Beautiful Butterfly

As she sat across from me at the table I felt a mixture of envy and sadness. Envy because she had somehow got away with it for so much longer than I had, and gotten so thin; and sadness that like the rest of us she had been caught and dragged to this hell hole. Silent tears rolled down her face as she shook her head refusing to eat just the smallest bite, and I could feel her pain.1

We were all sitting in the dining room area in small tables of four. Every table had a nurse sitting with them. We were watched over, the nurses like hawks. They knew all our tricks and they made sure that every mouthful was chewed and swallowed. Our hands had to be kept above the table at all times and they would check our pockets on leaving the room to make sure we hadn't managed to stuff any food in there to throw away. They checked under the tables to make sure we hadn't thrown any on the floor. Eyes on us all the time there was no escape from them.2

The new girl who had just arrived this week was Anna. She was 17 and had been brought here as an emergency when her anorexia had plummeted her weight down to 70lbs. For the first few days she was here she completely refused to eat anything and would fight aggressively with the doctors and nurses. Now she had a feeding tube that went up her nose and down to her stomach constantly feeding her a high calorie milky protein drink. The nurses sat with her at our table and chopped her food into tiny pieces urging her to take a few bites but all she did was cry. I wanted to scream at them that they were doing things all wrong - they should put the new girls together where they were all at the same stage of learning to eat again - not putting her with us three who had been here for months now and were on the road to recovery. It made us feel like crap for eating in front of her, it made us want to be like her again losing weight not gaining it. It made us feel so god damn guilty for being able to eat.3

I was brought here four months ago after I fainted in class and finally broke down and told my doctor I had stopped eating. The thing is, my anorexia hadn't even started like everyone else's. I hadn't sat there thinking "I'm so fat" or anything like that. It had been completely unintentional to lose weight at the beginning. It all started when I had been having stomach pains one weekend which became absolute agony and I was rushed into hospital. They didn't know what was wrong with me but they put me on nil-by-mouth for 5 long days until my appendix finally burst and I needed emergency surgery to have it removed. I was kept in for another few days after my surgery and only managed to eat a few mouthfuls of soup at a time. When I got home and realised that in just over a week my clothes felt looser I weighed myself and saw I had dropped 10lbs. Something happened in me that found this so exciting and I figured that as I had gone without eating for over a week now then I could use my illness as an excuse to not eat for a while. 4

Some days I felt so sick with hunger I would force myself to have some mouthfuls of soup but that was all I would ever eat. It became a completely liquid diet and my jaws forgot what it felt like to chew anything. They even hurt when I tried every so often to chew some gum. So this carried on for a few months, and on my liquid diet I had gone from 145lbs when I went into hospital down to 115lbs. It gave me such a rush every time I could fit into a smaller size of clothes and every time I knew I had 'beaten' my body by going a full day with only water. I dreamed of being so light and weightless I would be like a beautiful delicate butterfly, flying free with no cares in the world.5

Some days I felt so weak I could barely get out of bed but my parents were so busy with work that they believed any excuse I gave them of not feeling well and let me stay home. I lied to them so many times and told them I had been to the doctor while they were at work and had a stomach bug, gastroenteritis, a virus, period pain, migraines, tonsillitis, anything I could think of to allow me to stay in bed and not have to move until I could convince myself I was strong enough to get up and exercise. Exercise was the best thing ever, it helped me lose more weight and also got me warm. Being cold all the time was almost worse than feeling sick and hungry.6

It had been eight months since I had been in hospital with my appendix when my weight finally dropped to 88lbs and I fainted in school. That was when the truth finally came out and I was moved to this hospital. 7

In the four months I have been here my weight has gone back up to 102lbs. The day I saw my weight go over the 100lb mark I cried like a baby, broke down and became completely hysterical. Couldn't they see what they were doing to me? They were making me fat again and I had spent so much time and energy trying to be slim. I hated all of them and vowed to myself that as soon as I ever got out of here I would lose all the weight again. My head was such a mixture of confusion. I actually liked the feeling of having something in my stomach, I liked having energy, I liked not having to engage in a constant battle with myself to avoid food at all costs. Yet I hated what it was doing to my body. Instead of getting a rush each time I dropped a clothes size I wanted to die when they congratulated me on needing a bigger size. They just didn't understand.8

When I looked over at this new girl Anna I felt jealous towards her. She had done so much better than me getting down to 70lbs. She had managed to lose weight so well that she needed a tube in her. It looked horrible, I really didn't want one, but it proved she had really gotten thin, not just half-way there like me. 9

Everyone in here, except for me, had stories of what led to their anorexia. Loads of girls had experienced abuse, bullying, depressions that led them to have such low self confidence that they developed anorexia; and the thing is once you have got it you get a mix of two things. One is you feel like crap all the time but the other is this rush I can't even put into words because you are controlling something that only you can control. All around me in this hospital are girls who regularly hurt themselves in any way they can, it's totally normal to see girls with bandages on their wrists and arms and scars where they have cut or burnt themselves. And sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be here, I mean I just enjoyed losing weight that was all, I didn't go on a mission to hurt myself in any way possible. 10

The therapists don't believe me. Every time I have a counselling session they are always asking me questions about my life, my upbringing, always trying to see if they can dig out a reason which led to me being this way. But the truth is there was no reason other than I saw a way I could lose weight. That was it. They try and say to me I was lonely and felt rejected from my parents because they work so much and never spend time with me, but I don't believe that had anything to do with it. I'm really not like the other girls here. I kept this to myself, I didn't even share my "eating problem" with strangers online. When I hear the other girls here talking about pro-ana websites and stuff I didn't even have a clue what they were talking about at the beginning. They talk about how great these sites are with everyone encouraging each other to go without food, giving each other tips and support on how to survive for a week on water. 11

To me it just came naturally. I just couldn't stop it.12

Now they say I am in recovery. When I reach 110lbs they will let me go home and see a counsellor a couple of times a week. I'm looking forward to going home and back to school, I've really missed my friends. They send me cards and letters in here and tell me all the gossip I've been missing. I wonder sometimes what they all really think of me being in here and what they say to each other about me. But when they speak to me they act totally normal. Sometimes my head plays games with me though, sometimes I think they all must think I am crazy. 13

When I have finished eating my chicken and pasta I go back to my room and lie on the bed. I lift up my top and can roll a little fat between my fingers, it's disgusting. I think of Anna and her bones all perfectly angled and mine have become lost under all this blubbery fat again. I need to get out of here and get some control back, I really can't take being close to recovery anymore. When they say I'm recovering they are saying I am fat again. I'm up to 102 now and only need to get to 110 and I can go home. When I'm home I can get rid of all this blubber on me that's making me like a whale and be happy again. I was happy then wasn't I? I curl up on the bed and desperately try to feel somewhere on my body where there is bone but it's all hidden. A lump rises in my throat and tears roll down my face. I'm failing, I'm losing my battle, they are winning. 14

I get up and run to the toilet and violently scratch the back of my throat until all my dinner comes back up. It's the first time I've ever purged and afterwards I feel so good, so empty. The emptiness is a feeling I have missed so much. I suddenly hear that old voice back in my head, the one I used to hear all the time when I wasn't eating. The voice that told me if I kept being good and losing weight it would protect me, it would numb all my problems, it would protect me from the world. It would make sure nothing else mattered if I kept making it happy. Out of nowhere all I can feel is hatred towards myself and images flash through my head of my parents screaming at each other and me crying upstairs in my bedroom. I'm only about 4 or 5 years old. I am so scared that something terrible is going to happen that I wet myself. One of them is going to leave me, one of them is going to storm out the house and never come back and there is nothing that I can do. Nothing I can do. Nothing I can do. The thoughts keep going round and round in my head and I don't even know for sure if that ever really happened when I was a kid. 15

If that's the reason the counsellors have been searching for then why did it stay hidden until now? Why now would something like that make me not want to eat? They all talk about control and poor body image and self esteem. I didn't have any obvious problems like that, I just wanted to lose weight. Where the hell did that memory come from? What did it have to do with anything? 16

Over the next few days these images continue to flash through my mind. So many different times when I felt like I was going to be abandoned by my parents. Even up 'til now. Something starts to click in my brain. They work so much because they don't want to see each other. They don't love each other. They just stay together for me. But I barely see them. If I leave here and go home it's all going to be real again and now I know the truth. One day they are going to split up and I won't be able to bear it. Every time that thought comes into my mind I run to the toilet and scratch my throat until I am empty again. I ask for my razor to shave my legs and I cut them all over. Everything is my fault. For the first time ever I really hate myself. It all makes sense now, it really is the only thing I can control and they are making me better so I can go home for everything to fall apart again.17

I run myself a hot bath and while I'm in it, without even thinking, I begin to slice my wrists with my razor. Deeper and deeper until the water is turning pink. My mind is empty, I don't even know what I'm doing. I hold my wrists under the water and just keep dragging it back and forth. No one checks on me because I am "recovering" now. They have people like Anna who are more important to sit with and check on. Suddenly blood starts spurting from my wrists and the sight of it makes me go light headed. I drop the razor and lie back in the bath keeping my arms under the water. I can hear a voice screaming "help me, help me" and don't even recognise it as my own. 18

I'm doing it again, I'm screaming out for help. They are going to find me and save me just like they did when they brought me here. Something hurts so bad inside and for the first time ever I know I really need them.19

As I start drifting off all I can think is I need help. I really need help. I'm broken and need someone to find me and help put me back together. Is anyone coming? Did anyone hear me? I haven't got the strength to call out again. I can feel the hot bath water still around me but I can't hear any voices nearby. My eyes are too heavy to open and look around. 20

I hope they will save me. I need them to save me from myself.21

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