Gather 'round curious web-surfers as I ___
The "eating disorder" (as the proffessionals call it, who have never themselves suffered from the affliction) reared it's ugly face when I went off to college at nineteen years old. I stopped eating lost weight until I weighed 85 pounds at 5'7". I felt happy during this period because (silly me) I wasn't throwing up anymore! Well no shit. I wasn't eating anything.
I came home for summer vacation and shocked my family and friends. The first thing my father said to me was "Baby, baby, my god, you look like... a holocaust victim" while holding my arms. The first thing my mom did was start crying and said something like "You have to eat, honey, I can't stand to see you like this, honey." And kept crying and then held me.
I remember lying in bed with my best friend and she had her body up next to mine and she kept poking me where my bones were sticking out. "Dude" she said. "You're like... really freaking skinny."
Seeing my mom cry is what caused me to shift and stop starving myself. Unfortunately, now that I was eating, I started throwing up. The bulimia got so bad that by the time I was finishing up junior year in college, I was throwing up upwards of seven times a day. I also started drinking every night. I could only handle two classes at a time because the eating disorder had become so debiliating. I had a night-time job working on the on-campus coffee and sandwich shop. Every night, I would make myself a wrap at work to take home (free food). We also sold baked goods like muffins, scones, bagels, et cetera. We always threw dozens of pastries at night (I don't understand why we couldn't predict sales a little better to avoid having so much waste at the end of the night). My manager was pretty lazy and didn't care how much free stuff we took. So what I did was remember the bag we put the extras in and what dumpster it was in, and I would just take it out of the dumpster after clocking out and before going home.
Anyway, so it was to the point where I drank at least eight shots of vodka or to the point where I was completely wasted, and I would binge and purge for hours every night. Getting up in the morning sucked. I eventually felt like it was impossible to continue school and I took a medical leave.
I went home for summer vacation and my eating disorder got worse. I was throwing up around seven times a day, and binging and purging for hours every day. My dad knew that I was doing something like this because I stole food from the kitchen at night and he noticed it. It was so embarassing.
The toilet started to malfunction so I knew I had to stop throwing up in it immediately (my dad ended up buying a new toilet). My solution to this problem was to throw up in our giant plastic cups in my room at night. And then hide them on the floor and on the shelves in my closet. When I had the opportunity, I would dump them down the kitchen sink and then turn on the food disposal. I still poured some of it in the toilet because I was hoping it could handle it once in awhile. The fucked up thing was I always put the cups back on the shelves we kept them in, (after washing them out, of course). In hindsight, I wonder if they knew... and how sickening that must have been for them.
My stepmom and dad store some of their things in my room since I am only home for the summers, so one dad my stepmom knocked on the door and told me she just needed to grab something from the closet really quickly. There was nothing I could do - I had two plastic cups RIGHT ON THE SHELF SHE NEEDED TO GRAB SOMETHING FROM. I hopped out of my seat, and motioned towards her, but what could I do? What could I say? There was nothing that would be suspicious. I'm not sure if she saw it, because it is fairly dark in my closet and the light doesn't reach the shelves. I'm not sure if it smelled or not in my room either. She grabbed what she needed and then left. It was probably the most terrifying experience I had that summer.
Every night I drank my dad's entire bottle of Jameson and refill it with water and yellow food coloring so it had the same tint as the whiskey did in the bottle. I did this only until I went to the liquor store to buy a new bottle as a replacement. This happened almost every night. I would drink his whiskey, refill it and color it, and then go out and buy a new one the next day. I got pretty tight with the guy who worked there. Eventually he asked for my number and asked if he wanted to go on a date with him. (I never did.).
In the second half of the summer, I developed connections with people who dealt quality cocaine. I began to do cocaine again in my room at night. I would binge, purge, drink, do lines of coke to stay awake longer so that I could binge and purge and drink some more. I dicked around on my computer while doing all of this.
One night while I was really drunk, I felt the urge climb onto the roof of my house. In hindsight, this was EXTREMELY dangerous to do while WASTED to the point that I was and if I fell, I would have broken my neck. So I snuck out of the house and snuck through the dark (which is so thrilling to me). I grabbed our latter and set it up next to the side of our house (I was silent as a cat but it was extremely difficult and exhausting. I gingerly climbed up the ladder but near the top I started to tip backwards and grabbed the side of the ladder at the last second and swiftly rebalanced myself. A quick save. I got to to the side of the roof and maneuveed off of the ladder onto the roof (this was probably the scariest part. It was at this point that I became aware of the danger I was in - it wasn't the near-fall that did it.) Our roof is sloped (as are all roofs I guess) and I crawled on all fours like a spider to the apex of our house. As i was going up, I slipped slightly and my wrist dragged down the rough material of the house. I started bleeding. Not gushing, but there was blood running down my hand and dripping off of my wrist. I stopped crawling and laid down on the roof. This is what I set out to accomplish - to lie down with nothing seperating me and the stars. And I lay there staying off into infinity. It was beautiful and there was nothing to be afraid of. It was endless. It was safe. It was comfortable. I was safe. Just me and the stars and the darkness. Soon, I began to feel chilled and made the descent. I tried to do it quickly. I returned the ladder to where it was, in the grass and snuck back into my room. Soon, i fell asleep.
At the end of the summer, I recieved word from my school that I would not be allowed to reenroll. I had not gotten what was considered "adequate treatment" for my eating disorder. My father was furious. Since I was not going back to school, I would have to get a full-time job, take classes at the local community college and go to see a counselor. Otherwise, I could not live there. Seeing that I this was not an option for me, the only other choice I had was to move to a small town in Illinois with my mother and her mother (whom she lived with and cared for in her dying days). I ran off to Denver about the same time my brother left for his junior year of college. I spent my last night in Colorado at an anime convention, raving, snorting golden powder (which was ecstasy) and doing some lines of cocaine off abdomen of a close guy friend of mine and part romantic interest.
I began my journey to Illinois the next day. The idea was for me to go to residential treatment and get the intense therapy that I would need for my eating disorder. For a month, I stayed in limbo, unsure if I wanted to put that financial burden on my grandmother.
I finally went and spent four months at a residential treatment facility in Lemont, Illinois. While I was there, I met Demi Lovato. Kind of cool, I guess. I could say more about residential treatment but I"m not sure I want to. It was pretty.... intense. And I got into a weird relationship with a girl there (which is not allowed and will lead to removal from the program entirely.) I'm sure most of the lodge's BHS's (behavorial health specialists that watched us at all times) knew that there was something going on with me and another girl but never had any evidence to prove it. There was one time where she and I were kissing in the only hidden area of the lodge and one BHS that I particularily liked, rounded the corner. We only heard her at the last moment and quickly pulled away from one another before she actually saw our lips touching. But I think she knew.
Upon being admitted to the residential facility, we were given water bottles, among other little trinkets for our stay. How silly of them. I used the water bottle to throw up into after meal times. Because I didn't need to stick my finger down my throat, I could throw up effortlessly and soundlessly and it would take me less than twenty seconds to do. I kept the water bottle hidden in the tiny space between my bed and wall. When we got bathroom time early in the morning, I would sneak the water bottle into the bathroom and dump it out into the toilet. Everytime I recieved a container of ANY size, I would throw up into it and hide it next to my bed and dump it out the next morning. I threw up into containers the size of a softball or a rubix cube. Very small.Anything to relieve the pressure inside of me.
Also upon being admitted to the facility, I snuck in a small bag of mushrooms I had leftover from the summer. I didn't want to leave it at my mom's house and I didn't want it to go to waste by drying out, so I tucked it behind the plastic lining of my suitcase. I quickly grabbed it after getting strip-searched upon admittance so they wouldn't find it. About one month into my stay, I finally ate the mushrooms and had to go to a therapy appointment that day slightly tripping. I admitted doing this about two months later. My therapist, after the initial shock, said they couldn't do anything about it now, but was glad I told her. Well, she was wrong. They COULD still do something. I was woken up the next morning by the nurse and pschiatrist knocking on my door. They needed to do a search of my room for contraband. I was angry and surprized. And in addition, I had to have it done right then and there. I did not want to stand there and watch them search so I just left and went to the common room as four of the lodge staff went through everything in my room. Unfortunately I was lazy that day and did not think to empty my water bottle full of "purge" (as one of the staff members referred to it as). They also found my cell phone, which, to my defense, they never took away from me and it was dead anyway (phones are contraband as well). They ALSO found random pills in my dresser which I accidentally had in some of my stuff I brought to treatment. I didn't know it was there and I didn't know it got past the BHS's who admitted me.
I didn't get kicked out or anything but I had a LOT of privileges revoked. I couldn't leave the lodge for a week. I couldn't do anything. I had to stay in sight of the staff members at all times. It was horrible. I wanted to walk to the dining lodge with everyone else. But I had to stay on-lodge with the other "trouble-makers" and the girls who "acted out."
(I'm done for now. To be continued, I guess...)
