with mixed vegetables with no sauce. I would savor each bite I took. Even the blandest dish tasted like heaven to my starved palate.
I liked eating my one meal in private because I could take my time and really savor each bite. After I was done, I would still have a twinge of hunger in my tummy, and that would make me feel satisfied. I would play soccer every day after school, and while I was running, I wouldn’t only think about being the best on the field, I would think about all the calories burned, and about how when I sweated, my stomach skin would get cold. Someone told me that meant you were burning calories, so I would always feel my stomach for that coldness and smile a little when I touched it.
I decided to stop pretending to be a cool, normal girl. Normal? I could laugh at the fact that people actually believed that farce. Normal people don’t think about ways to lose weight 24/7. Normal people don’t have to study into the early morning to keep up. Why should I even try to fit in? It was making me stand out and be noticed in ways that I didn’t feel ready for—like my daylong bogus relationship and comments about my cool clothes, which made people take notice of what I believed to be a not-good-enough body. Plus, caring about my clothes and makeup wasn’t me. I was over pretending. I didn’t know what me was, but I was trying too hard to be something I wasn’t, and it was getting tiring. I started wearing baggy sweatpants again (let’s be real, comfort always mattered more than style to this girl) and tossed my makeup. Every day after school, while girls made plans to go to the mall or head to each other’s houses to do their homework, I went straight home, put on my back brace for my bad posture, which I hadn’t told a soul about, not even Elizabeth, and did my homework alone.
“Why don’t you hang out with us anymore?” Elizabeth asked between classes in the hallway one afternoon.
“I don’t know. Just been busy,” I mused, then changed the subject. “So, my darlin’, in more important news, what’s going on with you and Robert?” I gave her a nudge with my elbow.
“Well, we were at this party, playing spin the bottle…”
Worked like a charm. Deflection, deflection, deflection.
Going home alone also allowed me to avoid the after-shopping group trip for Chinese food at Tea Garden, where I used to get sesame chicken. There was no way I could eat that anymore, with its sugary sauce and pools of oil. It was hard enough to make excuses about lunch. If I stayed with the group, how would I skip what had been my favorite dish? That deep-fried and battered chicken that had once made me salivate now made me want to gag.
The girls were changing anyway and not for the better. Boys, parties, and material things seemed to take priority over anything, friendship included. Those topics were bullshit to me, and I preferred to spend time alone then be bothered with it. Looking back, I would have felt this way anywhere I went to school. There are good people and bad people everywhere, especially at that impressionable age when people are discovering who they are—and simply put, baa—kids become sheep and are easily swayed in their opinions, sometimes doing the wrong things just to fit in. I wasn’t comfortable with what they were about, but I also wasn’t sure what I was about either. I couldn’t handle the bad kids—the kids who were mean and made fun of other kids—and most of the good kids were like me: shy, unsure of themselves, quiet. I couldn’t navigate and find my own friends while dismissing the mean girls around me.
That’s why I decided I’d rather focus on things I could control: my diet, sports, and schoolwork. That’s what truly made me happy, or at least protected me by keeping me safe from experiences and people that could potentially hurt me. For the rest of seventh and eighth grade, I lived like this—waking up from anxiety-ridden nightmares about heading to high school, where things were sure to get lonelier and much more complicated.
My fears were right. When high school began, I was left with soccer, homework, and my eating disorder—the only friend I could trust, the only friend I could count on, and the only thing I could control.
FULL Life, September 2013
“Are you feeling better?” my dad asked as I entered our shared office. I saw the big fish hanging on his wall. My grandpa had caught it many years ago, and it had been hanging there ever since, back when he and my dad shared this same office. I stared at its majestic dark blue fins and light blue scales—Such a nice contrast, I thought.
I work with my father running a fleet of taxicabs. My great-grandfather started the business, my grandpa and dad each helped build and expand it, and I am the fourth generation and the first female to come in and help run the show. Following in my dad’s footsteps was what I had wanted to do since I was twelve, even before I knew what his job entailed. All I knew for certain was that I wanted to “take care of my entire family,” like I had seen my grandpa and father do.
“Better, thanks,” was my reply after coming back from my little brain tangent. “I am just having a sad feeling day.” I paused, trying to clarify what that means. “Just not feeling great.” I took off my black winter jacket and hung it on the back of my chair. I sat down, making myself comfortable at my desk.
“I know. I’m glad you came in, though. I need a lot of help here,” he said, scrolling through his emails. He knew I should get out of bed, and that’s why he’d made such a stink about my not being in the office that morning. He did it because he was afraid to leave me alone and depressed again after everything that had happened.
“I feel better now after I forced myself up,” I said, trying to make him feel better. Also, it was kind of true. I felt better after getting my shit together, forcing myself out of bed, brushing my teeth, attempting to brush through the thick knots of my kinky hair, getting fresh air. It all helped to some degree.
“Good,” he replied, and turned back to his emails.
I decided to write a post to help other people who may have felt like I did:
Some days when every flaw on your body and face becomes detectible. Some days when you feel insecure and anxious. Some days, you want to close your eyes, go back into bed, and pull the blanket over your head. Some days when you are forced to do something out of your comfort zone which is everything, besides the warmth of your blanket, seeming so convenient and safe at the moment. Some days when you have these destructive feelings about yourself invading your body—penetrating your soul. Try to remember you are a visual representation of how you feel on the inside, not what you see on the outside. Get out of bed, smile. Laugh at your original self-doubt and conquer the world. You will feel better and maybe even beautiful despite yourself.
Now it was time to get to work. I had a ton to do
“Here it goes. Today, I conquer my work; tomorrow, I conquer the world,” I said under my breath, knowing that everything was going to be okay. I had taken the hardest step. I got out of bed.
Chapter 3
Hello, Bulimia
My premonitions about high school were spot-on. Elizabeth kept on having fun, flirting, and making new friends, while I spent the first two years wrapped in my schoolwork, soccer, and, most of all, dieting. Strangely, I never knew how much I weighed. I feared the scale because I knew it could trigger a downward spiral. Not being under one hundred pounds would be a disaster, so why torture myself? I was a pragmatic anorexic.
Once in a while, I would slip and eat more than I should, and when I say more than I should, I mean I would stuff anything in sight down my throat. Then, feeling horrified, self-hating, and completely out of control, I would try to throw it all up, but I couldn’t. I would gag over the toilet until my throat hurt and my eyes were teary. Slamming the toilet seat in
