Part One: The Day I Stopped Eating

The day I stopped eating I felt nothing but warmth. It’s a strange feeling to communicate but for lack of better words 12-year-old me felt like there was a fire inside my stomach, flames licking up the sides of my waist and chest. It was a burning sensation that only I could feel. It was liberating. I felt like I was carrying around a secret little fire inside of me that only I could light

At first, there were no bad thoughts, that's how it started, I decided I wasn’t going to eat one day. It wasn’t some big revelation, or some magazine pressuring me to lose weight, it was a thought. The same you might have when you decide to make a cup of tea. Quick. Thoughtless. I had the choice not to eat, so I didn’t. It was exhilarating. I can see now at 21 years old it was the lack of control in my life at home that drove me to make this choice. At my little age of 12 it was mindless at first. I didn’t eat, and my stomach made a little fire for me. I liked this little fire. I stopped eating. Simple. This little fire in me grew day by day. 

At first, it was a thought here or there, politely reminding me if I ate that eggo waffle for lunch, I wouldn’t get to feel the little fire. In my head, it was easy math. No food = no fire. I wanted the fire = don’t eat. Once again, it was simple. Slowly it wasn’t polite reminders anymore, it was this shrieking little voice yelling at me any time I reached for a piece of bread to eat with dinner.

 As this started to happen I had these two friends whose mother was obsessed with dieting. Every weekend I was at their house and every weekend there was a new diet they were trying. No carbs. No fried foods. No fish. Only fish. All veggies. All fruit. No greasy food. No food after 7pm. No food before 10am. I started listening to the way these girls talked about their bodies. They would say they were fat, their arms sagged, their stomach stuck out, their thighs too big. Things I had never once thought of but now consumed my every waking thought. I was nowhere near fat, the small part of my eating disorder that lives in my brain needs you to know that. I had always been lean and skinny, I danced and played sports, weight shouldn’t have been one of my concerns, especially at 12 years old. But here I was. I didn’t want big thighs, or saggy arms or a stomach that stuck out. I wanted the little fire. 

It was that way I connected the ideas. Not eating made the little fire in my stomach and kept me skinny. It was a brainless choice to not eat. Soon after I made this connection I became obsessed with bodies. Not just my own but everyone's bodies. That was In part due to the ever-growing voice in my head. I was now evaluating everyone's bodies. She had a double chin. He had back rolls. Their t-shirt was too tight and made their gut look big. If you don’t wanna look like them you better not eat breakfast today or lunch. I  called this voice Ana. 

Ana for anorexia. 

The idea of having an eating disorder excited me in some sick twisted way. I was excited to have something that was just mine, something I had created all on my own. I had anorexia. No one could take it away from me and no one could tell me to give it up. It was that control thing again. 

A funny gap in the story of my eating disorder is when I started throwing up after meals. I don’t remember how I learned that if I shoved my two fingers or a toothbrush down my throat I would bring back that little fire. There were times I couldn’t skip meals. My mom noticed me not finishing my plate at dinner, my friends going out for lunch, someone offering me a snack or candy. I couldn’t always skip meals. In the times I ate the thoughts were horrible. I was worthless, I was fat, I was weak, I was disgusting.

Throwing up made it stop.

I was anorexic and bulimic at age 13. 

Talk soon,

Em