Part Three: “Why do you eat so fast?”

“Why do you eat so fast?”

When I was in counselling my mom and I had to drive 30 minutes to Orillia Soldiers Memorial Hospital because we had been told they had a program especially for eating disorders. So I went from seeing a regular therapist in my hometown to driving 30 immobilizing minutes to Orillia. I went once every week or two depending on how I was doing. This went on for three and a half years.

I could drive to Orillia with my eyes closed if I wanted to. I could tell you what tree before the highway means there are 20 minutes left. Or when you pass the car dealership on the left you’re about ten minutes out. Or what stoplight made me start organizing the lies I would tell. A session in Orillia started by getting my blood pressure taken, getting weighed on one of those scales that you have to balance, and then meeting with my therapist and nutritionist.

I debated on whether or not I should include this next part. Because in my worst days I used to read articles like this and find all the little “tips'' people would blindly write into their stories of recovery.

For transparency's sake, I’ve decided to include it. (transparency being a cover for the fact that the small eating disorder part of my brain wants you to acknowledge how clever we used to be.) Scientifically I’m not sure if any of this is true or not, but I want to emphasize that my brain was a place in which ration and logic did not exist during my eating disorder. All I knew was bodies, calories, skin, bones and lying.

We knew lying.

I say we because when I look back on my eating disorders, it’s as if there were two of us. Ana and me. We. And we knew lies and tricks and fibs and exaggeration and manipulation.

So on the days, I was going to Orillia ( that’s what we called it, not therapy or counselling, just Orillia) I’d stuff coins in my bra, socks and underwear. I’d wear two pairs of socks, two bras and two pairs of underwear. I’d chug bottles on bottles of water. I don’t know if any of this actually changed the number on the scale because I never knew what the number was, but in my brain, it made me heavier. So every week I’d be tracking down quarters and chugging water hoping my mom wouldn’t notice.

I mentioned I never knew the number on the scale. This was so I wouldn’t obsess over and do sit-ups at 2 am in my bed if my weight went up (I still did). Every time I went to Orillia I usually had the same nurse who did my blood pressure and weight. I think her name was Anne, she was nice enough. Distracting me with questions about school and the weather while I tried to figure out what number on the scale was. Once I spent a whole day watching videos about those medical scales only doctors’ offices have trying to figure out how to read them. I never figured it out.

On one particularly bad week in which I was particularly underweight, I also happen to be a touch suicidal. This was due to some especially bad choices I and Ana were making. The choice was made that I would be hospitalized and put under a suicide watch as well bed rest. This is where things get murky. I thought I was being hospitalized for suicide watch. I was later informed my weight was dangerously low and at risk of damaging my organs and that I was to be put on bed rest as well. Meaning I had to stay in bed. This may not seem like a bad thing to the average person, but keep in mind I did calf raises waiting in line for things, paced while I talked, tapped my feet while I sat and did sit-ups at 2 am every night. I had grown accustomed to burning as calories at all points of my day, because in my mind if I wasn’t moving then I was getting fat.

So when my nutritionist, therapist, mom and nurse led me to a hospital room in the maternity ward of the hospital )because I wasn’t old enough to be in the psychiatric ward), the first thing I did after being stripped of all my clothes, and coins and dressed in a paper gown, was to move the furniture around. What I didn’t know is that my little hospital room that smelled of lemon cleaner and linen also had a camera. Since I was also under “suicide watch”, they had to watch me for 72 hours. So when I started moving a hospital chair around in my paper dress, a nurse came running to tell me I was to not move from the bed unless I had to use the washroom. In which case I had to call for a nurse so they could watch me and make sure I wasn’t throwing up or doing secret jumping jacks beside the toilet.

The time I spent in the hospital went by day by gruelling day. I was woken by 8 by nurses to eat breakfast which consisted of, juice, milk, a fruit cup of some sort, a meat of some sort, a bread or carb of sorts, and yogurt or something that resembled a dessert of sorts. Each meal was like this, a main and a plethora of sides served with both milk and juice. Every time I would see the nurse's roll in my meal tray I began to cry hysterically. I had grown accustomed to getting by on a few bites of fruit or a handful of crackers. What they fed me in one meal was more than I would have eaten in a week on my own accord.

At first, I tried to eat. I would awake from my tear-induced sleep and cry some more while forcing down bites of dry meat and rubbery egg. I would get three bites in before I tried to beg the nurses to let me go back to sleep. They calmly informed me I had to eat all of it. I cried.

Eating was incredibly traumatic for me. Every bite I took I thought of stomach fat and back rolls and thighs that chafed and boobs that sagged. Ana would scream inside my heading telling me if I ate a scoop of mashed potatoes I would be so disgustingly fat that no one would ever wanna talk to me. This happened every time I ate, so naturally, I ate as fast as I could to get it over with. Then I would lie in the bed I wasn’t allowed to leave, ridden with pain as I felt my stomach expand.

The faster I ate, the less time my brain had to think about all the calories and fats and sugars the food was soaked in. The faster I ate the less time Ana had to scream about back fat and stomach rolls and boobs that sagged. To this day I eat incredibly fast, it’s engraved in my brain that the faster I eat the quicker it’s over.

The less time Ana has to scream.

Eventually, I met my favourite nurse, Brooke, who brought me books and sat with me while I ate, showing me pages of her wedding planner to stop me from crying. She suggested that since eating upset me so much I should a.) try tube feeding, or b.) try meal replacement drinks called Ensures. The idea of having a tube down my throat scared me shitless so I began drinking Ensures. Ensures are a milkshake type drink that has all the calories of a full meal. If I ate half a meal I would drink one Ensure. If I didn’t eat at all, I would drink two Ensures. I soon found out that chugging back a chalky tasting milkshake was better than struggling through an entire meal for 30 minutes. Ana still yelled and screamed inside my head but it was only for 2 minutes instead of 30.

This is how I got by in those days I spent in the hospital. Drinking and eating as fast as I could. Even this far in my recovery I still eat just as fast and chug all my drinks, let it be a coffee or cup of water.

It’s a survival instinct I created in the hospital that I haven’t shaken yet.

Talk soon, Em xx