A Sound That My Brain Makes
“It is not a sudden leap from sick to well. It is a slow, strange meander from sick to mostly well. The misconception that eating disorders are a medical disease in the traditional sense is not helpful here. The is no “cure.” A pill will not fix it, though it may help. Ditto therapy, ditto endless support from family and friends. You fix it yourself. It is the hardest thing that I have ever done, and I found myself stronger for doing it. Much stronger.”
“Though I felt gigantic, I wasn’t. It was not the first time I mistook the feeling for the object, and not the last. This is what happens when you give your body away, or when it gets taken from you. Its physical form becomes impossible to see because your eyes are no longer the expert. Your body is no longer a body but a perceived distance from what a body should be, a condition of never being correct, because being is incorrect. Virtue lies only in the interminable act of erasing yourself.”
You miss many calls when your phone is on silent. By you, I mean me. By phone I mean my brain. By silent I mean a muffle, a whisper existing behind a noise. By noise I mean a voice like drums playing in the musty basement by some angsty teenager—loud, burdensome, immutable. By voice I mean the sound that my brain makes when it feels unsafe. By sound that my brain makes I mean that singular obsession that has dictated the majority of my life’s trajectory. By singular obsession I mean that thing I have with my body. By thing I have with my body I mean the Eating Disorder that ate away at much of my life like a Pac Man in an arcade game.
The entirety of my adult life has been overshadowed by this somewhat fatal obsession. I was brought up in a society and environment that turned gaunt and skeletal women into inspirational, goddess-like creatures meant for worship--- that taught me that not-needing to be fed was a virtue. It taught me that hunger for food, for life even—those sorts of innate human desires were the sign of weakness, were the sign of flaw, were the sign of failure. The women I looked up to were the ones with perfect bodies. The ones who exemplified obscene amounts of self-control, who inhabit these levels of restriction which are so severe that their bones made an appearance beneath thin layers of skin. Their withering was a pedestal. Their suffering was applauded. I, on the other hand, thought myself of an insatiable beast teetering the fine line of excess versus need, fighting by the second the whims of my human compulsions.
Yet I missed so many calls with my attention on my food scale, the size of my jeans, what I ate today, what I ate yesterday, what I will eat tomorrow, how many inches of skin or fatty tissue circles the curvature of my hips, the small of my back, the tops of my thighs. Eating Disorders are a phenomena of energy, of obsession, a centrifugal force of black holes to cope with life when life feels like too much. But when you can’t see the call of life, you also miss the call of the paths that life carves for you. An Eating Disorder is noise cancelling headphones when life is begging for your momentum. It’s stifling. A dead end.
A childhood friend of mine was in this same chokehold as me, but hers swept her away before mine did. In high school by the time we reached senior year, she was a disappearing act, slowly slithering away, her bones becoming pronounced, a token of human decay. I should have known at the time that my jealousy of her shrinkage was the pre-curser, a foreshadowing of what was to come. I’d sneak around her room when we had sleepovers, in between the passing around a bottle of vodka poured into a water bottle, and check the size of her jeans when she went to the bathroom. I’d feel the incompetence when seeing that they were smaller than mine. I’d bring cupcakes to class to test her discipline, where she would say No at my offerings, her lips in a tight line, avoiding eye contact. I’d shrug and eat the cupcake, despite her rejection. And yet I had felt compulsive. A creature without discipline, at the whim of my own gluttony. I stashed her behaviors in my brain for later. I took notes on her practices for a later time, for when I’d need them.
Years later we lived together in a tiny shoebox apartment in San Francisco, on the corner of Sutter and Jones, steps away from downtown and Union Square, in the center of the city. Despite being in the middle of the hustle, it had become our refuge with its original 1912 crown molding, claw foot tub, a rustic exposed-brick kitchen. I’m standing there amongst the brick, weighing chicken. She walks into the kitchen, stopping. A death gaze in her eye. She speaks to me like a sister, without compassion, with annoyance, with a tone of voice that was the exact opposite of what could be deemed as effective.
“This is triggering,” she says.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” I counter.
“You have an Eating Disorder, Amanda.”
“I definitely do not have an Eating Disorder, Julie.”
She stands there, intensely peering at me, without breaking eye contact. I mirror her. She had been in recovery for years, and she saw right through me. Deep down, I knew there was some truth to what she was saying. But denial is blinding, and there was still not a flinch to be found on my face. I think about the chicken. I’m annoyed. I’m not sure if it was 4 ounces. Maybe it was 5? I’d have to weigh it again. For the love of God Julie, leave me in peace with my scale. This shit is tedious enough as it is.
She eventually gives up on our standoff and storms out of the kitchen, the swinging door creaking and her footsteps echoing as they move into her room.
I did not have an Eating Disorder. I had discipline. Don’t you know something about discipline, Julie? How about that cupcake I offered you senior year?
As a child I’d eat candy with gumption, schmearing a gooey Reeses with obscene amounts of peanut butter added on top, the chocolatey outside oozing onto my fingers, where I’d gulp down milk between bites, and lick the residue off my fingers, one by one. I’d do the same practice with Oreos. I’d smother them in creamy Jiff, inhaling them in the same ritual of milk between bites, crumbs trickling away out the sides of my mouth.
I’d go over to my best friends’ house, where I’d shovel rice and beans into my mouth with abandonment, and other ethnic creature comforts her Cuban mother would prepare. In the company of her vivacious, curvy and hip swinging family, my appetite was applauded. Her family would joke around and ask me if my parents fed me. The thing was, my parents fed me. I wasn’t being starved by any means. That was never the problem. Some members of my household unintentionally had a knack for making me terrified of my hunger, often making fun of my curvy, Cuban best friend for the baby fat she still held in her cheeks and on her developing body. She was often the runt of their jokes, their subliminal messaging that carrying any extra weight or curve or even having an appetite was deemed “unlovable”.
If my mother saw me gorge on this peanut buttery treats and concoctions, she’d say to me in a sing-songy voice that one day your metabolism will slow down and you won’t be able to eat like this forever, and it will eventually catch up to you. I’d look upon the future with dread. I’d dread the day when food was not free, and my hunger was a nuisance. I’d ask her why models have to be tall and skinny as I’d strut down the hallway, hands on my hips, feet placed directly in front of another, knowing I’m too short and athletic to walk down any runway. “Because clothes look better on models who are tall and skinny.”
Sometime before the road of my struggles began, I forget that at one point-- I actually felt alright. What I mean by that is I ate when I was hungry. I stopped when I was full. It’s so fucking simple, for the majority of you. Eating Disorders have a way of making this complicated--the simplicity of being aware of the most basic human needs is negated. It does not exist. But back then, food was just food. Exercise was this thing I just did because I loved to skate. If I wanted a cookie, I ate it. If I needed rest, I took it.
I can’t really pin-point the place where the Eating Disorder began. There’s no sudden realization or concrete explanation for why it happens, for why it stays, and where I put my true Self in the process of losing her. It would have been nice to have a memory or a trauma, something catastrophic to hold onto, something finite to hold. I want one. You want one. But there isn’t one.
The pieces of this complicated, perplexing and mysterious puzzle of cause and effect come in a box that is my life. Like Ikea furniture. Disassembled. Daunting to open. Directions unclear, maybe some parts missing. However there comes a point where you get sick of looking at the box. Whatever furniture that exists inside of it is begging to be assembled. Begging for functionality. Begging to work as it should. This should probably happen sooner than later, as it can’t rot in the hall closet forever.
Yet when you’re in the thick of it, you don’t care how much easier life will be once your books have a new place to live—inside this functional and practical new Ikea bookshelf. You forget what functionality feels like. You actually don’t really give a shit about functionality, period. You’re purely driven and motivated by appearances.
You forget what it means to live. You forget about you. You forget how it feels to feel okay. You forget what fullness feels like. You forget that there was a time when you didn’t feel like shit all the time. Where your skin was clear, where your throat wasn’t raw, where your stomach didn’t pang or when you had a proper period. Where you slept through the night, not being woken up by something within you sobbing: unclear whether it’s the stomach-- or the soul.
The sick thing is, I still miss her sometimes. The voice. Her. ED. Eating Disorder. She filled deafening silences with her obsessing. She held my hands in the deep and often unbearable solitude, through the pangs of loneliness. She had a purpose, and she knew it. I miss that feeling of being at her mercy, on my knees, her taunting me. Telling me that I’m fat and I should eat a little less, run a few miles, and stay away from that jar of way-too-calorie-dense peanut butter. She told me what to do. She had answers. She was a guidepost. An instruction manual. If I was lost, she knew where to go. I looked at her in times of desperation, because she was always there. I could count on her in a way that I couldn’t count on anyone else. She loved me in a sick way, and I loved her too.
At some point, like all toxic relationships, like all means of comfort that can kill you, you know deep down that dying is not the road to take. Whether I was alive and breathing or not, parts of me were dying. Eating Disorders are a slow death, a voluntary suicide in the sickest of ways.
The day before I succumbed to help, I had lunch. A muffin. And a croissant. These pastries to satiate me, only to be removed, eventually, from my system entirely. I paced back and forth in my room, to and from the mirror, turning sideways, seeing if these buttery, calorically packed, fatty nourishments had taken their effect. I weighed myself. By the minute. I gained a pound. I could not gain another pound. Back to the mirror. Back to the scale. At some point I crouched down, placed my hands over my ears and screamed at my brain to STOP. I tried to fight it. I tried to keep it all down. I did. To listen to my body and not the voice telling me to rid of it. But back then fullness was unbearable. I had found more comfort in my emptiness, in my insatiable, rather than satiable. I had lost the fight, like I had many times before. It was my foul fixation. My nasty habit. My filthy urge.
I get up from the bathroom floor, rinse my mouth, clear my raw, vulnerable throat. I look up and meet my gaze. My eyes red, blood shot. I wipe underneath them, clutching the bathroom counter, looking away from the eyes looking back at me. I turn sideways. Lift up my shirt. There, there. That’s better. I’d wish I could look like this all the time. The look of emptiness, and that feeling of being emptied that came along with it. The clean slate of not having food in my belly. I turn back to face myself and make eye contact with the girl who looks back at me. I don’t recognize her. I don’t want to. She is repulsive. She could lose a few pounds. I again make eye contact with this piece of unwanted flesh, the one who would obsess over every morsel of food that was consumed, deciding whether or not I should keep it in my body, or purge.
Later that afternoon, I’m romping around at the beach in my bikini. I get complimented on my abs. I get asked how I maintain them. I stop for a second. I do not want to tell why. I don’t want to admit that I am disgusting. I want to tell this innocent complimenter that I am in jail. That it’s not worth it.
The abs are not worth it.
Recently a friend of mine connected me to an 18-year-old who has an Eating Disorder, holding her by its death grip, and we met on the beach to talk for 3 hours before she moved to a recovery center on Maui. Her story paralleled mine, and it was like talking to myself at my moment of surrender. At the moment where I admitted that I did in fact, have a problem.
We sat together on the beach, staring at the ocean.
She asked me if recovery is possible. I said yes.
She asked me if it’s worth it. I said yes.
She asked me how, and I tried to answer her.
She sends me text messages, almost daily as she recovers. She asks me how to deal with re-feeding and gaining weight.
I’m stunned because I don’t necessarily know how to answer her. I didn’t know how to deal with these struggles when I was in her position. For every pound I gained, I’d try to come up with plans to lose two more. It was always this resistance. It was always this pattern. I don’t tell her this, but I want to.
Instead, I tell her to cultivate safety. I ask her what that feels like. I ask her what happens within herself when she feels safe. I ask her how she can come back to that feeling. I ask her how she can come back to herself. I tell her to put a hand on her heart, a hand on her belly and to repeat “I’m safe”, a mantra, on repeat. “Say it until you feel crazy,” I tell her. I take a deep breath. I press “send”.
I don’t tell her I cry every time I give her advice. I don’t tell her that oftentimes the things I tell her are always poignant reminders to myself. I don’t tell her that sometimes our issues and our voices with our bodies are like cartoon characters flattened on a road by a semi, then blowing up again and back on their feet, following us whether we go. A haunting. A ghost.
I then follow my own advice. I put a hand on my heart, another on my belly.
I’m safe.
I often think about the life I have wasted in the confines of this mental illness. I think about the years I have lost. The life I can’t get back.
When I eventually got help, I put together the Ikea furniture that is my life. I sit on the floor, legs crossed, tears streaming down my face. Frustrated with the missing parts. Agitated with these unclear, annoying directions. Can I just hire someone to do this for me? Isn’t there an app for that?
It is often said that there is no beginning, middle or end to recovery. It’s a constant dance, a constant voice. The volume of the voice, that’s what recovery means. It means lessening the magnitude in which the Eating Disorder speaks, so it eventually becomes a whisper. An echo. A voice softly drifting away in the trade wind breeze. Turning the volume down requires a necessary dissection of the inner world. The cobwebs of beliefs, of micro traumas, of paper cuts and gashes. Eating Disorder recovery is nuanced; it’s both a sickness of the mind and the body. Through recovery, my body is healing but I’ve also touched the truth of my soul, the part that knows better.
That part that knows that fullness is not just a feeling, but a way to live a life.