An Eating Disorder — Ten Years Later

Between the spring of 1999 and that fall, I lost one third of my body weight. I became a size 0. I went from a BMI of 24 to a BMI of 16. For months, my weight hovered around 100 pounds. Those months were exactly ten years ago. This realization has given rise to some interesting reflections.

I’ve always been a nostalgic person. More than that—I’ve always been a person who likes to remember, and privately commemorate, both good and bad events and memories. Something about the passage of time is both comforting and encouraging for me. Reflecting on my ever-growing base of experiences reassures me that I am, in fact, more mature and a more “whole adult” now than I was at 20, or at 15. Similarly, it reassures me that in 5 or 10 more years, this pattern of growth will have continued. Looking back on my eating disorder, however, I am not struck by how much has changed in the past ten years. I am, instead, struck by how much has not. And I suspect my experiences are not unique.

Ten years ago, I ate between 100 and 300 calories per day—just enough to keep me from passing out. (I only actually fainted once. After that I learned my lesson. 100 calories by 1 or 2 PM would be enough to keep me conscious for the day.) And I worked out. Especially on days when I’d eaten more than 250 calories. I worked out. To fix the damage I’d done.

I feel like I should see this period as one of unparalleled darkness. The story of the recovered anorexic, ten years later, should be a narrative about what a mess I was then and how whole I am now. Now that I’m an adult, now that I’ve had boyfriends, now that I have a Master’s, now that (insert whatever qualification or sign of maturity should exempt me from this stuff here )…I should be able to tell you how much I’ve changed.

                Twisting my story into an inspiring account of defeating my inner demons and becoming whole, however, would require willfully warping the truth. Anyone who has had an eating disorder can attest that recovery is about much more than simply learning to eat again.

Three years after my eating disorder, I knew that I had been anorexic back then. And that anorexia is bad and anorexia is wrong and anorexic is something I didn’t want to be again . So I set a minimum. 1200 calories. Never eat fewer than 1200 calories per day and you won’t be anorexic . So I ate 1200 calories per day. And on days when I ate more than that, I would work out. To fix the damage I’d done. But at least I wasn’t anorexic anymore.

                Nine years after my eating disorder, I knew that I had been anorexic back then, and knew that I’d never fully escaped it.  But I kept my minimum. Never eat fewer than 1200 calories per day and you won’t be anorexic . But if you eat more than 1200 calories in a day, work out. To fix the damage you’ve done.

My sister is my ally. Ten years ago, even she saw what my parents could not—that something about me was different. Something was wrong. We were 12 and 14 when it began, 13 and 15 when I started to recover. Our childhood sibling rivalry was at its strongest during this period. Yet when my weight started to dip down below 130, below 120, below 110, her favorite taunt (“fatty”) disappeared. “Fatty” was replaced with “anorexic girl.” We have long since outgrown such childish gibes, but the fact remains that, even when she was only in the 7th grade, she knew.

In fact, a lot of people knew. One look at me was all it really took. Two different girls at school independently called my parents to tell them they were worried about me—that I was too thin and I wasn’t eating anything, that I probably needed help. If any action ever resulted from those warnings, I was not aware of it. I do remember overhearing my parents talking about it, after one of those calls. They were in the kitchen, talking about whether there could be any truth to what the girl had said. So I walked into the kitchen, picked up a bag of chocolate chips, ate a handful, and went back to the top of the stairs, ostensibly out of earshot.

After I left, both of my parents laughed and moved on to a different topic.

I starved myself for the rest of the day to compensate for that handful of chocolate chips.

Conversations with my parents on the topic of my eating disorder have been undeniably limited over the last 10 years. They never suggested I had a problem. They never suggested I get help. Mom did compliment me a lot at the time. She told me how great I looked, how beautiful and thin. When I started gaining weight again the following year, the usual comments began to set back in. You know, the “are you sure you really need seconds?” comments. Anyone who has grown up as a female with a mother in our culture knows which comments I mean.

If I ever have a daughter, I vow to never ask her if she needs seconds. I vow to never make a comment about her weight, good or bad.

Two and three years after my eating disorder, Mom frequently took out pictures of me from my lowest points. “See how beautiful you looked? Wouldn’t you like to look like that again?” The second or third time she did this was the first time I openly told her that I had been anorexic. She made it clear that of course I hadn’t been anorexic . “You watched your weight. You worked out. That doesn’t mean you were anorexic .”

Anorexia is a disease. It’s not something that happens to nice girls whose parents love them. It’s something that happens to someone else . Not to my little girl. These public schools put such ideas in her head…

Nonetheless, after that, she stopped openly talking to me about my weight. She started talking about it to my sister instead. And whenever my sister went above a size 4, my Mom talked about it to me.

About four years after my eating disorder, the “why can’t you encourage your sister to exercise a little more” conversations replaced the “do you really need seconds” conversations. My sister and I (far beyond sibling rivalry by the time this began) have always presented a united front when it came to these conversations. No, I will not encourage her to exercise more. No, I will not encourage her to eat fewer snacks. She is beautiful and healthy and I will do nothing but support her, regardless of what she chooses to eat.

From all this, it probably sounds like my parents’ willful ignorance to the magnitude of the problem was a huge part of the cause. That my mother’s comments “fed” my eating disorder. The truth is, however, the role of these comments was minimal. It was always much deeper than that.

Actually, doesn’t everyone know the causes of anorexia? Surely anyone who’s ever taken Psych 101, or even Googled the word “anorexia” could come up with a list of what must have been going on in my mind back then. Back then . When I was 14 years old. When I was weak. When I didn’t know better.

For one thing, there’s low self-esteem. (Seven years after my eating disorder, in a particularly strong relapse of the desire to starve, I bleakly concluded that dieting and losing weight were the only thing I’m really good at.)

Poor body image is another big one. (A year and a half after my eating disorder, I was shocked to find out that a classmate who I considered extremely thin was a size 7. How could that be possible? I was a size 5 and I was fat .)

Perfectionism can certainly lead to anorexia. (Nine and a half years after my eating disorder, receiving my Master’s degree with a 4.0 GPA, I began to feel ashamed that my undergraduate GPA had only been 3.9. If only I had the self-control to do homework the way I do with food…)

Most anorexics also feel so powerless that they need to control the one thing they can: their own bodies. (Five years after my eating disorder, I started devising plans and charts. I counted every calorie that went in and every calorie that I burned exercising. I devised elaborate systems to keep my weight in check (involving more complicated math than I’d like to admit) without falling back into an actual eating disorder. The “control high” with these systems is even better than actual anorexia ever was. Dangling on the edge of the cliff, but having the self-control not to let go? That’s hardcore.)

I was never bulimic. Ten years ago, Bulimia seemed like a cop-out. It was a diet plan for the weak. But four years after my eating disorder, I tried to purge. Food had little to do with it. My weight was hanging around the 115-120 range and I spent 4-6 hours per day at the gym. I perfectly maintained just thin enough without being anorexic . No, that night I’d just finished a particularly taxing phone conversation with my (controlling and abusive) then-boyfriend. I felt ill and had the overwhelming urge to empty myself, as though I could get rid of all the bad feelings that way. In the end, I couldn’t do it—for whatever reason, even after I spent several minutes poking around at the back of my throat, my body simply wouldn’t respond—but I never saw Bulimia as a “cop-out” again.

Ten years ago, I was anorexic. Now, I am recovered.

Recovery doesn’t really look like I expected it to.