Starving For Attention
By: Sarah Goldstein
Tags: Mothers And Daughters, Dark Humor, Body, Eating Disorders, Narrative

When I came out of my mother’s womb, everyone assumed I was crying because I was a normal and healthy baby. Really, I was crying because I was born at seven and a half pounds. My goal weight was six.

Childhood is measured in inches and pounds. “Look how much you’ve grown!” my grandmother would say, every time the top of my head surpassed a pencil mark on the wall. My reactions underwhelmed anyone excited about milestones like getting taller or needing bigger clothes. “Growing” disturbed me, so I fought hard to avoid it. Instead of playing marbles or learning to read, I spent every second of every day terrified of becoming overweight. As if fatness were something that could happen to me, a seven year old, suddenly and without my consent. Nobody noticed, but I was gifted- a starvation savant.

In second grade, a chubby boy named Brian had a birthday. His mom brought in a cake to share with the entire class. It was a kind of cake with plastic looking, neon blue frosting. When Brian’s mom arrived at my desk with a piece of cake, we both got distracted by the sight of her red faced son who had just sneezed. He looked pathetic with blue frosting chunks dripping out of his nose. I glanced at him, pitifully. Then, back at his mom. Between sips from my Scooby Doo thermos of iced black coffee, I said, “No cake for me.” With my free hand, I counted my ribs. I got to six, then flipped off Brian.

Post fifth grade graduation, my family got a home computer. The first time that my eleven year old hands instinctively typed “girl ribs” into Google image search, I was introduced to a community of malnourished personalities who existed to validate my compulsions. Rituals I had thought of as original were described so specifically that I wondered if I was being watched. Before my computer, I thought that I was the only person who couldn’t sleep if I was forced to eat with the big spoon instead of the little one. Putting every meal into the microwave until it was too hot to eat was a procrastination tool I was sure I had invented. Armed with the proof that there were other people who catered their lives around the fear of food, I wondered if this behavior could be normal. I decided that it probably was. Still, I deleted my search history and isolated myself from anyone observant enough to notice the panic in my eyes when a waiter put bread on the table.

If I was expected to go to a restaurant, the hours leading up to the meal were spent studying. The focus and discipline that adults begged to be shown was exhausted here, alone. I quizzed myself on the chosen location’s menu items and calorie count until I had them memorized to the spacing and punctuation. How many glasses of water would I fill up on before the meal? What kind of oil and how much salt did P.F. Chang’s put in their infamous Lettuce Wraps? Since I couldn’t drive, I was frequently dragged to restaurants without a warning. In these situations, I would make my best guess while ordering, and do the research to confirm once I got home. If I had eaten too many calories by mistake, I wouldn’t sleep. Entire nights would be spent doing sit ups or jumping jacks in my room. By the end of middle school, I got my period. Once.

In high school, I convinced my parents to buy me an Ipod touch by lying that I needed it for an app that would help me learn Spanish. Aplicaciones de conteo de calorías. Calorie counting apps. Gum. 5 calories. Banana, medium. 105 calories. Banana, large. 121 calories. If I wasn’t tracking, I was scheming. How could I burn off a medium banana while sitting at my desk? While my world history teacher lectured about ancient Mesopotamia, I nodded my head with an unnatural intensity. The nods did not come from interest. They came from a life threatening sense of urgency to burn the twelve calories that were necessary to counteract my afternoon rice cake. I tapped my leg seventy two times a minute and made sure to speed walk to and from the bathroom at least once during every class.

I felt like a tightrope walker. Through balance and control, I felt like I was pulling off something incredible and otherworldly. Tracking at the varsity level required one hundred percent of my time and zero talent, leaving me devoid of any meaningful hobbies or transferable skills. When daily recordings revealed that I had mistakenly consumed enough to keep myself alive, I would grind my teeth while I slept; burning calories even while unconscious.

By fifteen, I looked like a wire hanger wearing a skin jacket. Concerned parents and faculty had started to reach out to my mom. She was furious at me for subjecting her to so much judgement and embarrassment. “Why can’t you just eat?” Over and over, she screamed this question. Once, she screamed this question while angrily waving a biscotti. She threw the biscotti at my closed mouth, like my face was a carnival game that she had just blown her entire allowance on. I shifted the shape of my eyebrows to express disappointment when the biscotti fell onto the floor. As if I would have been thrilled to eat it otherwise. My concocted responses were just as outrageous as her parenting showmanship. I said things like, “I think I’m just naturally thin.” I even tried, “I love food!” Whichever words were used, I sounded hollow. As a final Hail Mary, I promised to eat. I promised to eat that night. In front of her.

Pasta. Shit. Of course she picked pasta. Before her DIY exposure therapy, my mom had never allowed herself to be in the same room as foods like pasta or biscottis. When the bowl was presented, I squealed in a voice that was not mine. “I love pasta!” Silence. I tried again. I licked my lips maniacally and said, “looks good!” while patting my stomach. My mom gripped her fork until her fingers turned white. She wanted to stab me. With my selfish antics, I had forced her into this position. She cared deeply about my health. When a mother cares deeply about the health of a daughter, she must pretend that, of course, she too could eat a bowl of pasta for dinner like it was no big deal. I knew that she wanted to stab me. I knew that she did not want to eat that pasta either. I was a bad daughter.

The two of us sat down at the dinner table, as though it were a place we would spend time together regularly. My plan to sell myself as “girl enjoying food,” was to imitate the way my mom was eating. My plan failed since she was just staring at me, waiting. The longer I made her wait, the tighter she gripped the fork. The tighter she gripped the fork, the more I wished that she would just stab me already so that I wouldn’t have to eat the stupid pasta. I clenched my jaw, and made an effort to coach myself through the steps of eating that my brain had long ago forgotten.

Smile. Take a bite. Chew. Swallow. Say something conversational. Ask her about her childhood. No. No, do not do that. Say something about Nordstrom’s Rack. No, just stay quiet. Okay, take another bite. Do not get up to use the microwave. Don’t forget to smile.

When I took the final bite, my mom loosened her grip from the fork. We sat in stillness; unsure of what to do, feel or say next. I pleaded with my brain for instructions, but it was blocked by carbohydrates. I gripped my fork from the top and dug the prongs into my palm. What did normal people do when they finished dinner? Would this be the right time to bring up Nordstrom’s Rack? What did normal people do when they looked down at the empty bowl and didn’t know exactly how many calories were in the bowl before it was empty? What did normal people do when the bowl was empty and the pasta that used to be in the bowl was now in their stomach and they didn’t know how many calories were in the pasta which meant that they didn’t know how many sit ups they would have to do before bed and how many meals they would have to skip the next day and they felt like they were going to die and they fucking hated pasta? I released my hand from the fork. The long line of stitches that had been holding me together were ripped out, with no warning or bandage. It was a normal portion of food.

Two hours later, I was in the emergency room. My hysteria was objectively high. I don’t remember what happened between the pasta and the hospital. Drawing from context clues, I think that the pasta made me feel full. A normal post meal feeling, sure. How was I supposed to know that? I hadn’t experienced fullness after a meal since I was breastfed. I was positive that my appendix had burst.

My mom agreed to take me to the emergency room. Not because she believed me, but because she needed unbiased validation. On our drive, she insisted that I sit in the backseat so she wouldn’t have to look at me. When we made it past the waiting room, I looked the doctor in the eyes and said, in complete earnest, “I think I’m dying.” When he asked for my age, I begged him to cut me open and remove my appendix. It was an emergency, I was sure of it. If he’s already taking out my appendix, I reasoned, he might as well get all of that pasta out too. My logic felt solid.

To nobody’s surprise, my appendix was fine. The physical pain I deeply believed in was only my mangled brain’s reaction to eating an almost large portion. I had eaten more calories in one sitting than I was used to eating in a week, and all circuits were misfiring. Rather than listening to this adult man with a medical degree, I turned up the hysterics. I theatrically doubled over in pain and screamed something about believing women. As his final Hail Mary, the doctor gave me an enema and I shit everywhere. My adrenaline began to fade.

If a dog takes a shit in the wrong place at the wrong time, they are capable of expressing some version of remorse. They run away. They hide their tail between their legs. For a human girl who had just shit herself after lying about knowing where her appendix was, shame would have been the appropriate emotion. Alternatively, I stared at my shit covered hospital gown and wondered. How many calories were burned using an enema while having a panic attack as opposed to shitting with a resting heart rate? My mom was humiliated.

I cleaned myself up, expecting to go home and brush off the entire episode. “Crazy, right? Okay, Goodnight!” The doctor was staring at me like I had just jumped completely naked in front of his moving car before trying to sell him real estate. My danger zone vitals and weight were recorded. I was tricked into disclosing that I still did not have my period and sometimes my hair fell out in patches. My secret was out. I did not have appendicitis. I was not naturally thin and I did not love pasta. As per this annoyed doctor’s professional opinion, I was ordered to “get it together” before I “lost my fertility.” As my mom sobbed at the words “loss” and “fertility,” I rolled my eyes. If the roles had been reversed, I would have personally chosen to use something other than pregnancy as leverage. Given that “deathly fear of weight gain” was the underlying issue. But hey, I’m not a doctor.

The next evening, my parents sat me down, business meeting style, with my inpatient rehab paperwork freshly printed and ready for me to sign. I threatened to kill myself. My parents looked at each other. I knew what they were both thinking. “We should risk it, right?”

Terms and agreements were summarized. Six months in a hospital. I would thank them later. Eyes glazed, I calmly walked up the stairs. From up above, I made eye contact with my mom and launched myself down the entire flight, full speed. My dad remained seated, unable to make any sense of what was happening around him. My mom walked over to the bottom of the stairs. When I saw her making her way toward me, I shut my eyes. If I kept my eyes closed long enough, I thought they might just let me sleep there. A hand grabbed the back of my hair and sat me up. I opened my eyes. I quickly shut them again when I processed the anger to annoyed ratio written on her face. “Get up. Throwing yourself down the stairs is not the same as killing yourself.”

My parents settled on a more affordable outpatient program, which forced me to skip school three times a week. The program was titled some variation of the three words “Mind, Body and Spirit.” My therapist was blonde. During our first session, she spoke patiently for one hour, hoping that I would be kind enough to give her the bare minimum. For sixty minutes, I sat there, unmoving. I counted the amount of times I blinked or took a breath. I stared at the wall behind her, imagining that she was a ghost. Again, my mom was humiliated when the therapist delivered my progress report. “Did not meet expectations.” In the waiting room, they conspired while I sarcastically flipped through an issue of Bon Appetit. In unison, they touched my shoulders too hard, and revealed my exciting new plan. To save my fertility, I was going to be put on psychiatric medication immediately.

They gave me Prozac. I loved Prozac. Prozac made me feel alive. It made me feel liberated. It made me feel like maybe, just maybe, I could eat a little bit more without dying. Responsive and engaged by Prozac, I attended group therapy once a week for eight weeks. The only thing I remember about the group is that all of us decided we wanted to go to Six Flags together, and our therapist told us doing so would be extremely inappropriate. Once I reached one hundred pounds, I stopped going to therapy and made being a “recovered anorexic” my entire personality. I spoke about my bravery to anyone who would listen. Simultaneously, I was careful to still remain lighter than one hundred and five pounds.

Conveniently, my phase of being a recovered anorexic lined up perfectly with the rise of the body positivity campaign. This movement taught us that self starvation is an epidemic to which every woman in America is highly at risk of. In what seemed like overnight, society universally agreed that dieting was over. To publicly express disdain for one’s beautiful and special body under any circumstances, was deemed to be not only unacceptable, but dangerous. Portion control or frowning at a chubby stomach was enough to qualify somebody for a formal intervention. The verdict was out. Calorie restriction equaled bad. Juicing, cleanses and veganism equaled good. For the next four years, being vegan was my religion, my personality and my eating disorder that I was allowed to talk about.

Vegans are healthy. Healthy people don’t need antidepressants. I had this thought one morning, and flushed my beloved Prozac down the toilet. One week later, I totaled my car by driving it into a parking garage wall and started sleeping eighteen hours a day. The small portion of the day that I wasn’t sleeping was spent out of control binge eating. Fast food, pints of ice cream, chips and entire loaves of bread. Even pasta. So much fucking pasta.

I was in shock. How could I, a vegan who hated eating, all of a sudden be eating to such a degree? When the binges happened, I would completely black out. I didn’t even get to enjoy the food. Not that I would have, but still. When I came to, all I knew was that in a miniscule amount of time, I had stuffed my body to the brim with years and years worth of the foods I had never allowed myself to even look at. If only I had a gag reflex, maybe my brain would have decided to go with bulimia for my final wave of a behavioral disorder. Binging, by far, is the most embarrassing and least rewarding of all the eating disorders.

I don’t remember when I got “better.” Nor what finally pushed me to do so. I had a few more years of seemingly significant weight gain and weight loss. A few more years of therapy accompanied by a will to live that came naturally with age. A quietly dramatic journey of meds, no meds and finally meds again. Now, I take Lexapro. I love Lexapro. Lexapro makes me feel normal. I move through the world like a normal person who enjoys meals, but is mostly focused on other things. I even have hobbies and interests that have nothing to do with food or weight loss whatsoever.

I was never overweight. As it turns out, my years of inexplicably infuriating behaviors actually had very little to do with weight gain or weight loss. I didn’t starve myself to lose weight. I didn’t starve myself because of society. I didn’t starve myself because of Hollywood or the patriarchy or a lack of curvy role models who could have encouraged me to love myself. I starved myself because my brain was sick. Digging for an answer that might be more eloquent or shocking would require time and labor that I don’t care to expend. When I was a child, if somebody would have told me to “love my body no matter what,” I would have starved myself even harder. As an adult, nothing makes me lose my appetite more quickly than somebody telling me to “love my body no matter what.”

“Body Positivity” is a very nice gesture. I appreciate the invitation, and politely decline. I am committed to protecting my constitutional right to never be positive about anything. Especially not my body. The crusade against unrealistic beauty standards is an easy cause to stand behind. Shining the light on the grave dangers of developing disordered eating habits is noble and important. Society coming around to the idea that those above a certain BMI deserve to exist, is an unarguably positive change. But in the secret and twisted part of my brain, I feel nostalgic for the time when “eating disorder” had more of a dangerous ring to it. As an anorexic adolescent, I felt that I was uniquely glamorous and tormented. Now, it feels like the most milquetoast mental illness that a person can sign up for.

Due to the paper trail surrounding my eating disorders, it seems as though I have outed myself for the rest of my life. If I had just been a bit more inconspicuous as a child, I would still be flying under the radar. I would exist humbly and successfully pass my disordered eating off as normal, just like every other woman with a pulse. Instead, I am never allowed to skip a meal and have it go unnoticed. I am not permitted to lose a small amount of weight in peace and quiet.

The worst part? To this day, my psychiatrist refuses to prescribe me stimulants because “given my past, it’s too dangerous.”

If I promised to love my body at any weight, I would be lying. Hypothetically, I could work towards an existence where I believed, with conviction, that my weight and appearance were not synonymous with value. Realistically, I know that such a goal is delusional. Restrictive diets have been relabeled as “plant based” or “intermittent fasting.” It’s more expensive, socially acceptable and remains locked in as a lifetime priority for most of us. When my pants feel loose, I feel happy. When my pants feel tight, I feel sad. The association is there, and I move on with my day. I believe the women who announce to the world that they do feel beautiful and fat at the same time. As for the women who are thin and loudly declare that weight does not matter? I believe them less. When I overhear my underweight coworker tell my overweight coworker to “stop dieting and just love herself,” I want to rip her detox smoothie out of her hands and challenge her to actually eat one of the doughnuts that are sitting in the break room. I can say with confidence and honesty that my eating disorders are dead to me. At the same time, I still think that being thin feels really fucking good.

And that’s the best I can do.

Now, will somebody please let me have an adderall prescription?