religious
historical/literary
Thoughts on love
The best and worst days
Oh, God of dust and rainbows, help us see
That without dust the rainbow would not be.
--Langston Hughes
Late at night on Thanksgiving Day, 1997, I crouched behind a row of pine trees about twenty yards behind my house. I had just eaten a large, festive Thanksgiving meal, complete with deviled eggs and turkey and three kinds of pie. But somehow that food had morphed into poison within my stomach, a poison that sat there and made my stomach ache and my mind recoil in disgust. Running up and down the street had not purged the feeling from my body, and now I knelt in the damp grass. Angry tears filled my eyes, disgusted with myself for what I was about to do. But I knew it was going to happen. With trembling hands I stuck a finger down my throat, forcing myself to gag up the life-giving food that I somehow perceived as harmful. Finally, after about five minutes of retching, I sat back on the lawn and cried, fully understanding the one-way train I had just stepped aboard.
It started when I was twelve. Unaware of the weight I'd been gaining, I went to the doctor for a regular check-up. What I found was that in the past two years I had gained twenty pounds. That's a lot for a little girl who wasn't quite 5 foot. Suddenly aware that I was overweight, I went on my first diet the summer before seventh grade. This first hasty decision put me on a rollercoaster that I remained on, sometimes just coasting, other times going down at break-neck speed.
My obsession to be thin took over my entire life. It controlled me from seventh to eighth grade. In the morning, when I stepped on the scale, if my weight had gone down, my day was good. If it had gone up or stayed the same, my mood was tense and angry.
Starving myself wasn't a long-term solution, though. I loved to eat. Within a few months the sights and smells of food drove me crazy. My resistance broke (for I was really only a child) and I slowly gave in to eating whatever my heart desired. For the next two years I ate reluctantly, allowing this food to enter my body because I lacked the willpower to do anything else.
I struggled with these feeling throughout high school. But on Thanksgiving day I relinquished my control by making myself throw up. I didn't throw up again for several months, but I slowly began to starve myself. I felt like I was in a tiny little room that was getting smaller and smaller at the same time that I was getting bigger. Little comments hurt. Sitting at the table for dinner, as I reached for the tongs to get another helping of spaghetti, my in-sensitive twelve-year-old brother said, "Her arm jiggles when she moves just like Sis. Silver's."
My response was to put my fork down and abandon my food. How gross I must be! 'Gross' was the word I used to describe how I felt. I couldn't say, "I feel fat"; that was too incriminating. So I said, "I feel gross." It was my own little euphemism.
So I went on a diet. At first I told myself it wouldn't be so bad. As long as I didn't make myself throw up, I was only on a diet. I just wanted to lose a little weight. And I did. My weight dropped from 112 pounds to 106 pounds. But instead of fulfilling my desire, this only made it worse. I didn't want to be 106 pounds when I could be 100 pounds. So I pushed myself just a little more. I set my limits and made myself stop there. First it was a 1000-calorie limit, with the expected deviation of about 200 calories. But when my weight quit dropping, that wasn't low enough. So I chopped off another 100 calories. And so it continued, till my daily allotment was about 100 calories. On the outside, I made it look easy. If I kept up the facade that this was no big deal to me, I almost started to believe it. But all the time, I was hungry. I sat at lunch and counted my friends' chips as they went into their mouths, wishing I could have just one. I looked forward to the days when I would give myself 300 extra calories. Oh, those were great days! So many more things I could eat with that many calories! It was the one day a week when I could have a candy bar, only never all of it. Eat half now, savor every little bite, and save the rest for next week. That way it meant more to me.
By not allowing myself to eat, I gained a euphoric high. Dieting was a drug to me. I was in charge. If I could control my eating, I could do anything. I felt like a marathon runner, and the finish line was in sight.
This feeling of triumph rarely lasted long, though. There was always that feeling hovering in the back of my mind, dark and sinister, mocking me. My only defense was to rid myself of the culprit: food. I did this either by running, exercising, throwing-up, or some other form of self-abuse. I began to despise my body and curse the shape I was given.
My only ally was my friend Paulo. For some reason, I felt that I could rely on him. Though we never talked about it, he knew how I saw myself and how I perceived food. One day around Christmas time, Paulo and I went to the mall, looking for Christmas presents for my family. We passed the GNC (General Nutrition Center) on our way to another little store, and the scale inside caught my eye. While Paulo was busy looking at gifts, I said I was going to go look around the corner. Away from his watchful glance (for I knew he would not allow me anywhere near a scale), I hurried to the GNC. I quickly removed a quarter and stepped on the scale. To my great dismay, it said I weighed 98 pounds--four pounds more than the scale at home said.
Right around that time, Paulo came into the store. I managed to step away from the scale before he saw me, and I casually walked over to him. He eyed me suspiciously and asked, "What are you doing here?" I shrugged nonchalantly and we walked out of the store. I might have even gotten away with it, too, except that I couldn't keep my mouth shut. With deep agony I suddenly waved the little piece of paper at him and said, "It says I weigh 98 pounds."
Paulo got so angry at me. He looked at me and exclaimed, "How stupid! Those machines don't know anything! I can't believe you did that!"I hardly heard his indignant words as I poured over the slip of paper the scale had printed for me, and then I announced, "It says I weigh six pounds less than I should for my build and height." In the middle of his tyrannical yelling, Paulo switched tunes. He said, "It says that? See? You should listen to that! You don't weigh enough! Even that stupid machine knows it!?" I looked at him and thought it was funny, that he should agree with whichever side was against me.
I was looking for something, but I couldn't find it. I craved this something the way a starving person craves food. I searched for it in everyone I met, and I felt betrayed and let down when I didn't find it. I didn't think my friends loved me very much. But I didn't really blame them, because I didn't feel worth anyone's time or affection anyway. Somehow, people can never be what we want them to be. There is only one person who can always be there for us, and I had forgotten about Him. I fell into despair. I quit seeking help and I quit expecting God to listen to me. I hated myself and was ashamed to admit to my God that I had become something horrible. I no longer felt worthy to even admit I still believed; I still needed Him. I still prayed, but not with the expectation of getting an answer; I prayed out of desperation.
The bulimia became worse. I hated to make myself throw up. I knew when that happened there was no way I could deny that something was very wrong. However, it became too hard to just not eat. Even eating an apple or some pieces of broccoli would bring the agonizing feeling of failure. So throwing-up became something I had to do more and more frequently.
Throwing up was my escape. It was also my revenge. One night my parents and I got into an argument. My dad had to borrow my car, something I always hated anyway. Then when he picked me up from work, he started to question me. It was late and I was tired. First he asked me about Paulo, and how we were getting along. Something in the way he said it must've made me defensive, because then I started to snap at him. Then he said, "I'm worried about you. You act different at home. You are always angry or upset. And your mother and I are concerned about how thin you are becoming."
The only reason this should have upset me is because he was right, and I knew it. I also knew what would happen if my parents found out. So I became angrier, and I yelled more, and I swore in my heart never to tell them, even though I'd been thinking about it. They were always on my case, always bothering me, as though I were a child or something.
But even when I thought I could take care of myself, deep inside I knew I couldn't. Every night, while I lay in bed and cried, I prayed, "Please, Father. Help things get better. Oh dear Lord, Heavenly Father, help me!" Some nights I just wanted my life to end.; I wanted to kill myself, I was so fed up with everything. I wrote in my diary, "Life sucks, let it end. Let it end now, because I can't take it anymore." A few minutes later I wrote:
"I feel much better now.I will just concentrate on being thin. It makes it easier.I just got done exercising a lot. I made myself throw-up, too, even though all I ate is broccoli. It just sits in my stomach like a log or something.I'm ready to go out of this life. I repent of my sins, I can't take it anymore. Lord, take me up." (Monday, February 2, 1998)
I often prayed, but not always with the intent I needed to have. I was sincere. My heart hurt desperately, and I wanted to be comforted. But I was not taking the steps necessary to help myself. I had forgotten that my body is a temple; and I was desecrating it.
I adopted the habit of throwing up because it was easier than not eating. Then I could eat and stay small too. I began to just eat and then throw up, sometimes seven or eight times a day. My weight reached a point where it didn't drop anymore. It probably could have, but there are safety mechanisms every body employs when it thinks it is starving to death. 100 calories become the equivalent to 500. The metabolism slows and every possible nutrient is sucked out of the food. And when someone becomes bulimic, for the ten minutes the food is in the stomach, half or more of the calories are sucked out of the food.
I knew this; I'd learned it the first time around. But some things didn't matter. It felt good to hurt myself, so I did it anyway. Nothing mattered anymore. I had reached the crucial point where I no longer recognized myself as a daughter of God. I detested myself and my spirit had fallen to the depths of despair.
One morning when I was in the shower, I looked down at myself and saw a concave stomach surrounded by two hipbones which poked sharply out. The sight, which I had somehow failed to notice before, was so ghastly that it frightened me. I called my friend Inga when I got out of the shower, and I was very scared, very nervous; I knew what I'd been doing and I knew what had been happening. But only in that moment did it really sink in, and I started to be concerned for myself. Still, this was my passion, my secret escape, and I didn't want to give it up. It frightened me to think of eating, of gaining weight.
I told Inga I would finally tell someone, or at least stop doing this to myself, but I didn't. The strength that carried me through this disease was not strong enough to get me out of it. One night I was downstairs, throwing up in the bathroom, and I was having a difficult time getting the food up. Physically, ten minutes have to pass before the body is able to regurgitate the food (unless it is natural vomiting). Otherwise the food comes out hard and chunky and the throat bleeds and tears start falling . . . well, I hadn't waited the right amount of time, and I was struggling. For ten minutes I hovered over the toilet, retching and retching with no results. Finally I became aware of an insistent knocking on the door; a knocking that was quickly transforming into pounding. I stopped and said, "Yeah?"
I then heard Paulo's voice asking, "Are you all right?"
I knew he knew. As mentioned previously, he often tiptoed around the subject, dropping big hints, but he and I never actually talked about it. So I just said, "I'm fine."
The doorknob rattled and then Paulo said, "Open the door."
"Just a minute," I called back, in which time I washed my face and gurgled some water quickly, before opening the door a crack to peer out at Paulo.
He peered at me with great big brown eyes framed by lashes I had always envied. But now those dark eyes were wary, studying me cautiously. "What are you doing?" he asked.
My reply was a quick and terse, "Nothing." I offered nothing more and then I closed the door. But fear gripped me. I trusted Paulo implicitly, but in the face of this evidence -- I opened the door back up, whispering, "Paulo?"
He had moved to the couch and was hovering there, and he just looked at me when I spoke his name. Pleadingly, imploringly, I whispered, "Don't tell, okay?"
It was an admission of guilt. Instantly Paulo was back at the bathroom door, sounding angry now as he ordered, "Go out. Go out of here now."
I started to close the door on him, shaking my head no, but he moved and intercepted me. He said, "I'm going to take a shower now and you have to leave."
Again I tried to push the door shut but he pushed it back at me. I said, "Just a minute," and turned back to the toilet, flushing its contents before he could come in. Paulo didn't trust me. As soon as I walked back towards the door (heading for the sink) he stepped in front of it, blocking me from closing it. I just looked at him and then washed my hands again. Before I could move away from the sink, however, Paulo grabbed me and turned me around, hugging me tightly. There was a tension in his hug, almost desperation, as though he was afraid I might slip away from him. The emotion in that hug tore at my soul; and somewhere it dawned on me that he still cared about me, and perhaps I was even making him suffer because of what I was doing to myself.
It was only when the realization came to me that I was killing myself that I awakened. That night when I got home from work, I went downstairs and found my mother sitting in the big blue chair in front of the wood stove. I sat down in front of her, wrapped my arms around my legs and said, "I am gonna tell you now what's been going on. But you have to promise not to cry or anything as long as I'm here."
She looked at me, and her face was as though carved from stone; no weakness in those eyes, ready to handle whatever it was I had to say. With a nod, she said, "I am listening." Her eyes remained stoic and clear in this moment as she tried to be my support. But as I took a deep breath and proceeded to tell her all the things she had already guessed, her gaze wavered a little, and her fingers trembled slightly as she gripped the armrest of her chair. In my mind, her actions mirrored my soul. I was frightened and trembling but trying hard to appear brave.
She didn't cry, either.