Calorie Chronicles: The Eating Disorder(s), Concluded

Writing about that was really hard. Thinking about it was even more difficult. Doing it at the time was one thing, but looking back on it years later and realizing that I was stupid enough to do what I did… that’s something else altogether.

I highly regret every minute of it. Luckily, that same day Oli and I got on the plane was also the last day I ever forced myself to throw up a meal.

How did it all end? I thank our trip to Europe for that. If we’d never gone, I would have probably stayed in that loop for much longer.

Like all journeys, the traveler quickly realizes that how things are done in one country, are very different from how things are done at home. Changing continents is a shift most perceptible in the everyday simple things, like food.

In Europe food is more of an experience, and meals are more highly valued than in the West. On most parts of the continent there’s no such thing as, “Do you deliver?” You eat out at good restaurants, or you eat in with freshly made, home cooked food. If you have a family, you mostly eat in.

Having guests in Europe is the perfect time to showcase culinary skills, and if those guests are related, that’s yet another notch up the ladder. When you haven’t seen people in years there’s a lot of catching up to do, and what better place to do that then at a table of sumptuous dishes?

That’s a lot of work for the hosts, but the guests have their jobs too. Being the well-trained product of a strict European mother, I know my place at the table, and what to do. You smile, let yourself be served, and clean everything off your plate, period. There is no shitpicking, I don’t like this or that, and every dish gets equal respect. Meal done, heap mountains of praise upon your hosts, especially the cook.

Our first stop was Frankfurt Germany, where we stayed with our aunt, uncle, and cousin. We had great fun there, sightseeing, spending time with our relatives, club hopping and drinking plenty of weissebier. Our aunt had spent a lot of time preparing for our visit, down to getting the flavours of soda we liked (overseas I’m a Fanta junkie), and took pride in being like our second mom.

I enjoyed her food, and my body, at long last, enjoyed the wonderful feeling of satisfaction. I could have thrown up but wasn’t totally comfortable doing that in their tiny apartment with the one very small bathroom. I said I knew how to throw up quietly by then and I did, but it wasn’t a totally noise-free scene. The parents’ house back home was pretty big and I’d had my choice of bathrooms, and the dorm at school had that loud bathroom fan.

I couldn’t risk being caught in Germany, and something else was happening to make me rethink my actions: my hair was falling out. Every morning when I was shampooing in the shower, I’d pull clumps of hair out of my head. I may have been idiotic enough to attempt anorexia, but I wasn’t so stupid that I couldn’t figure out why this was happening.

No puking in Germany. Thanks to all that walking, touristing and dancing ‘til the wee hours of the morning, no weight gain either.

Croatia was next, with a brief stop in the capital city of Zagreb, then off to the islands for the bulk of our stay. In Germany we’d had the small handful of relatives, whereas in Croatia there were more than we could count. Lots of sharing, lots of stories and tons, tons, TONS of food.

After a few days I could feel the waistband on my jeans tightening. It wasn’t that I was making a pig of myself but really, any food at all after digesting nothing for so long was bound to make a noticeable difference.

Did I throw up in Croatia? No. Despite the hair problem I contemplated it, because the small gain was making me panic. I’d worked so hard to get rid of it all, see, but that issue was quickly resolved by a little seven-year old cousin who’d made himself my shadow. This kid followed me absolutely everywhere, to breakfast, outside, the balcony, and perched himself outside the bathroom door every time I had to make a visit. He’d be out there knocking madly, saying things like, “What are you doing in there? Are you going to be long? Will you come outside and play? Don’t forget to wash your hands!” and then sit on the floor and sing until I was ready to come out.

I didn’t want to vomit with him outside the door like that. He was just seven. That wasn’t something I wanted to explain, or try to make him understand. He was bound to learn about these things someday anyway. He didn’t have to learn them from me.

I enjoyed myself with my family for those few weeks, through all the talks and the meals; even through the several trips to the beach where I very nervously lounged about in a bathing suit, just like everyone else. Being in a bathing suit makes me nervous at the best of times, and during those beach hours I was a total wreck. In all the pictures I’m sitting upright on my towel, hugging my knees to my body in an effort to show as little fat as possible.

Miraculously I’d gained very little weight back during that trip, but I knew it wasn’t meant to last. When we got home, I made the executive decision to not purge anymore.

Why? Because my hair, once wild and strong, was lifeless, thin, and missing in clumps. Because I realized that I’d missed a few other things that normal people did, like sleeping. During that trip I’d slept soundly through every single night. The rotten, acid taste in my mouth was gone. My stomach, once wracked with emptiness and pain, was silent and content.

Of course every decision comes with its consequences, and I knew what was going to happen. Within two weeks of returning home, every single ounce that I’d worked so hard to lose had come back.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but I did it.

My weight has had its ups and downs, and my opinions of myself have gone up and down, but I don’t regret not starving and throwing up anymore. That took awhile, a long while actually, to get over the panic of swallowing food again. And that rush of losing eight pounds per week… that notion took even longer to bury.

But some things are worth it. Sleeping, for one. Still, not shaking hands. A healthy head of hair. It took four years for my curls to get back to normal after that summer, but they’re back, and here to stay,

I think that’s a pretty good thing.