A Disembodied Voice

Nobody looks at me and assumes that I have an eat­ing disorder. I am larger than what is acceptable by most societal standards of beauty. I avoid form-fitting clothing, because anything that pinches makes me more aware of my body than I’d like to be. While the fight between my desire to be healthy and my habit of comforting myself with food rages on internally, I survive from day to day by keeping as much of a distance from my body as possible. My body is not representative of who I am – it is a vehicle to keep the rest of me going.

Keeping a distance helps me deal with the fact that I go through the same emotional struggles that an anorexic person does, my problem just isn’t as recognized. I have non-purging bulimia, one of the much-derided eating dis­orders that make you fat instead of thin. This is said as if having an eating disorder is perfectly okay and worthy of sympathy, as long as it makes you skinny. The idea that “thin is better” is so strongly ingrained in our so­ciety that it is often articu­lated by the people who are being trusted and hired to treat people for disordered eat­ing — perhaps unconsciously.

In the spring of 2008, which was my sophomore year, I was very sick. My lack of energy and depression had gotten so bad that I would only stay awake for a few hours each day. I have hazy memories of getting up at noon, go­ing to class from about 1 p.m. until 2:30 p.m., and then getting back in bed by 5 p.m. with my homework unfin­ished. My main source of comfort and stress relief was food — lots and lots of it.

On some days, I would have five or six big meals with snacks in between. I was constantly buying new clothes and getting into fights with my parents about my addiction. They arranged for me to join a local support group. I went to two meetings and stopped going because I felt isolated being the only non-anorexic person there. Getting better would require putting my unhealthy lifestyle on hold.

In the summer, I was admitted into a residential treatment program in San Diego. Contrary to what most people think, this is not the same as being put into a men­tal health asylum. No white windowless rooms were in­volved. My fellow patients and I jokingly called it “rehab” instead of “eating disorder treatment center,” but, regard­less, it was a place that was meant to be safe – and yet it wasn’t. As the only non-anorexic in a group of eight wom­en, I experienced judgment and prejudice on an almost daily basis.

One of the first things I noticed was the amount of food that they gave us. The eating program was clearly designed for anorexics or people who refused to eat, because they forced us to eat constantly – three meals and three snacks per day. I started requesting coffee, because our huge breakfasts would send me into a food coma. That’s saying something for a wom­an who unintentionally trained her body to handle large amounts of food. Something about that seemed wrong. If I was there to be treated for my eating disorder and to learn to eat reasonably, why was I being stuffed full?

I talked to my assigned therapist about it, and she said that they couldn’t make “special accommo­dations” for “people like me” (read: fat girls) be­cause the anorexic girls would be jealous that they “weren’t allowed to go on diets too.”

Maybe it seems selfish, but all I kept think­ing was: what about me? What about my treatment program, and the money that I was paying? Why does it have to be sabotaged to protect the feelings of others, just because they are in the majority?

Throughout the entire program, I was amazed at the anger that came pouring out of me. I hadn’t known what real anger felt like until then. And to this day, I’m not entirely sure what or whom I was mad at. I would throw pillows and take advan­tage of the opportunity to rage every chance that I got – at my parents for teaching me to suppress my emotions as a child, at my ex-boyfriends, and at society in general. Most of all, I got angry because I still felt powerless in this “safe” place where I was supposed to be regaining control. I made my thera­pist promise that she wouldn’t let me gain weight or make my problems worse. She smiled and said, “Of course.”

The program held three or four group thera­py sessions for us each day. For the first few weeks, I noticed that no one would ever sit directly next to me or make conversation unless I started it first. Then, one weekend, I was called out of my bedroom for a special session. Each of the girls apologized to me in turn and explained that they had been afraid to associate with me because of my larger size. They thought that having a “fat friend” would make them appear fatter in the eyes of others. I was so stunned that I just started crying. Part of me wanted to laugh at their paranoia, but I was stunned at how the idea that “thinner is better” remained so real and so powerful even in a therapy setting.

Looking back, the other instances of prejudice that I experienced were al­most laughable. All of the girls saw the same psychia­trist one after the other on Saturdays, and they reassured me that she was really nice, and would ask me to talk about my hobbies. My session ended up being about how my size wasn’t healthy, that I was seconds away from getting diabetes, and about how religion was the answer to my problems. Why? Because she’d heard that I was “the fat girl.” She didn’t say it quite that literally, but the sentiment was clear. Thankfully, no one made me see her again.

Two weeks later, I left, six pounds heavier than when I arrived. For a little while, I continued to rage about how my therapist had lied to me. Eventually, the whole experience made me determined to prove to myself that even “fat girls” can recover from eating disorders and that this destructive idea that thinner is better needs to be stopped at all costs.

In the time since then, not a lot has happened. I have tried to adopt healthier eating habits and attitudes about my body, but I haven’t received any revelations or made sudden recoveries. In one way, I wish that the ending to this story could be a happy, neat one; but, in another, I’m glad that it isn’t one, because people often enter treatment for eating disorders with the expectation that they will be cured by the end of a certain program or period of time. This is rarely, if ever, the case – and I’m living proof of it.

The one epiphany that I have come to after this whole experience is that no one can cure me of my eat­ing disorder but myself. I do not know when and how I will recover, but I do know that it will not be because of a therapist, treatment center, parent, friend or romantic relationship. I have a feeling that it will happen when I am fulfilled and at peace enough in my life that I do not need to eat to feel comfortable anymore – and that I may very well wake up to discover that I have new strength and that my voice has returned. In the meantime, I am going to con­tinue doing the only thing that I can: working on it bit by bit, every day.