engulfed in my eating patterns and rituals than ever before. A lot of it had to do with my vow, but also with the fact that I hated my new camp. Elizabeth had switched camps to one that was coed and supposedly more down to earth, with kids from all over the country, not just the Tri-State Area. Of course, I’d followed her. Also, in the old camp, more and more girls in my age group were becoming more materialistic. It was a fancy camp, and what clothing brands you wore and how boys responded to them at socials mattered more than people’s personalities. Material things never mattered to me. Look, I grew up in an environment where I became acutely aware of nice things and even brands (guess I am a byproduct of where I came from in some ways), but I never base anyone’s value on having those items. I also never needed or wanted those things; they were just always around me, so I became attuned to them. So even though I befriended a nice group of girls, I still found myself feeling more and more homesick for Mom and Dad. I thought trying something new, maybe a new environment, would be the cure. I was wrong.
Unfortunately, the new camp wasn’t any better for me. My homesickness was at a magnitude of 9.5 on the Richter scale (meaning whoa high like the Great Chilean earthquake of 1960) and dieting became my only reprieve. I’d stopped eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when I became aware that peanut butter was fattening. So it was jelly only, on whole-wheat bread. Maybe that was the giveaway. One of my counselors noticed my food peculiarities and reported me to the head of the camp. Thereafter, my counselor was instructed to watch over me to make sure I ate every fattening morsel on my plate. It was humiliating, because my bunkmates knew why I was being monitored. At the time, our bunk was split into two groups—the new campers and the old campers (think West Side Story’s rivalry between the Jets and Sharks)—and the old campers would whisper and snicker to each other about my eating problem.
Each bite I took was a mouthful of shame and worthlessness. To help keep my weight up, my mom sent protein bars to the infirmary, where I was sent after each breakfast to be forced to eat one and then get weighed. Again, at dinner, I was forced to eat my entire meal, followed by a second trip to the infirmary for my second protein bar.
When visiting day arrived, I only had one thing on my mind: my escape.
“Please take me home, I hate it here,” I begged, eyes swollen from crying.
What was the point of being at camp if: (a) The camp was all “hippy dippy” and “kumbaya” with no focus on sports, and (b) I couldn’t lose weight anymore; in fact, with the amount they were making me eat, I was bound to gain weight. I repeat, gain weight. And, in my distorted mind, I didn’t have a pound to spare. Yes, as Queen Bee (Beyoncé) would say, ring the alarms! I needed to get out of this hellhole like yesterday. I needed to go home.
“But Dan, you love camp. I think you just miss us, and we miss you too, but this is where you will have more fun,” my mom said, as she wiped the tears off my face with a tissue she pulled out of her tote.
“No…” I tried to find the words to explain, voice breaking. It was so much more than just homesickness. They were making me shamefully eat in front of my peers, stand on a scale and see my weight rise, and pointing out my problem for all to gawk at. Until now, my eating patterns had been my private secret—or at least no one had confronted me about them, trying to help me by counteracting all of my hard work.
“Dan, you have your best friend here. At home, you will have nothing to do,” my mom countered.
I stood there speechless, tears falling onto my hair and soaking the top of my T-shirt, nose leaking into my mouth.
Then Elizabeth—who, being my polar-opposite best friend, normally didn’t get emotional—interrupted our conversation, taking my hand.
“Dani needs to go home,” she said, her blue eyes filling with tears. “She’s miserable here. Please take her home.”
That must have been enough to show my parents that this was serious, that it was more than just homesickness.
With that, we packed up all my belongings and were off. Nothing more was said about it, at least until we got home. Then my mom was all over me, peering around every bend with her snooping eyes:
“Dani, is that all you are eating?” “Dani, what are you doing for dinner?” “Dani, is that enough?” “Dani, please let me make something for you.” Kill me.
Oh, and if I wasn’t embarrassed enough about having a tutor for my processing issue, it was because I was never told I’d have to start seeing a therapist. Never, that is, until now. That’s the confirmation I needed to prove that I was a total wack job. Mom, not being familiar enough with eating disorders to realize what was going on, was worried about my anxiety issues and why I was so unhappy at camp.
“Dan, I found a therapist for you and I am taking you to your first appointment tomorrow.”
“Okay.” I was so happy they’d let me come home, and I didn’t want to ruffle feathers. If it made her feel a little more at ease and kept her off my back, I was completely okay with said shrink for said wacko.
While previously my weight had gone up during the school year, then down at camp, then up again by fall’s end, this time I kept to my diet, and I was heading into seventh grade skinnier than when I had been rescued from camp in July. What differed is that this time I went into the camp experience with a poor body image triggered by my perfectionism, rather than homesickness. Homesickness can be left behind at camp. These new problems? Not so much.
In late August, when Elizabeth got home, my mom and I met with her and her mom for lunch. I ordered my staple favorite to appease my mom: chicken fingers with French fries. When the order came, everyone dove into their food while I carefully picked at the chicken fingers, trying to get beneath the fried batter to the white meat, while I quarantined my fries to the edge of my plate.
“Dani, stop this, and eat your fries. You like them!” my mother ordered.
You know when someone holds their breath to the point where they feel a head rush, and then they finally exhale—panting and breathing maniacally? Well, she basically couldn’t hold her tongue anymore, which led to an explosion of words: “What are you doing to yourself? You don’t need to lose another pound. What do you want to do, disappear?”
Actually, I never considered that, but maybe—disappearing sounded so magical, like poof and abracadabra, then you are gone…no more worries. How blissful.
Elizabeth and her mom looked at me like I had five heads, six limbs, and acne on every inch of my skin. But that didn’t worry me as much as the fact that I had made my mom mad. I grabbed the dinkiest fry from the banished pile and ate it. That was honestly the best I could do.
“Look, I am eating, are you happy?” I whispered, trying to shift the attention elsewhere by being discreet and quiet, making light of what she’d just brought to the attention of the entire freaking table—thanks, Mom! Mindset: if I brush it off, they will too. Yes, discretion. Clearly my mom wasn’t familiar with that concept.
Elizabeth’s mom was an extremely healthy eater, or at least a dieting pro. In fact, she was quite helpful simply by example. By observing what she ate, I had learned that French fries were in the “bad food” category, something I’d never considered before. I learned what “good” foods and “bad” foods were, according to Diet 101, Elizabeth’s Mom Edition, at least. “Good” foods were any type of steamed and plain or “dry” fish and chicken, salad with no dressing, vegetables cooked without oil, and egg whites. The “bad” foods were basically too numerous to
