I'm Not Listening

I was hungry, but I hungered not for food in my stomach. After three years of voluntary starvation, hunger was not a sensation of pain, but one of the few things that still allowed me to feel alive. I had been driven by an irrational obsession to count ribs on a concave abdomen, feel the sharp protrusion of hipbone, an obsession that had only brought on devastation in my life. In the mirror I saw adipose tissue that I could not feel, but in my mind if I saw it, then it must exist. Bones became the only affirmation of my happiness. Nothing else besides a rawboned appearance brought a smile to my face. Often I saw a reflection of a person who had lost the ability to be in love with life, a person who would never reach her goal of being the “perfect weight”, so I was hungry, hungry to feel alive once more.1

My decline was gradual, simply a diet to lose a few pounds. It was my desire to fit into that dress I had seen at the mall that only sold up to a certain size. It was the time for homecoming my sophomore year. The girls and I were so excited to finally be old enough to go without having to be asked by an older boy. I saw that red dress in the display window. The only problem was that the store only sold up to a size 5, I was a size 7, a larger 7 at that. Yet I wanted that dress ,so I insisted on trying it on anyway. Secretly maybe there would be some merciful elastic at the middle, maybe sucking in my stomach would do the trick. Going into that dressing room, forcing that dress over my hips, I thought it was the most amazing thing ever on me. I hadn’t looked in the mirror yet. It was devastating. It shattered what little self-esteem I had left. My stomach bulged over the waistband, and my thighs seemed to be twice as large as I had remembered them to be. I was my worst nightmare. I had become fat.2

After seeing myself in that red dress my reflection was never the same. No longer could I look in the mirror with a smile. I saw nothing of what I saw before. I saw disgusting pudge on my stomach, dimpled fat on my thighs, love handles on my sides. It was a forlorn image, a prison sentence of unhappiness. Nobody had ever commented on the plus sized person I saw in the mirror, yet I knew that they were only being polite. Who would want to upset the “ fat girl”? I was headed towards years of being taunted for not being beautiful and thing. I was running the risk of losing friends because I was letting myself go. How had I come to this level without even noticing it? How had I let myself become my worst fear?3

I did so well the rest of my sophomore year. I began a diet, joined the gym, had even cut out lunch from my diet. It was a rigid regimen of grapefruits, salads, with a few soda crackers in the mix. Every time I complete an 8 mile run I wanted to go for another 4 just to see if I had the energy to burn off more calories, melt off more pounds. Finally my friends began to comment on how great I was looking. For the first time in my life it was the other way around. I wasn’t telling Serene how great she looked in that black micro dress, but it was she who was telling me how she wished that she had my figure. There was nothing better than hearing those words come from the mouth of someone who you had been jealous of for years. I started looking in the mirror again, even started smiling at my reflection. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my victory was to be very short lived.4

I had brought home straight A’s that semester. The first time in over a year. Daddy was so excited that he went ahead and prepared my favorite meal: homemade chili over rice with stuffed potatoes. It was everything that I had denied myself for months. The first thing that struck me when the scent of it all wafted into me room was paralyzing fear. It was rare for my family to sit down at the table to eat, yet if Daddy went through all the trouble he would expect me to eat. How could I tell him that I was still on my diet of grapefruits and salad? I had told him weeks ago that I had stopped. He already thought that I needed to gain some of it back. There was no way with getting out of eating with my family. As I sat down with them I mentally counted how many calories would be in that meal: about 1,600. That was more than I ate in one day. No amount of miles ran would burn that off. I ate it though however, with Daddy watching my every bite.5

It had been months since I had felt that full, since I had consumed that much in one sitting. I was in a panic. I went back and forth to my mirror about one hundred times in 5 minutes. My stomach was not flat, but poked out from all the food that was within. I felt huge. I had to do something, and something I did. With a strong sense of determination I went to the bathroom, stared at the toilet, mentally at war with it. Finally the feeling of fatness won, and I hunched over the toilet seat, looking down at the little bowl of water. Down my fingers went, down into unknown territory. I thought that it would be hard, yet all it took was a little coaxing of my tonsils. Within seconds all of the contents of my stomach floated before, a huge victory for me. It was just supposed to be a one time thing. Never again would I make myself vomit. It was only because I had cheated on my diet. Little did I know was that for three years I would so many times break that promise to myself.6

Sophomore year was truly when my fear of food had become profound. Before that little red dress had come along I never feared what I saw in the mirror. I never turned down an invitation to go out to eat with Serene and her family. Daddy never had a problem convincing me to sit down with my family to eat. My family had noticed and so did my friends. My love of food had quickly been replaced with the morbid fear that eating it would make me atrociously fat. Before my sophomore year the mere thought of putting my fingers down my throat had seemed ludicrous. Now summer had arrived and that simply meant trying to figure out more lies. It was just one more thing that would push me to the brink.7

Summer time was my favorite time of the year. It was dinner parties with Daddy, luncheons with the girls, potlucks on Sunday afternoon at the church. It was cheese and wine sampling at my neighbors’ house, making cakes with Grandma for the county fair. Summer was all about food to me. It was what my social life centered around. It was what my “diet” wouldn’t allow me to do. My diet seemed to have a voice at that point. Every time I picked up a grapefruit it seemed to whisper to me that I didn’t need a whole one, but just a half a one. Each time I decided it was time to quit the “diet” that voice was right there telling me I was nowhere thin enough. It would point out that Serene was indeed thinner than I was again, and that would never do. It would direct me to the mirror to see the fat on my thighs, how my stomach wasn’t as flat as it could be.8

“You are disgusting! How can you not see that fat on your body! Are you blind, you fat ugly pig?!?” the voice would scream at me every time I reached for something more than salad.9

“You are right. I’m still fat. I’m so sorry,” would always be the reply to the voice who had taken up prominent residence in my mind.10

Every dinner party that I went to was followed by a visit to the gas station down the street so that I could vomit. Every potluck at the church was followed with the excuse that I didn’t have time to stay for I had so much homework to do. Every ingenious excuse engineered by the commandant that lived in every present thought in my head. The commandant only wanted to see me happy, to see me reach my goal, every sacrifice was necessary. No longer did I help Grandma with her cakes for the county fair, even though it was the only thing she and I smiled about. No longer did I tell my neighbor how superb her cheeses were that year. My friends had stopped inviting me to go to lunch with them, knowing every time they would be shot down with an excuse.11

What started as a diet became my entire existence. I had stopped living for anything else besides counting ribs on a concave abdomen, praying that the protrusion of hipbone be a little sharper next week. Nothing seemed to be as important as losing more weight, willing the scale to make me smile that week. I was reading all I could about losing weight. Somewhere I had read that laxatives would help with water weight, and how correct they were. It was a new fuel to my addiction. It was another way at tricking the scale that I was thinner. When I didn’t have the money to buy the boxes of laxatives, I resorted to stealing them. I’d drive to a different county so that nobody would see me buy them, then in my car I’d down a whole box of them with a bottle of water. 12

I had lost every single friend I had. I had become secretive, withdrawn, simply just very unpleasant company. I had adopted a baggy sense of style in place of the cute and chic one I had when they had known me. My eyes would wander madly, constantly challenging people to comment on my frail body. That was all I wanted to hear about. It was all that my mind could comprehend. Through all of the unpleasantness that had become me, one person still held out compassion for me, one still held hope that the Jamie I used to be was still there somewhere. Serene didn’t want to lose the best friend that she had since middle school.13

She invited me over just like old times. We would watch movies, do facials, give each other pedicures, everything we did back before the commandant came into my life. Serene looked at me differently, as if she was searching beyond what wasn’t there. It was dinner time, her mother had worked so hard to prepare it, and I had mastered the way of eating whatever I wanted without cheating the commandant. I ate, ate, and ate, until I had no more room in my stomach, until I was so full I could barely walk. Then I slipped expertly away to the farthest bathroom away from the dining room. Down my fingers went, again, for what was the thousandth time I broke that promise to myself. Turning on the faucet as well with the feeble hope that they didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing. When I felt I had done a sufficient job, I flushed the toilet, and popped a couple laxatives in my mouth. As I opened the door I found Serene waiting in the hall for me, the expression that was on her face is one that I will never forget.14

She grabbed for me, pulling me towards her, her hands feeling for my ribcage, my hipbones, my arms, a look of disbelief coming over her face. She just kept grabbing, trying to feel for wasn’t there. She was trying to feel for anything besides the cold feel of bone. This made me euphoric. Finally, she was jealous of me. Finally it was I who had beaten her in this game that I had played for almost three years.15

“Jamie, where are you!?! What has happened to you?” she cried, looking into my dull, brown eyes for answers. “Don’t you see what you have become? Nothing! Nothing but bones…”16

How could she have been so blind? Did she not see the fat of my stomach, the cellulite on my thighs? I couldn’t even see my spine. “Oh Serene, how can you be so stupid!?!” I answered back. “How can you not see this fat? How can you not see how ugly I’ve become? How can you see that I will never be as thin as you?” I fell to my knees in tears, and she followed me, offering the only solace she knew how to give, a hug.17

She brought me to the mirror, pleading with me to really try to see myself. She wanted me to tell the commandant, the only constant friend I had, the only one who didn’t leave me, to go away. How could I do that? How could I tell someone who I’d come to love to just leave? Yet here was Serene, in tears, begging me to see what I hadn’t seen in years: myself. I put my hands to my ribs, tried desperately to see what Serene saw. I felt what she saw, but as hard as I tried, I just couldn’t see it. I felt how concave my abdomen was, I felt how it was gutted like a melon. I felt the extreme sharpness of my hipbones, how hollow my legs had become, the fine layer of down that covered my body. It came to me, wave after painful wave of truth, that I had lost my most important sense. I had lost the ability to see. I had become blind. The commandant had become my only sense of sight. 18

I needed my sight back, but the commandant wasn’t going to let go of it that easily. He would rather let me die than let me go. Hunger was no longer an ache for me. It had no meaning. What used to be the reminder of what I needed to live became a nothingness over time. The ability to know hunger had vanished. The commandant had finally convinced me that food altogether was no longer necessary. All I needed was the gym and the commandant now.19

Nine days of not eating had finally proved too much. I was at the running track, after only running 3 miles, my heart had decided to give out. No more did it want to pump the precious blood I needed to keep going. Blackness, complete, thick, palpable blackness seeped into my world. I stopped hearing the commandant pushing me to keep running, and just silence, peaceful silence. 20

“Where does it hurt?” the doctor asked me a week after Daddy made me check myself into an eating clinic.21

Where did it hurt? How could I describe where it hurt? Where did I even start? My chest hurt, my stomach was on fire, my hair was falling out, my eyes were so dull and glazed over, my legs seemed to heavy and hard to move. My fingers creaked with weakness every time I reached to try to pull the wires away from my heart. My mind was in agony, trying to cope with everything they had told me. They kept on repeating that if I had kept on like that I would have less than a year on earth. There was no sugarcoating it. I was going to die. How could the commandant lead me to this point? Had he not been my friend?22

“It hurts everywhere. It won’t stop hurting.”23

“What makes it better? Is there anything that makes it better?”24

“Running. Push-ups. Sit ups when I’m too weak to do anything else. Can I do those? Sit-ups I mean?”25

“No you can’t.”26

“Well why not? Tell me why I am in so much pain, Doctor!”27

“You won’t eat. You are so hungry. You are just now realizing it. You will have to eat if you ever want to do sit-ups again.”28

Coconut Creek Eating Clinic was the place where my eyes began to open again. I told Dr. Hardesty all about the commandant, and how he had brought me such happiness in my life. The good doctor kindly reminded me to look about my surroundings. Was being hooked up to machines monitoring my heart, or having a feeding tube in my throat truly being happy? Dr. Hardesty reminded me that I was dying, my body was eating itself. She asked me how much I wanted to live. What were my hopes and dreams? What were my goals?29

“I do want to live more than anything else in this world. I want to be a teacher when I’m older. I’d like to have my own second grade class. I want to travel to Europe and see Paris, Venice, Barcelona, all of those big cities. Especially Budapest!”30

Dr. Hardesty had given me a sad shake of her head. “ Jamie, you are dying. Your heart will not beat like it is supposed to. Your potassium is dangerously low. If you continue, I don’t see you being alive this time next year.”31

After I had been at Coconut Creek for three weeks Dr. Hardesty told me that I was finally strong enough to leave my room and to start walking around. She suggested that I attend group, which was where 7 or 8 girls with the same problem as me sat around telling their sob stories. I didn’t fight it, I wanted to do what I had to do so that I could go home again. I drudgingly went to group, not at all expecting to see what I saw when I had entered the common area. They were all skeletons, they seemed to thin to truly be human. Emaciated and gaunt, their skin seemed like you could just peel it right off the bone. Some had very dull hair, others only had clumps of hair, all covered in a thick layer of white hair. Their bodies seemed to be metamorphosing back to fetuses. Then it struck me, was it how I viewed these skeletons of girls how others viewed me? Was this what Serene saw when she saw me walk out of that bathroom?32

During group I listened to the girls reiterate their stories, reliving the same private hell I had put myself through. One girl had to line her bed with rubber sheets because she no longer had control of her bowels. Another felt so cold all the time, so much she tried to peel off her skin so that she wouldn’t feel the goose bumps. These girls had been through what I put myself for three years, yet many of them had gone through it for so much longer. Some had been subject to that hell for more than 15 years. I was considered to be the very lucky one, my illness was so young and tender. I still had the chance to turn around and save myself.33

From the feeding tube I graduated to eating on my own. I learned at Coconut Creek that food wasn’t the enemy, but the commandant was. The commandant had replaced my inner voice. For so long the only voice inside was telling me that I was hideous, something that nobody wanted to look at. The only voice I heard was telling me that I couldn’t. With Dr. Hardesty guiding me through I looked in the mirror everyday. I woke up telling myself that I was beautiful, and fell asleep telling myself that I was beautiful. No longer counted the calories, yet counted the beats of my heart, the thoughts in my head. At that point I no longer thought about just food, but about so much more.34

Daddy and Serene visited me often, never failing to remind me that I was so far from alone. After 6 months Daddy was no longer afraid of hugging me. He was no longer afraid that he would break me in two if he did happen to hug me too hard. Serene brushed my hair and plaited it every time she visited me, happy that my hair had a shine to it again. Dr. Hardesty told me that my heart was out of the danger zone, my potassium levels in a normal range once again. I didn’t even wince when I stepped onto the scale and it read 115 back to me. For so long I had kept my weight religiously at 95, then my new inner voice reminded me that it was the commandant that kept it there, and not I.35

Seven months I spent at Coconut Creek. It was seven months of letting go of the commandant, learning who I was again, becoming healthy again, seeing an honest reflection again. After three years the commandant is finally gone. I starting to see myself in a whole new light. No longer is it my wish to stand naked in front of the mirror to point out this flaw and that. A concave abdomen is not my pride and joy anymore, it is anything but. Laxatives are no longer my fuel, food is now. I can finally go to lunch with Daddy or Serene and I have no worries about what gas station I will go off to next. There is no need to steal food from different counties anymore, no need to hide food in shoes, in the ceiling, or under my bed. I’m finally free. Free to do as I want, when I want to.36

My future is much brighter now, my path to success much more clear. When three years ago I couldn’t even see who I was in the mirror, I now see myself as teaching that second grade class, or backpacking across Europe with Serene. I’ve realized that I’m now able to live once more. I had lost sight for so long at how important living once was. There is a huge difference between being hungry for beauty and being hungry for life. Being hungry for life means knowing what it is like to know how it is to live. Being hungry for beauty means sacrificing what it is like to know how to live.37

I’m no longer hungry. I’ve fed not only my body again, but my soul as well. Daddy is walking with me again, and so is Serene. With their support and along with everyone at Coconut Creek I have come so far and have done so much. I owe so much to so many. So many still loved me long after I had stopped loving myself. I am anything but bones now.