I am reading a book called “Wasted” by Marya Hornbacher. It is a memoir of dealing with anorexia and bulimia. While I have never been anorexic, I am relating to this book. The following is a passage that hit home. It was written while she was in a bulimic stage.
“And we did not mention, or perhaps we did not notice, that not only was I the problem, but that I had a problem. I knew, by then, that I had a problem. I knew it the way alcoholics know in the back of their brain that they have a problem. They know, but they don’t believe it’s out of control. The convenience in having an eating disorder is that you believe, by definition, that your eating disorder cannot get out of control, because it is control. It is, you believe, your only means of control, so how could it possibly control you?
You know, for example, that making yourself an entire box of macaroni for dinner one night, drowning it in butter, and shoveling it into your mouth is being out of control. But it’s really okay, you say to yourself, because you’re going to puke, you’re going to be overcome by an uncontrollable-oops-urge to throw up, thereby taking back control. You’ll breathe easier, your stomach will no longer be distended or your face bloated. Your soul will be at ease. You’ll get the bright idea to have a drink. You’ll go into the kitchen, drink bad red wine until you’re bombed and happy as a pig in clover, and walk up and down the hall juggling oranges, and then remember that wine has calories. You’ll return to the bathroom, throw it up, and go to sleep. A problem? Yes, eating is definitely a problem. Got to stop eating.”
Before I read this particular section, I wrote the following after a particularly bad night last week. I have not cut myself since my freshman year of college…almost 7 years ago. I was treated like such a freak after that episode, that I turned to hurting myself in a much more secretive way; throwing up. However, I was so agitated after an episode with my husband that I cut myself again. I cut myself ten times to be exact, five on each arm. Oh I was a mess doing it. I rationalized at the time that I was too upset to eat. Therefore, I had nothing to throw up. I had to make myself feel better. I cried and cried. Afterward I decided to write about it. I wrote the following:
“I’m sitting here watching welts form on newly broken skin. I find it terribly satisfying to feel my arms burning with delicious pain. To watch little beads of blood form above each welt and feel the sting as my nerves regain feeling. I am also simultaneously crying because I have given in yet again to the need to inflict pain on myself. I feel like such a failure. Yet strangely, it feels so good to feel so miserable. Maybe I will feel well enough to go to sleep. I must deserve such pain. Pain is comfort.
I haven’t felt this kind of pain in years. Tonight I didn’t eat dinner. It was not my original intent but the events that transpired over the course of the evening prevented me from having an appetite. Sometimes I wish I disciplined enough just to stop eating. At least if I stopped eating, I would stop throwing up because there wouldn’t be anything to throw up. What I really wanted that night was pasta. Pasta with just butter and parmesan cheese is one of the easiest things to purge. I love the way the pasta fills me up. Even more satisfying is emptying that fullness into the toilet.”
At this point, I am interrupted at 11:30pm by my husband who walks out in his bathroom demanding to know what I was writing. I was crumpling up one writing attempt. I said nothing and he went back into the bedroom. I threw the crumpled sheet away but stuck what I had just written into the book “Wasted.” My husband must have seen me do it because the next morning, when I got up, I noticed that the book and paper had been moved.
My therapist once told me to keep a journal. Her father, also a therapist and sitting in on some initial sessions, answered for me. He said, “She doesn’t trust enough to write anything down on paper.” I looked at him and said “yes.” That is true. I don’t trust to write down anything because it immortalizes it. And people can intrude on your privacy. My privacy is one of the few things that I can have control over. So, of course, the one fucking time I write something down, actually put pen to paper, my privacy is violated. I was so angry. So, if anyone ever asks why I anonymously blog? That’s why.
So back to what I wrote that night…Reading it now, it does sound very messed up. A friend asked me how I would actually throw up and do it so often without anyone knowing it. The answer to that is simple. I am by nature a perfectionist. I perfected the art of throwing up. I perfected the art of throwing up in secret. I perfected the art of throwing up silently. And if it wasn’t going to be silent, having other sounds around to drown out the sound of gagging. If I was having a bad day and I knew I’d want to throw up later, I would eat foods that came up easily. It all sounds so sick, but as with the book passage, I felt I was in control. I couldn’t be further from the truth.
“And we did not mention, or perhaps we did not notice, that not only was I the problem, but that I had a problem. I knew, by then, that I had a problem. I knew it the way alcoholics know in the back of their brain that they have a problem. They know, but they don’t believe it’s out of control. The convenience in having an eating disorder is that you believe, by definition, that your eating disorder cannot get out of control, because it is control. It is, you believe, your only means of control, so how could it possibly control you?
You know, for example, that making yourself an entire box of macaroni for dinner one night, drowning it in butter, and shoveling it into your mouth is being out of control. But it’s really okay, you say to yourself, because you’re going to puke, you’re going to be overcome by an uncontrollable-oops-urge to throw up, thereby taking back control. You’ll breathe easier, your stomach will no longer be distended or your face bloated. Your soul will be at ease. You’ll get the bright idea to have a drink. You’ll go into the kitchen, drink bad red wine until you’re bombed and happy as a pig in clover, and walk up and down the hall juggling oranges, and then remember that wine has calories. You’ll return to the bathroom, throw it up, and go to sleep. A problem? Yes, eating is definitely a problem. Got to stop eating.”
Before I read this particular section, I wrote the following after a particularly bad night last week. I have not cut myself since my freshman year of college…almost 7 years ago. I was treated like such a freak after that episode, that I turned to hurting myself in a much more secretive way; throwing up. However, I was so agitated after an episode with my husband that I cut myself again. I cut myself ten times to be exact, five on each arm. Oh I was a mess doing it. I rationalized at the time that I was too upset to eat. Therefore, I had nothing to throw up. I had to make myself feel better. I cried and cried. Afterward I decided to write about it. I wrote the following:
“I’m sitting here watching welts form on newly broken skin. I find it terribly satisfying to feel my arms burning with delicious pain. To watch little beads of blood form above each welt and feel the sting as my nerves regain feeling. I am also simultaneously crying because I have given in yet again to the need to inflict pain on myself. I feel like such a failure. Yet strangely, it feels so good to feel so miserable. Maybe I will feel well enough to go to sleep. I must deserve such pain. Pain is comfort.
I haven’t felt this kind of pain in years. Tonight I didn’t eat dinner. It was not my original intent but the events that transpired over the course of the evening prevented me from having an appetite. Sometimes I wish I disciplined enough just to stop eating. At least if I stopped eating, I would stop throwing up because there wouldn’t be anything to throw up. What I really wanted that night was pasta. Pasta with just butter and parmesan cheese is one of the easiest things to purge. I love the way the pasta fills me up. Even more satisfying is emptying that fullness into the toilet.”
At this point, I am interrupted at 11:30pm by my husband who walks out in his bathroom demanding to know what I was writing. I was crumpling up one writing attempt. I said nothing and he went back into the bedroom. I threw the crumpled sheet away but stuck what I had just written into the book “Wasted.” My husband must have seen me do it because the next morning, when I got up, I noticed that the book and paper had been moved.
My therapist once told me to keep a journal. Her father, also a therapist and sitting in on some initial sessions, answered for me. He said, “She doesn’t trust enough to write anything down on paper.” I looked at him and said “yes.” That is true. I don’t trust to write down anything because it immortalizes it. And people can intrude on your privacy. My privacy is one of the few things that I can have control over. So, of course, the one fucking time I write something down, actually put pen to paper, my privacy is violated. I was so angry. So, if anyone ever asks why I anonymously blog? That’s why.
So back to what I wrote that night…Reading it now, it does sound very messed up. A friend asked me how I would actually throw up and do it so often without anyone knowing it. The answer to that is simple. I am by nature a perfectionist. I perfected the art of throwing up. I perfected the art of throwing up in secret. I perfected the art of throwing up silently. And if it wasn’t going to be silent, having other sounds around to drown out the sound of gagging. If I was having a bad day and I knew I’d want to throw up later, I would eat foods that came up easily. It all sounds so sick, but as with the book passage, I felt I was in control. I couldn’t be further from the truth.
posted by Self Therapy | 2:05 PM
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