No One Saved Me, and I Didn't Die

The first book I ever read on eating disorders was Marya Hornbacher's Wasted. I was 15 years old. It was one of the few times my mother would ever try to start a conversation with me on this topic. She had read it first, screening it before deciding to hand it over. Wasted was honest in a grim but eloquent way, managing to be both romantic and alluringly depraved. It expanded my brief freshman year health class understanding of bulimia from the fat girl who baked a pan of brownies and ate them all at once to something more systematic. I took extensive mental notes. To this day I recall in vivid detail descriptions of how once-tight clothing hung from the author's hipbones and how she started her binges with brightly colored foods so that when it all came back up in the toilet bowl, you'd know you were done. First thing in, last thing out. I used Cheetos for this purpose the first time I tried.

A book was not my tipping point. Reading it did not catapult me into what would become a 14 year cycle of bingeing and purging. When I read Wasted, I found what I was looking for, and if I hadn't found it there, I would have found it elsewhere. I was starving as I ingested those pages, and I didn't want to die. I needed something that would replace calorie counting and evenings on the treadmill. I needed something that would consume even more time, even more energy, and do so without the obvious change in physical appearance or performance. I was having trouble concentrating in class or mustering the energy for soccer practice while hungry. My parents were suspicious. Older boys looked at me like vultures in the hallways at school, drawn in by my big, haunted eyes and the toughness that betrayed vulnerability. I wanted to disappear completely. I wanted everyone to stop noticing me, let me catch my breath in privacy. Lacking this ability, I aimed to draw less attention to the vice that was my primary source of solace. I chose bulimia and said goodbye to anorexia.

The truth is that, for me, the disorder served a purpose. At least in the beginning. I was grieving. I was 14 and had lost a best friend, a role model, a cousin. She was the person I sat next to at the table during holiday meals. A pen pal. The co-star of so many of my childhood memories. Her unexpected death undermined the premise of certainty in my sheltered early adolescence. My family was reeling, and we pulled apart. I felt that I myself was pulling apart. Bulimia numbed me. It consumed me. It was always there, whenever I called for it. It was predictable and comforting. And when I wondered if I was out of my element, if I had gone too far to get back alone, the illusion of control made me arrogant and the realization that at least I was choosing what hurt me was my consolation.

The purpose bulimia served evolved into habit, which progressed to dependency. The transgression was natural and gradual; I relied upon bulimia to serve as an all-encompassing preoccupation. It was a control game where I felt at home, even if the ultimate outcome was self-destructive. I was OK with being the one in charge of hurting myself, but terrified of taking emotional risks that might put me at the mercy of someone else. For years, bulimia exhausted me of my passions and my sensitivities. Partially by the solitude that concealing it demanded and partially because I had no energy to invest in other people or other pursuits. I skated on thin ice in every other facet of my life. Functioning, but barely.

Over the years, my ability to cope in a healthy way, exercise any kind of discipline or willpower, or take full ownership of any responsibility diminished significantly. I was out of practice in some areas and had never grown into the adult version of others. Bulimia is enormously self-indulgent. It is all-encompassing and absolutely terrifying. On more than one trip to the hospital for extreme dehydration or my compromised immune system (i.e. cellulitis and walking pneumonia), I wondered if I was going to die. There were moments when I fantasized about someone intervening. Showing up at my apartment when the coffee table was a buffet of fast food, pizza deliveries, loot from the snack aisle, and melting ice cream. Hauling me away to a "facility," but of course nowhere for crazy people, where I could rest. I began to fantasize about sleep when the escapism of bulimia became something else that I wanted to escape.

I recently moved across the country, from Michigan to Florida. When I started the drive, I was still bulimic. It was the stage of recovery that is more starts than stops, when you're beginning to get tired enough of tripping that you might as well just do it right, muddle through it, and move on. I'd made it almost a full year without purging in the past, but without addressing any of the root reasons for my disorder, all I had done was strip away a coping mechanism without preparing myself to survive minus the buffer provided by the coping mechanism. It was a very difficult, isolating, and emotionally raw year. I never managed to get my life in order to support the positive change, and when I relapsed, I did so massively. This time, unlike last time, I was 100% sure that I wanted to recover. What scared me now was what was at stake if I did not.

For 1,102 miles in a U-Haul, I shared the bench seat with my fiance. Who was counting on me, who had endured the mood swings, the deception, the canceled plans, the strange ailments. We crossed the state line into Florida and I told myself, everything is changing. If you don't start to swim, you are going to drown.

There is a risk, I think, to sharing stories like mine. No one saved me, and I didn't die. Part of relocating is finding a favorite supermarket, a great dive bar, the cinema with the most comfortable seats. I had to get established with a new physician recently, and he asked me something that none of my other doctors have. "What do you think could have been done to stop this when you were much younger? At the start?" I told him that I could imagine no way to convey to a girl that young how much of her life would be compromised. How absolutely devastating the cumulative effect of a repeated mistake, however seemingly insignificant, can become over time. Repeated mistakes gain momentum. They become defining.

The truth is that I probably was incapable of grasping how pervasive bulimia would become in my life. How many relationships it would destroy, whether friendly or romantic. How many opportunities I would miss because I was at home throwing up. How much debt I would accumulate from the massive quantities of food and the medical bills. What I didn't tell my new doctor is that I had long since stopped asking myself this very "what if" question.

There are a million different permutations, but this is the one I lived. And I am here. No one saved me, but I didn't die. Will others read my account and think they may also be so lucky, that the risk is worth it to continue harboring an eating disorder? I am guessing that there are others like I was at the age of 14. Half trying to quit by finding a firsthand tale wretched enough to scare them straight. Half morbidly curious for proof that they can put off getting better. My story is both of those stories: recovery and triumph, wretchedness and despair. I am focusing more on the present now, trying to be better to myself. But there is no way of knowing what lies down the road for me, with health complications or retribution for my indulgence and neglect. I am lucky, and with each passing day of recovery I feel more hopeful that this is truly a second chance, but I wouldn't wish my experiences upon anyone else.