your mind and soul with good thoughts and foods. It’s a life without your eating disorder. With our eating disorders, we are empty of opportunity, growth, challenge, and possibility. Living a full life means filling up our lives again with immense potential, happiness, and achievement.
It’s a life where you make mistakes, and you are not hard on yourself for those mistakes. A life where you are self-aware enough to go against your negative thoughts and outside your comfort zone and are able to make healthy decisions. It’s a life where you are able to nourish your body and soul with nutritious and delicious foods, and fuck it, if you want dessert, you are going to have it and not think twice. A life where you can beat your eating disorder at its own game of shame, guilt, and manipulation and realize that life isn’t a losing battle. Your battle is just a small part of you; it doesn’t define you. Once you beat it and own it, so you are held accountable to yourself and others about that struggle, you will become immensely stronger and well on your way to being full.
This book is that journey.
Chapter 2
Hello, Anorexia
Just as the doctor had predicted, back home in the fall, everything went back to normal. I was eating without limitations and with variety again and got back to a normal weight: a weight approved by all adult parties. The weight gain didn’t bother me all that much. I was at home, surrounded by sameness and by people I loved. The soothing effect of starving was no longer necessary.
But once I got to sixth grade, that need to control would come back with a vengeance, and my parents being around would not be enough to keep the ED voice at bay. You can’t silence me forever. Actually, voice, yes I can, but I wasn’t quite there yet…
With the change of schools from elementary to middle school, and the quadrupling of my class size, nothing was predictable anymore.
Elizabeth was already dieting, munching on baggies of celery and slices of fat-free Kraft Singles while the other kids gobbled up trays of greasy cafeteria pizza. This confused me, as I thought she was gorgeous already, with her long straight brown hair and feline cheekbones, but her mom was the kind of health nut who thought yogurt was a proper dessert, so I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised.
In many ways, Elizabeth and I were opposites. Elizabeth was naturally bright, even though she chose not to apply herself, while I had to study very hard in order to get the As I craved. That’s because, when I was in third grade, I was diagnosed with a processing problem, meaning it took me a little longer to absorb information than most students. I remember that conversation very well.
“Your dad and I were talking, and we think…. Well, what I am trying to say is maybe you could use some extra help.” My mom paused, fiddling with her fingers trying to find the right words. I saw they weren’t coming easily to her—maybe she could have used some extra help for that. Come on, was this really so embarrassing to talk about that she couldn’t even find the words? Apparently. “We decided to hire a tutor to help you with your reading comprehension.”
“Why? Do you think I am stupid?”
Of course she thinks you’re stupid.
“Of course not, Dani. We just don’t like to see you struggling, and this could make school easier for you.”
You are struggling because you are a complete idiot.
From that moment on, “You’re a failure” became an internal mantra: Why couldn’t I be as smart as everyone else? Why did I have to work twice as hard to do just as well?
My tutor was my secret, my processing issue was a taboo subject, and I made it my mission to study extra hard to camouflage what I believed to be my natural stupidity. I learned how to work around my processing problem in class by becoming a speedy and precise note-taker. Frankly, I was hardly listening, just writing everything down, knowing I’d go home and study it all slowly. My classmates noticed, and I’d get calls at home asking to copy my homework or to look at my notes. Sometimes twenty calls a night. My mom threatened to pick up and tell the kid off, but I’d secretly call back and give the answers. I knew I was being used, but I liked to be needed. I was pleased to be so good at something that people took notice. They needed me, and, if they were going to like me, hell, my inner people-pleaser would help them, their mother, and their dog too, if he would lick my face in the midst of tail wagging (you get it, I’d help anyone—animals and humans alike—if they would give me some positive reinforcement.)
So I continued to take studying and school very seriously, while Elizabeth was off having fun, because she could. While I was busy fielding questions about the social studies homework, Elizabeth was flitting about a new kind of social event: boy/girl parties. The kind of parties where kids drank. Once, I went with her, and watched with fascination as she placed the edge of a beer bottle cap on top of a table, holding the neck of the bottle tight, and used her other hand to slam down on the bottle as the cap went flying off. How did she even know how to do that? I still slept with stuffed animals and collected antique Snoopys as a hobby.
“Want a sip?” Elizabeth asked, after taking a long chug.
“No, thanks,” I said, backing up so much I tripped over a multi-colored beanbag love chair behind me and fell next to a boy-and-girl duo flirting, teasing each other, and touching. The boy rubbed the girl’s back, leaning against the beanbag—that now had me on it too. I tried to gather my wits while interrupting their intense chitchatting. They started giggling as I grazed one of their Solo cups, catching it before it fell, joining in on their laughter because, in that embarrassing moment, my nerves got the best of me. Heck, what else was I supposed to do?
I felt like Alice forgetting Tweedledee and Tweedledum were alive, because, gosh, those flirters looked like waxworks at that moment—they got so still after our awkward laughing session. Kill me now was the only thought I could muster.
“Suit yourself,” Elizabeth whispered under her breath as she walked toward a group of older boys—eighth graders—leaving me to recover from my own clumsiness.
“Thanks for helping me up, Lizzie!” I muttered, apologizing to the flirters while pulling myself up and planning my exit from boy/girl party hell. But, despite her rudeness, I was in awe of her. I could never have that self-confidence and ease around people. That cool way of being that seemed to come so naturally to her. That was the first and last party I ever went to with her.
Despite our differences, I loved Elizabeth like a sister, and I envied her edginess and rebellious nature. I loved sports, while she liked theater and art. I called her my “artsy-fartsy” friend. She liked makeup and boys and, during our play dates, she would stare at herself in the mirror, applying different colored lipsticks while jabbering about which boys in our grade were hot. I did have crushes too, only I was too shy to speak to them unless I was playing sports, baseball cap backward on my head, ready to kick their asses! Elizabeth already had boyfriends. I actually spied on her first kiss; it was outside my house by a rock I would later dub the kissing rock, which was hidden at the edge of my family’s property. It was famous as a make-out spot for Lizzie as she took all her boyfriends there throughout our years as friends. In addition to her straight dark brown hair and dark blue eyes (a killer combination), she was slim and tall. Plus, she developed early, and was already a C-cup by sixth grade. That lucky bitch, I thought.
Walking into school with Elizabeth, I felt like her furry little pet. “Woof woof,” I imagined students barking at me as I passed. “No treats, please, I’m watching my figure,” I’d say back. And as if to seal my furry-pet status, kids called me Fluffy, on account of my kinky brown hair. It was humiliating. Every time I heard it, my eyes would
