Beautiful Butterfly

As she sits across from me at the table I feel a mixture of envy and sadness. Envy because somehow, she has got away with it for so much longer than I have, and got so thin. Sadness, because just like the rest of us, she has been caught and dragged to this hell hole. Silent tears roll down her face as she shakes her head, refusing to eat. I can feel her pain, even the smallest bite might as well be an entire feast all to herself.1

We are all sitting in the dining room in small tables of four. Every table has a nurse sitting at it. We are watched all the time, the nurses are like hawks. They know all our tricks and they make sure that every mouthful is chewed and swallowed. Our hands have to be kept above the table at all times, and they check our pockets when we leave the room to make sure we haven't managed to stuff any food in them to throw away. They check under the tables to make sure we haven't thrown any on the floor. Eyes on us all the time, there is no escape from them.2

The new girl who has just arrived this week is Anna. She is 17 and has been brought here as an emergency, now her anorexia has plummeted her weight to 70 lbs. 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 has a feeding tube that goes up her nose and down to her stomach, constantly feeding her a high calorie, high protein, milk drink. The nurses sit with her at our table and chop her food into tiny pieces, urging her to take a few bites but all she does is cry. I want to scream at them that they are doing things all wrong. They should put the new girls together so they are all at the same stage, all learning to eat again, not putting her with us three who have been here for months now and are on the road to recovery. It makes us feel like crap for eating in front of her, it makes us want to be like her again, losing weight not gaining it. It makes us feel so God damn guilty for being able to chew and swallow.3

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I was brought here four months ago after I fainted in class. After a lot of questions, and a bit more gentle persuasion, I finally broke down and told the school nurse that I'd stopped eating. The thing is, my anorexia hadn't started like everyone else's. I hadn't been thinking 'I'm so fat' or anything like that. It was completely accidental that I lost weight at the beginning. 5

It all started when I had been having stomach pains one Saturday afternoon. By bedtime I was in unbearable agony and my parents rushed me to hospital. The doctors didn't know what was wrong with me at first, but they put me on nil-by-mouth for five long days when they finally diagnosed it was my appendix. Finally I got the emergency surgery I needed and it was removed. After the surgery, I spent several more days in hospital and began to feel better, but I could only manage to eat a few mouthfuls of soup at a time. 6

When I got home I realised my clothes felt looser so I weighed myself and saw I had dropped 10 lbs in about ten days. Something changed in me there and then, a new part of me appeared and found this so exciting. I figured I could use my illness as an excuse to carry on not eating for a while. It was like a buzz that I had this secret with myself which no-one else knew about.7

Some days I would feel so sick with hunger I'd have to force myself to swallow some mouthfuls of soup, but that was all I would ever eat. It became a completely liquid diet and my jaws ached just trying to chew on gum. So this carried on for a few months, and as I stuck to my liquid diet, I would get such a rush every time I could fit into a smaller size of clothes. I kept setting myself little challenges and would feel brilliant every time I won them. I hated my body to win, the way it could somehow choose to not let me lose weight. I dreamed of being so light and weightless, I would be like a beautiful delicate butterfly, flying free with no cares in the world.8

Some days I'd felt so weak I could barely get out of bed, but my parents were so busy with work that they believed any lousy excuse I gave them. I was forever telling them I didn't feel well and they were always in too much of a rush to argue, so they'd 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. I always gave myself a new diagnosis: stomach bug, gastroenteritis, migraines, viruses, period pain, tonsillitis; anything I could think of to allow me to stay in bed. I would just lie there and psyche myself up, I had to 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.9

Before long, eight months had passed since my appendix problems and my weight finally dropped to 88 lbs. That's when I fainted in school and the truth finally came out. That's when I was moved to this hospital. 10

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In the four months I have been here my weight has gone back up to 102 lbs. The day I saw my weight go over the 100 lb mark I cried like a baby, broke down and became completely hysterical. Can't they see what they are doing to me? They are making me fat again and I have spent so much time and energy trying to be slim. I hate all of them, and vow to myself that as soon as I get out of here I will lose all the weight again. I even tried stuffing things in my pockets to weigh me down, so that they might release me early. But I got caught, and now I get my weigh-ins in just shorts and a tee.12

My head is a real mixture of confusion. I actually like the feeling of having something in my stomach, I like having energy and not having to engage in a constant battle with myself. Yet I hate what it does to my body. Instead of getting a rush each time I drop a clothes size, I just want to die when they congratulate me on needing a bigger size. They just don't understand.13

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 70 lbs. She had managed to lose weight so well that she needed a tube to feed her. It looked horrible, and I really didn't want one, but it proved she had got really thin and beautiful, not just half-way there like me. 14

Everyone in here, except for me, has stories of what led to their anorexia. Loads of girls have experienced abuse, bullying, and depression that gave them such low self-confidence they developed eating disorders. The thing with anorexia is, despite feeling so rubbish all the time, it's such a buzz to know you are in control. You're the only one who can control it, it is your secret. You might not be able to control the abuse or bullying in your life but you can control what you eat. That's why we all do it, we want to escape our problems and find something that we can control. 15

All around me in this hospital are girls who hurt themselves in any way they can, it's totally normal to see girls with bandages on their wrists and arms; scars snaking along their skin where they have cut or burnt themselves. Some of the girls here are determined to hurt themselves in any way possible, they hate themselves so much they want to destroy everything about their body. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be here, I mean I just enjoyed losing weight that was all. I just wanted to be that beautiful butterfly.16

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My therapist here doesn't believe me. Every time I have a session she asks me questions about my life, my upbringing, etc. She is always trying to see if she 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 some fat. That was it. 18

She suggested it was because 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 my secret to myself; I didn't even share my secret with strangers online. When I heard the other girls here talking about pro-ana websites, I didn't have a clue what they were talking about at the beginning. They talk about how great the sites are, how much encouragement they got when they managed to go without food, how they could give each other tips on how to survive for a week on water. I feel quite left out when they talk about things like that. 19

To me though it just came naturally. I just couldn't stop it.20

Now they say I am in recovery. When I reach 110 lbs they will let me go home and just 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 have sent 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, and I think they all must say I'm crazy. 21

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My thoughts stop and I realise I'm still at the table and have finished my chicken pasta. After the obligatory checks for no food in my pockets I'm allowed back up to my room. As I lie on the bed I lift up my top and roll a little fat between my fingers. It's disgusting. 23

I think of Anna, the way her bones are so perfectly angled. 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 this whale like blubber that's on me 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 pour down my face. I'm failing, I'm losing my battle, they are winning. 24

I get up and run to the toilet and kick the door behind me. Violently I 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.25

Out of nowhere all I feel is hatred towards myself. 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 they ever did argue like that when I was a kid. 26

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? 27

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 until 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. 28

Every time the thoughts enter my mind I run to the toilet, and begin to scratch my throat until I am empty again. For the first time ever I really, truly, hate myself. It all makes sense now, food actually is the only thing I can control, and these nurses are making me better so I can go home for everything to fall apart again.29

Impulsively, I turn on the tap to run myself a hot bath. Thoughts are rushing to my brain and I'm not too sure what I'm doing. I run downstairs to the nurses station and ask for my razor to shave my legs. I'm in recovery now, I want to get better, they trust me. Handing it over they remind me to bring it back after my bath.30

I run back upstairs and pull of my clothes. There are no mirrors in the bathroom but I can see my fat wobbling all over me. I sink into the deep bath water and without even thinking, begin to slice my wrists with the razor. Deeper and deeper until the water is turning pink. My mind is empty yet rushing with thoughts, the numbness mixed with complete confusion. I don't even know what I'm doing. I hold my wrists under the water and just keep dragging the blade back and forth. No one checks on me because I am 'recovering' now. They have people like Anna who are more important to keep their hawk eyes on. Suddenly blood begins to spurt from my wrists and the sight of it makes me go light headed. I drop the razor and lie flat in the tub, keeping my arms under the water. Above the water I can hear a voice screaming "help me, help me" and don't even recognise it as my own. 31

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. Maybe it's time to open up, maybe it's time to be honest.32

As I start drifting off all I can think is I need help. I really need help! I'm broken and I need someone to find me and help put me back together.33

Is anyone coming?34

Did anyone hear me?35

I haven't got the strength to call out again.36

I can feel the hot bath water splashing around me. I can hear the thud from my panicking heart. My eyes are too heavy to open and look around, but when I listen carefully, the distance seems to be silent. I can hear voices from downstairs but I don't think anyone is up here.37

Haven't they heard me? They must have heard me.38

They save people, that's what they do.39

Why aren't they here? Why aren't they rescuing me from my mess? Don't they know I need them? Why is everything getting darker? Why am I sinking?40

I hope they will save me. 41

I need them to save me from myself.42