to think of what I subject her to. What I’ll subject our children to. But there’s no “cure.” I won’t ever not be disordered all of the sudden. An alcoholic will always want a drink, no matter how long they’ve been sober. Sure, therapy helps. I had 3 different therapists during the worst of it (shoutout to Dr. Packard in Rosemont, PA). But with no actual alleviation possible, it’s hard to maintain. Especially when you have to work 60 hours a week just to survive. “Self-care” isn’t a blue-collar luxury. So here I am. A broken brain pressing on. A stunted potential. No ambition beyond satiation. The best I can do is be as open as I can. To try to help everyone I can be as understanding as possible. This year’s NEDA buzz-phrase is “Come As You Are.” Yeah, a fucking Nirvana song. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. I am an addict just like Kurt was. Here’s hoping I last longer.
“Come on, skinny love, just last the year.” – Bon Iver
In July of 2008, I swallowed approximately 100 tablets of generic Acetaminophen in an earnest attempt to lie down and never get up. Honestly, I’m not sure the exact number. It could’ve been 200. Could’ve been 80. All I know is that I polished off a BJ’s Wholesale bottle and topped it off with a handful of Advil, just to be sure. If I hadn’t texted my then-girlfriend – who I had treated monstrously – a cryptic, masturbatory goodbye, my parents would’ve found me dead in my bed. But I did, because that’s what narcissists do, and she rushed over to find me already in the throes of an overdose. She demanded I make myself vomit (ironic), and I obliged, because even then, I wanted her to love me. I managed to puke up some chalky bile and assured her I was gonna be fine. But I wasn’t. My face was reddening, my vision was blurring, and my heart had begun to race. She threatened to run upstairs and tell my parents what I had done if I didn’t start looking better, and when I couldn’t respond, she did. My father came down the stairs first, and the look on his face has been burned into my memory since. It was fear. I had never seen my father afraid before, and it completely shattered every piece of me. With almost no words exchanged, my parents got me into the minivan and raced down 322 to Chester County Hospital faster than any ambulance ever could. I never thanked my ex for saving my life. I should. But I probably couldn’t.
I can still taste the charcoal. The dark, chalky sludge they pushed down my throat. After two glasses of blackness, they mixed it with Coke and gave me a straw. I heard them assure my mother it would stop my liver from failing.
They didn’t have a room for me yet. By the time they did, I had spent 30 hours in the emergency room, which I have been told is quite atypical. My mother would sit with me. I had asked her to bring my iPod, and I would lie with my headphones in pretending to be asleep so I wouldn’t have to face her. I couldn’t stomach any more heartache, especially not hers.
Doctors would come and prod me, and I’d stick to the script. They would ask if I tried to kill myself, I would say yes. They would ask if I still wanted to die, I would say no. They were more or less easily appeased. I was just another middle-class white boy crying for help, after all. A 7th Heaven episode at best. I thought it best not to mention the hanging gone wrong, the years of self-induced misery and mutilation. I was looking for the reset button. For a way home. But home wasn’t an option. I was a suicide attempt, and suicide attempts get committed. No exceptions.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, it was me who made you fall. Mirror, mirror, can’t you see? You have got a hold on me.”- He Is Legend
If I had to pinpoint when it started, I’d have to say 8th grade. I had been the “fat kid” for, well, ever, but never really gave a shit until puberty. The looming, black cloud of high school was beginning to take shape, and for the first time, I realized I was unhappy with myself, that I was unappealing, unattractive, uninteresting. That summer, I worked my ass off. Literally. A 2-hour swim practice in the morning. A 10 mile, midday bike ride. A 2-mile walk at twilight. Every day. I ate healthy. I ate tuna, for Christ’s sake, and I fucking hate tuna. I lost 30 pounds. A 40” waist to a 32”. I did it right. It fucking kills me that I did it right.
It wasn’t until a month or two into high school, when that glorious attention came, that I freaked out. And I freaked out hard. I was hearing that certain girls were saying I was “cute,” and I didn’t understand it. It didn’t compute. So I didn’t accept it. I tightened the reigns, and did my best to cut out food almost entirely. I made sure the only time I ate was in the cafeteria at lunch, when my friends were around to see. One soft pretzel and a bottle of water – it had to be bottled. After school, I had a 2 hour swim practice. In my brain, that seemed like just enough to negate the pretzel. When I got home, I would shun dinner, claiming to my parents that I had eaten a big lunch and more at the pool. Before getting in the shower before bed, I would turn on the treadmill and just walk. Walk and walk and when I thought I could stop, I’d tack on another quarter mile. This way, I was “negative.” I could be sure that I had burned more calories that day than I had eaten. I didn’t trust fountain soda. I had to see the “0” next to “Calories” on the bottle. I had to be sure. I didn’t even trust tap water.
This progressed all the way through fall and winter, until February, when I joined the rugby team. I wanted to follow in my brothers’ footsteps, two of which held records for the team. I looked at my teammates – all burly, healthy, and strong. Not the fragile, fleshy skeleton I was. I wanted to be like them, and so one night, I went home, and I ate. I ate everything, everything I loved that I had been depriving myself of. A box of cereal. Two bagels. Spoonfuls of peanut butter with jelly. Ice cream. I ate until I overflowed and got sick. That’s when the light bulb went off. I could eat, and I could throw up. I could have it all. And the next day was the first day I shoved my hand down my throat.
It’s a frustrating thing, not knowing the moment. The primary mover. Even if I had a time machine, I couldn’t go back and prevent it. There must have been a line I crossed somewhere along the way, a fork in the road where I chose poorly. But I have no memory of it. At some point, I became “disordered.” It was gradual, a slow yet obvious deterioration of my psyche. It’s easy to blame society. The media. “Them.” But I’m done blaming others. I did this to myself. I wanted it and everything that came with it. Attention. Acceptance. Admiration. Girls.
Sadly, to this day, I admire my past conviction. A storm of a boy swarmed by swirling self-disgust. A bedroom littered with Post-Its. On the walls, on the computer screen, the closet door. Covering the Mirror.
DON’T EAT
FUCK YOU, FATTY
YOU’RE NOTHING
Motivation through self-deprecation. A slippery slope, but effective.
I often wonder whether or not I would remove it if I could. If I could go in surgically, cut its tendrils like a tumor, and remove it from my brain. Would I? It is the filter that every thought, every action must pass through first. In the end, it may very well be all that I have.
All I ever wanted was to be interesting. I wound up with more than I bargained for.
There’s that posture. God forbid I have a chest.
“I guess it’s okay I puked the day away.” – The Used
Shame’s my favorite thing. After all, I was raised Catholic. If I was doing something wrong, I couldn’t just hear about it. I had to feel it. My favorite writer, Salman Rushdie, wrote a novel called Shame in which he expounds: “Between shame and shamelessness lies the axis upon which we turn; meteorological conditions at both these poles are of the most extreme, ferocious type. Shamelessness, shame: the roots of violence.” An eating disorder carries a lot of shame with it, and violence in tow. After all, if it must be hidden, it must be shameful, and I abided. I did my best to hide my disorder and turn my violence inward.
It was in this state that I learned the biggest superiority complex is an inferiority complex. My self-disgust had built me a pedestal on which I could perch and justify from. I was proud of myself for what I was doing, the initiative I was taking. I had a handle on it. I was getting shit done. I was the most fucked up with the least to lose. I felt admirable. I felt fascinating. Even now, I feel proud to have been so shameful. Bulimia is, whether or not bulimics accept it, inherently narcissistic, but not the prototypical self-aggrandizing type of narcissism. No, this was much more dangerous. I was going the opposite way, reducing and reducing myself into lower terms, never finding the bottom. A line from Fight Club (I know) always stuck with me. “Self-improvement is masturbation. But self-destruction…”
I miss the stench. The stain. Not a quite a smell, but an aura. I was always on my way out the door. Not enough time to really clean myself up. There weren’t enough hours in the day.
I miss when there’d be blood. A little red to mix into the beige tie-dye. Could be my throat, could be my hand. The scar on my right middle knuckle has never quite faded. It’s hard to explain where it came from. Sharp molars. Violent convulsions.
I miss the excitement. The dismissal bell. Only a short drive home until the fridge was mine. Every bulimic has their foods. Mine: cereal, ice cream, mac and cheese, cookies. Overchew. Liquify. Make it paste. Lots of water. Make it easy.
“Nah man, I can’t hang out tonight.”
I felt loose, but rigidly twisted. Bad posture to compensate. Poorly formed. Grotesque. A baggy belly full of filth. Tuck the undershirt in tight. Pull your flesh flat.
I wanted the skinny jeans. I wanted the fitted tanktop. Ankles. Ribs. That knob on your wrist. Down to the littlest things. I wanted the seatbelt to touch something hard. If not muscle, bone.
“You’re lookin’ skinny like a model with your eyes all painted black, just keep going to the bathroom, only say you’ll be right back.” – Bright Eyes
I was 20 and it was a Latina literature class. The semester was nearing its end, and I was looking forward to never seeing those peoples’ faces again. This particular day, a fellow student took the podium and asked if the class would be willing to participate in a survey for one of her seminar research projects. Her name was Lindsey, and her survey concerned questions of body image on the university’s campus. And it was only for the girls.
This sort of thing didn’t used to bother me. I never really had any issues reconciling my masculinity with my disorder. I saw no need. I was too busy killing myself.
These days, it doesn’t roll off so easily. Back then, I naively thought I was an anomaly. Special, even. That eating disorders were for D.J. Tanners and supermodels, not pretty-boy honors students in Catholic school with proto-Bieber hair. But according to NEDA, hospitalizations involving eating disordered males rose 53% from 1999 to 2009. Furthermore, 25% of all anorexia and bulimia sufferers are male. And yet men are still largely excluded from the conversation, even amidst today’s “body positivity” and #fitspo fads (stop those posts, by the way – they are very damaging and triggering to way more people than you could imagine). While I would never in a million years imply that it’s hard to be a man in this world when it is inarguably infinitely harder to be a woman, I would be remiss if I didn’t call for more inclusion in this particular societal conversation. Machismo and toxic masculinity are a plague, and addressing the stigma of male vulnerability could bring us one step closer to men actually getting in tune with their own feelings and behaviors. To actually making admissions and holding themselves accountable. We all want the same things. Comfort. Consistency. Control. And in general, understanding. In this respect, I would ask you to be more understanding. More careful when making assumptions. More inclusive when discussing media’s pressures and the damage done to all of us, not just women. I would ask, never tell. All I can tell you about is me.
I was so proud to fit into my girlfriend’s shirt. She was 5 feet tall.
“Doctor, what am I here for? Can’t you see that I don’t need this place? I don’t need these walls. I’m no threat at all.” – Boys Night Out
When they wheeled me on a gurney through the doors – even though I could walk – I was received by enthusiastic lion-tamers that promptly took my shoelaces, my belt, and the straps off my bag. Anything that could be tied. Each morning after a restless sleep, they checked my vitals. Ambiens and Lunestas were up for grabs from the doctors there, but I couldn’t take them. It would be years until I could stomach pills again. The thought made me gag. I couldn’t even eat fucking Skittles. And I love Skittles.
The Bryn Mawr Hospital Psych Ward was a nice enough place. It didn’t feel like an asylum. It felt more like a summer camp. It was July, after all. We spent most of our time in the common room. There were couches, a TV and a VCR bolted to a desk, and a ping-pong table. We watched Twister, I think. Next to the table on the far wall were two alcoves, a payphone in each. The world stopped turning when one would ring. There was a white marker board divided into the seven days of the week with each day’s schedule. Each day was designated a quote. Day 1 was “Courage is grace under pressure.” Hemmingway. Day 2, “It is better to have loved and lost…”
I’ll never forget the names. The stories. Matt, the 20-something professional snowboarder that shattered his pelvis, rendering him paralyzed from the waist down and addicted to pain medication. Nikki, the 16 year-old alcoholic who physically assaulted both her mother and a cop. Allen, who suffered from PTSD from his time in Vietnam. Lauren, who seemed to be my age and if it weren’t for her black hair, would be the spitting image of Drew Barrymore. A manic-depressive who was nearly always severely drugged. Even from afar, I could see her messy heart. After a day’s first smoke break, all of us would meet in the common room and come up with a goal for the day, as well as admit if we met the goal from the previous day. Mine was always to take in as much as I could.
Art therapy. Music therapy. Group therapy. Smoke breaks, the only time we were allowed outdoors, and so it was there I learned to smoke. During one exercise, one of the shrinks handed us each a list of terms, wanting us to check off all those that apply to us. The list consisted of buzzwords like “angry,” “anxious,” “hopeless,” “guilty,” and “optimistic.” When it got to be my turn, I only had one word to share. “Ashamed.” I wasn’t sure why I checked it, but he wanted a reason.
“I think I broke a lot of hearts.”
For being in a psych ward, I was oddly chipper. I liked it there. I liked not facing those who I knew were outside waiting for me. Each meal came on a tray, portions completely controlled. The days were scheduled down to the minute. There, I could let go. I could be disordered and taken care of. The world of the sane held far too many opportunities for insanity. On the drive home after 7 days in the ward, I realized that I was forgetting large pieces of my stay, as if it had been a dream. It was underwhelming to be out in the world. I felt saner in there than anywhere. We knew why we were there, and we knew what we were doing. Not out here. There is no protocol out here. I’m left making sense of fragments from a different world. An easier world. A world without shoelaces.
“Tie me up, untie me. All this wishing I was dead, it’s getting old, it’s getting old, it goes on, but it’s old.” – mewithoutYou
When I was in outpatient recovery following my stay at Bryn Mawr, I read the testimony of a man who had overcome his bulimia. It was an interview, and he admitted that while he had ceased purging, he still suffered from binge eating disorder. I’ll never forget this – the article actually ended with the phrase, “but he is generally unhappy.” I was so afraid I would end up like him. So resolute that I wouldn’t. But I did anyway. I’m not so sure there was even an alternative. A symptom has been alleviated, but the disease remains. These days, I manically cycle every 6 months or so. Beers and ice cream every day until I get disgusted with myself enough to violently swing the pendulum to the other side. Then I pick a date, and when it arrives, I restrict myself to 800 calories a day 6 days a week. On day 7, I “reward” myself – remember, “cheat days” stem from disordered culture. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve got a cycle starting pretty soon here, actually. There’s no real use in trying to talk me down. If anyone could, it would be my wife, and she can’t win either. I still think about killing myself most days. The closest I got in the last 11 years was last summer, and thankfully my wife was on top of it. But it’s unfair of me to put that on her – at all, let alone again. I have a list of in-network therapists sitting in my e-mail inbox, just in case. I feel fine now, but that will be different tomorrow, and then different again the next day. I’ve always considered that this dualistic type of cycling could point to bipolarity, but haven’t been able to push myself to care. For now, I’ve just gotta go full Castaway. I just “gotta keep breathing.”
tastebreakers 