LITMIR.BIZ

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it. Apparently not. Mom’s constant meal commentary should have been a clue.

      “Dani, I can’t watch you do this to yourself anymore. You need help!” she’d screamed, which prompted me to run onto the Vegas Strip in hysterics. A dramatic eruption deserves a dramatic reaction. She demanded I see a therapist, and to get her off my back, I agreed.

      “You know how paranoid moms are?” I’d explained to Dr. Blatter at that first session. “Especially crazy Jewish moms—it’s their joy, I swear! I used to struggle with my eating, but I am fine.” I knew he would understand how paranoid Jewish moms are, being a religious Jew himself—plus, it underplayed her concern, proving my point. Nice touch, Dani. My hands were crossed on my lap, eyes looking straight into his.

      It had taken five years. Five years, countless nights of misery, and a terrifying health scare. But we were finally talking about my real problems, and as I turned the corner and hailed a cab, I knew I was on my way to really being fine. A driver stopped, and I hopped into the back of his cab. Thank goodness, I thought, as my breath had been visible in the frigid air.

      “Traffic, that sucks,” I said, observing the back-to-back bumper traffic around us.

      “Yes, it’s bad traffic tonight for some reason,” the driver answered and put on the radio to some soft African music. It was pretty catchy, and I let the driver know that. He laughed, smiled, and turned the volume up a little more. I stared out the window and into the stream of traffic. The horns honking, none of it bothered me.

      As I often do, I thought about the time I’d lost to my ED, short for “eating disorder,” an abbreviation coined by author and eating disorder survivor Jenni Schaefer in Life Without ED. I was always thinking about what ED took from me because, let’s face it, it took a shitload, especially the last four years of my adult life. When I was mad at my eating disorder, I was mad at myself, but recently, I’d found it helpful to separate the two in order to stop blaming myself. I had been reading The Eating Disorder Sourcebook, and in it, author Carolyn Costin describes two versions of yourself—your eating-disordered self and your healthy self. The idea is that your healthy self will eventually heal your eating-disordered self.

      Dr. Blatter and I had just talked about that, and about what I would write if I wrote a letter to my eating-disordered self.

      Dear Eating-Disordered Self,

      Well, what can I say? You sure put me through the wringer. You isolated me, harmed me, made me extremely depressed, and gave me a lot of health complications. You convinced me that we were codependent. I know I could never ever be as hard on someone else as you were on me. I think that is why I am oftentimes considered too cautious of everything I say and have a bad “sorry” habit. The last thing I would ever want to do is make someone feel as bad as you made me feel. You beat me down, ruined my relationship with not only food, but also everyone, and pushed my healthy self into submissive invisibility. I am now braver, stronger, and more carefree since I defeated you. Though I may have my down days, when I hear your whispers I know I have conquered you because I used to hear you in screams. Though we have spent so much time together, I am too happy living life to ever see you again.

      Best Regards,

      My Healthy Full Self

       I posted my letter on Facebook when I got home. Then I took my dog, Teddy, in my arms and enjoyed his butterfly kisses. I’d had Teddy, a four-pound Shih Tzu, since I was nineteen years old.

      I’d named him after my love for teddy bears as a child, when I was young and innocent, and everything seemed so easy and attainable. Back then I used to go to FAO Schwarz, where I’d marvel at the big ticking clock and marching soldiers as “Welcome to my World of Toys” played its sing-song lyrics in the background. My mom and dad would let me choose one bear per visit. I would stare at the bears until my parents were blue in the face. I would always pick the one that was a little disheveled, the one whose eyes were uneven or had a crooked nose: the corduroy bear of the bunch. I wanted to help the one that was different or looked like no one else would buy it. I thought its flaws were what made it adorable—loveable even. Too bad it took me a while to feel that way about myself.

      I looked back down at Teddy, a great companion, but he couldn’t be my everything. Unfortunately, he couldn’t fix the whole mess my eating disorder had caused; actually, he couldn’t fix any of it. I needed to be my own Lisa, the girl who helped Corduroy like himself the way he was. Yes, I needed to sew my broken button back on and put the pieces of my life back together. I needed to like myself again before anyone else could. All I knew was that I was well on the way, with my healthy full self now running the show. This self deserved to be liked and maybe even loved.

      When school started up again, I devised a plan for stocking up on laxatives. After school or during a free period, I would drive to a drugstore out of town. I’d never make a direct line to the right aisle, even though I knew exactly where the magic pills would be. Instead, I’d browse the makeup aisle, then make a right and a left in the baby aisle by accident, then over one to pretend I had a headache, until finally I got to my destination. Turn left, turn right, coast clear, and I’d grab the box, my preference at the time being the ninety-count ex-lax.

      They came in handy, especially on late nights when I was the only one awake. All day I would not eat anything, thinking, this is the day when I start my diet, but after playing soccer for a couple of hours and starting my homework late, I needed a lot of willpower to stay up on an empty stomach. Often, I was not strong enough. One night in particular, I tiptoed into the kitchen and took a cinnamon raisin bagel, paused, and on second thought, slathered peanut butter on it. It was like an orgasm in my mouth—or at least what I imagined an orgasm to feel like. I went back to the computer room to study my notes and textbook and eat it.

      Between bites and turning pages, my tired mind wandered to what had happened in AP history earlier that day. With my cramping hand, I had been transcribing everything the teacher had said. A friend had looked over at my notes and laughed out loud, signaling to the boy on the other side of me to look at something on my desk, but I still wasn’t completely paying attention to my periphery, until he too broke out in laughter.

      “If something is so funny, I think you should share it with the class,” the teacher barked at my friend and the boy, annoyed by the interruption in his lesson plan.

      “Dani just wrote down the joke you made,” my friend explained through her giggles.

      That was the moment I put my pencil down long enough to realize they were laughing at me. Personally, I didn’t think it was that funny. Like, seriously, “Ha, ha, ha?” And my actions were totally explicable! I hadn’t realized it was a joke because I’d been too busy writing down every word the teacher said, to read later. But of course, I wasn’t going to explain this—and I wasn’t going to admit my processing issue—so now the entire class had a good laugh at my expense. Thanks, friend.

      It took a lot for me to keep up with the naturally smart kids. Now everyone knew I was dumb. I slammed the textbook closed. What was the point of trying to stick to my diet? I had already failed today. The moment I decided to eat that bagel with peanut butter sealed the failing deal. I went to the kitchen for:

      Two more cinnamon raisin bagels with peanut butter and jelly

      A wide slice of ham-and-cheese quiche

      Honey-roasted peanuts (by the handful)

      Raisin Bran with skim milk

      And so began a new habit. Each time I studied and thought about something that had happened that day that upset me, I would eat away my anxiety. I consumed the food so fast that there was little enjoyment of the taste, but it felt so good going down. However, no sooner did it thump into the pit of my stomach than I’d feel remorse. My protruding belly was the proof of my gluttony. I am so gross.

      And off I went to my stash of laxatives: ninety pills, one by one. It was one thing I was truly excellent at—pill-popping—a skill that I would grow to appreciate and continue to hone. It would take me less than ten minutes to get all of those blue pills down, which ironically tasted quite sweet on the outside. All night long, I’d hold my stomach in the fetal position.

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