Escaping Ed
Walking past the exterior of the outdated building I read the maroon square sign on the door: Eating Disorder Center of Alabama—Alabama Psychiatric Services. The window hole in the door above the sign had a pink post-it note that stated: You ARE Beautiful. I wanted to turn around right there and not enter.
My mom opened the door, nudging me inside. I nervously walked in with my head down; my fingers picking the skin around my nails. As my mother turned to the receptionists she said: “Hello, my name is Laura Binder and my daughter, Taylor has an appointment with Dr. Lane Gould-Hartline.” I read the little sign next to her that said, “Vicky”. So Vicky was the receptionist, I was here to see some lady named Lane, and this whole time there wasn’t anything wrong with me. My mom was just overreacting, like she always does. Blowing things out of proportion. I didn’t have an eating disorder. I was fine. I was in control. As we walked down the narrow hallway to Lane’s office I noticed paintings all over the walls. Each painting was the same size and all looked child-like. Under each masterpiece a tiny piece of paper had the first name of the artist, I’m assuming, a year, and then a title. Most of them had the words “ED” written somewhere. Who was ED? Why did everyone have those two letters on their paintings? Before we reached Lane’s office two young girls walked quickly past me, giggling. I felt uncomfortable.
Entering Lane’s office was like entering a prison. She was polite. Very done up. Lots of make up, high heels, and a snake skin skirt. She was nice, though. She didn’t directly talk to me, but mainly spoke to my mom. She asked about my eating habits, my emotional stability, how I was fairing in school. I felt like I was underwater. I could hear them talking, but I couldn’t move or make sense of my surroundings. After what felt like an eternity, Lane asked my mom to step outside while she talked to me privately. Paranoia struck me. Thus began the interrogation. I was defensive, detached, dismissive. I didn’t have a problem. I ate enough. I was fine. I was in control.
The following day I was withdrawing from Spain Park High School within the first month of my senior year. My parents, along with Lane’s help, had decided that I had an eating disorder—anorexia, and it was vital that I sought treatment immediately. Anorexia is defined by a list of symptoms: refusal to maintain a healthy body weight, an intense fear of gaining weight, a distorted body image, preoccupation with food, strange or secretive food rituals, perfectionism, dizziness, fainting, and headaches, constipation and bloating, to list a few. The only reason I had agreed to this idiot plan was that I had a chemistry test next week and didn’t want to take it. Treatment sounded better than high school. I decided I would “play the part” of getting healthy and overcoming my eating disorder.
The first day at the clinic was terrifying. My mom drove me there and before I went in I downed a cigarette. She was reluctant, but allowed me this simple pleasure to help me manage the courage to walk through that door.
Vicky gave me a tour of the facility. One room that stuck with me the most was the restrooms. There were two: one was for the employees, the other was for the patients. Vicky said to me in a calming voice: “At the EDCA we have three rules when it comes to the restrooms. First, all patients have to get a restroom key from myself. Second, y’all can only use the restroom an hour after eating. And third, you can’t lock the restroom door under any circumstances.” Kind of an unusual list of rules, but I would later find out that this was due to people purging after meals. They tried hard to deter people from eating disordered behaviors. It didn’t always work though. One time a girl quickly, and silently threw up in the kitchen trash can during lunch. Our nutritionist, Kristi had grabbed something in the refrigerator and by the time that her back had turned around the girl had chunked up her lunch in the garbage can. No one found out about it until the next morning when the trash was stinking.
Vicky showed me the different rooms where we had various activities planned. There was the group room, nutritionist room, kitchen, offices of Dr. Emily Whitt and Kristal Lamb, and lastly the “sand tray room”.
How did I end up here?
Standing at the front of the food court in a Washington DC mall, I was overcome with indecision. I stared at the mess of blonde curls in front of me and my stomach felt like a swarm of butterflies were living in there. I watched Zeke, the blonde haired, blue-eyed 7th grader who I had an immense crush on stand in line at Pizza Hut. I moved the designated food money around in my clammy palms as I thought about where to eat. With so little time away from our teachers and chaperones during the school trip, I didn’t want to leave Zeke’s side. Who needed food when I could hang around the boy who I liked and who was showing me extreme interest on the trip? I couldn’t afford to miss out on some gripping electric guitar conversation or discussion on what he was going to do for the remainder of spring break by shoving hamburgers or pizza down my throat. So I skipped dinner. As the trip progressed I developed a pattern of skipping meals: no breakfast, no lunch, dinner, the following day, breakfast, no lunch, dinner, and so on. On a crowded school trip no one is really keeping tabs on who’s eating what and when.
I was 12 years old when I began starving myself. When you are young you don’t really understand what is influencing you or why you are acting a certain way. You just do it. You don’t eat for a day and waking up the next day you feel better. You seem lighter, happier. So you do it again. After awhile that becomes the norm. You can’t remember what it feels like to eat 3 meals a day. It gets to the point where you don’t know what is normal. You start to believe that everyone skips meals, and everyone watches the way other women eat. You think that it is common to want to be the smallest person in the room. It doesn’t feel wrong when your stomach hurts so much because your body is literally starving. You think that is the definition of power and strength. You think you are becoming a better version of yourself. You see overweight people and you call them weak. You see thin people and just like that, they become your archenemy. The idea of eating breakfast in the morning is ludicrous. Why would you eat so early when you could put off feeding yourself for several more hours before it starts to affect you? You stop seeing reality and live in a fantasy world. All you know is what ED, your eating disorder has told you. +
Looking in the mirror of my bathroom I grabbed the red dry-erase marker and in sloppy handwriting wrote 107.6 lbs at the bottom of a list of previous weights. I turned my bony back to the mirror and stepped on the dusty, white scale again. I tapped my right foot on the side of the scale and waited for the dashing lines to settle and show me 0.00. I carefully laid my feet on the scale and allowed every sort of negative thought to run through my brain. Looking down at my pale arms, I felt goose bumps come over me. I was naked, minus the black underwear that hung on my pointy hips. The scale read: 107.7 lbs. How could I have gained .1 of a pound in less than a minute? Shouldn’t I have lost weight? Helpless, I climbed on the scale again. It read: 107.6 lbs. Thank god. I flicked the bathroom light off and threw on an oversized t-shirt and sat down on the carpet in my bedroom. I began vigorously doing crunches. After finishing 100 crunches, I stood up, walked to the bathroom, and stepped on the scale yet again. 107.6 lbs. Frustrated, I did another 100 crunches. I let my legs lay flat and I pushed my hands into my stomach, trying to shove the fat away. It never worked, but always made me feel better. Reaching underneath my bed I grabbed one of my notebooks and flipped through the pages. I had a large assortment of journals, but some were designated for specific purposes. This journal was full of lists—list of my weights, food intake, exercise regimens, weight-loss goals, inspirational skinny people, etc. I turned to the last page and documented my weight (107.6), the date (February 17th, 2007), the number of crunches I had completed (200), and the food I had eaten today (2 cups of black coffee, 3 strawberries, a handful of almonds).
I closed the notebook and pulled my legs into my chest. My nerves stirred inside of me and I could feel myself on the verge of tears. Disappointment took over me. I was angry for allowing myself to be so weak. I shouldn’t have eaten the almonds, especially so early in the day, and I had gained .7 of a pound from yesterday. Frustrated, I put on my work out clothes and running shoes and headed outside. As I ran fast downhill I could feel the tension ease away. I turned a corner and headed down a side street in my neighborhood, pushing myself to run until it hurt. After a 45 minute run I felt satisfied enough with myself to stop. I was exhausted, thirsty, and knew that within an hour I would be starving. I went inside and dragged my tired body up the stairs to my scale, my slave. 106.2. I smiled and erased my previous 107.6 lbs on the mirror, feeling accomplished.
At first it isn’t about pounds. At first it is just a game. You want to see how long you can make it without food. Maybe you are spiting your mother; maybe it is just a test. How many minutes, turns into hours, which turns into days. How long can you make it without putting food in your body? I made it 11 days. Then you start to notice the pounds and you think, if I lose 5 pounds then I will be happy. So you reach that goal but you are not happy yet. So you think, well if I lose 5 more. So you lose 5 more. But you are still not happy. Before you know it you have lost so many pounds and happiness hasn’t reached you. You are still waiting on this wave of depression to be over, but it will always be there. Because you are not solving a problem you are only masking it. Starving yourself doesn’t bring you love. It just starves you. It starves your soul. The thing about it is that you truly, indefinably feel like you are in control. You set rules for yourself. You reward yourself. You feel like nothing can touch you. But you are not in control at all. You are spiraling out of control and each day it gets worse. Every one around you can see it, but you remain blind. You are left in the dark. You stop trusting people. You isolate yourself. You withhold life experiences because you are not ready. You are not thin enough yet. You don’t deserve happiness, not yet.
After 6 months at the Eating Disorder Center of Alabama I was released and deemed “healthy.” To be honest, I was healthy. I no longer felt defined by a number on the scale. I was able to eat 3 meals and 2 snacks a day without experiencing extreme guilt. While my first week was hard at the EDCA, I soon realized that I had been struggling with a physical and mental illness for years now without comprehending the severity of what I was doing to my body and why. My journey of recovery was not easy, not in the slightest, but it taught me a lot about who I am as a person, and how I want to live my life. I no longer wanted to hold back, wither away, and die, but I wanted to grow, learn, dream and accomplish things in the world.
I do not think anyone ever gets “cured” from an eating disorder. I think that ED will always be with you, no matter how many years have past. But I will say that in the 5 years that I have fought the urge to succumb to my eating disorder it does get better. You have to be aware that ED will always be on your shoulder, pressuring you to skip a meal, to isolate in your room, to throw up your breakfast, to hate yourself. You have to find the strength, within yourself, to fight on. Sure, there are still times when I wake up and look in the mirror and dislike what I see. Sometimes I wish I could lose 5 pounds with the perceived ease I once could. Not every day is perfect, but that is what I learned through my recovery. Perfection isn’t the answer. It’s in imperfection that we can find beauty.
I walked into the dim restaurant solo and sat at the bar. I didn’t bother to flip through the bar-esque menu, because I already knew what I wanted to order. I noticed two business-type men sitting a little ways down from me. The bartender walked my way, “Anything to drink?” I responded quickly, “Just water”. He nodded. I settled into my bar stool and as he plopped a glass of water on the table I cleared my throat and said, “Can I please have a bacon cheddar burger, only bacon and cheddar, I don’t want any sauces or vegetables or anything. Oh, and fries. Please.” He nodded again. “Thanks!” I said a little too loudly with a smile on my face. An older woman set the plate down in front of me and mumbled something I couldn’t hear over the music. I nodded and thanked her. Looking down at my juicy burger I notice the two business-y men starring my way. I grabbed the bun between my fingers and took a hefty bite. I turned to the two men, grinned big, dunked a few fries into some ketchup and put them in my mouth. I ate. I ate without hesitation. I ate without anxiety or guilt. I just ate. And it was beautiful.