Battle of the Bulge
Written on May 4th, 2004 at 10:15 am:
"The Fat Girl who sits and sings to herself in a high-pitched, whiney tone gets up. Her body is that of a malformed pear. Drooping breasts and flabby arms work their way down to a bulbous stomach made up of prominent rolls. Just below this stomach is a tight pair of jeans, painfully cinched at the waist, encasing thick thighs and tiny, pipe-like calves that are in sharp contrast to the rest of her figure...if you could call it that. Her corpulent body is tightly packed into cheap, ill-fitting clothing and on display for all to see. With her olive compection and dark hair swept up into a ponytail I know she looks nothing like me, but when I look into the mirror, it is her I see. I see that fleshy, repugnant body with my head on top of it. That jiggly ass, those sagging arms...they're mine. I am the Fat Girl."
I despise this body, with all its bulges and ripples. I'm 5'6, 119 lbs. and I hate it with every fiber of my being. Everyone tells me I am thin, but I know they lie. The mirror does not. My stomach is too round, my thighs too bulky and my ass simply too...BIG. Clothes I could wear just a year or two ago are uncomfortably tight. My old jeans don't fit like they used to. They used to hang off of me, just the way I liked them...now they are snug against my belly. I used to be able to feel bones when I pressed my fingers against my ribcage--now all I feel is flesh and flab. The funny thing is, when I could fit into those clothes and feel those bones, I was STILL too big.
I didn't eat much my first time in the hospital. Sometimes I would just eat mashed potatoes or jello. At first no one paid it much attention, because I am a vegetarian and the weekly menu had many meat products in it. In spite of my eating habits, I still gained a great deal of weight from my antipsychotics. I left the hospital at 115 lbs, the highest weight I'd been in quite some time.
My second hospitalization at the Royal Alexandra hospital was a month or two later. Because it was Christmas vacation, there were far less patients so it was hard for my eating habits to go unnoticed in the dining room. I was placed on special vegetarian meal trays within the first week. Certain I was gaining weight, I began writing down everything I ate (as well as the calorie content).
After eight weeks in the Royal Alex, I was transferred to the Glen Rose hospital. This was a long-term treatment facility. By this time I had already gotten down to 108 pounds. My calorie-tracking had gotten to the point where I was counting individual Rice Crispies and peas. In the event that I ate, say, a handful of Smarties, I had to count each Smartie and also record how many of each colour I had eaten. At the end of each day, the day's calorie intake had to be carefully calculated and painstakingly revised several times before I could go to sleep. This was very time-consuming, but in my mind I had no other option.
Upon being admitted to the Glen Rose, I was delighted to discover that special meal trays were typically not sent to the Adolescent Psychiatry ward, so I would be eating the same food as everyone else. The staff didn't really watch my eating habits because they weren't aware that I was making any attempt to lose weight. I could get away with eating 5 cucumber slices and half a cup of 1% milk as an entire meal.
I dropped 4 pounds in the first week. My food journal was accidentally discovered, the other patients had commented on my weird eating habits (peanut butter on broccoli, etc.), and I was taking much longer than the others to finish meals because I was so damned busy counting out each individual macaroni piece and corn flake. It became unmistakable to the staff that I had an eating problem.
Other things began to arise. Patients and staff noticed that I didn't touch doorknobs or handles, and that my hands were cracked and red. My germ phobia and secret handwashing rituals could no longer remain hidden. I was also hoarding things....paper medication cups, pill bottles, plastic bags and the like. Soon, the other patients were giving me THEIR medication cups at mealtimes to add to my collection. "What are you going to do with them?" They asked curiously. I didn't know. All I knew was that I had to keep them.
A dietitian saw me and discussed my eating habits, and recommended that I see an anorexia specialist. My doctor and staff had a conference about me in which my patient file was reviewed. It was decided that there was a name for my problem, but it was not necessarily anorexia. It was obsessive-compulsive disorder.
So there it was. That strange something that for months could not be identified...that mysterious problem that kept me in the hospital and yet could not be revealed....it had a name. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The hoarding, the handwashing, the germ phobia, the eating problems....it all tied in. It took awhile for me to accept, but soon I was placed on Anafranil, a drug that is considered to be the ultimate OCD drug. I've been on it ever since. To make a long story short, I took my pills. My eating improved greatly. I grew fat, and left the hospital after 5 or 6 months weighing over 120 lbs. I've remained a disgusting pig since the 1 3/4 years I've been out of the Glen Rose.
Of course, I've been in the Royal Alex a few times since then, but that's a different story. I am now writing down everything I eat, but I do not count my cereal flakes or note the colours of my Smarties. I write things in terms of cups and tablespoons and such. Some days, I feel I have eaten so much that I am simply to ashamed to write it down. My food journal has many blank pages and lapses.
All these years, and the struggle has not ended. Maybe one day, my tummy will be flat and my thighs will not bulge. Maybe one day, I'll be able to live with myself.
I suppose the question is not whether I will ever be thin...the true question is...will I ever be thin ENOUGH?
"The Fat Girl who sits and sings to herself in a high-pitched, whiney tone gets up. Her body is that of a malformed pear. Drooping breasts and flabby arms work their way down to a bulbous stomach made up of prominent rolls. Just below this stomach is a tight pair of jeans, painfully cinched at the waist, encasing thick thighs and tiny, pipe-like calves that are in sharp contrast to the rest of her figure...if you could call it that. Her corpulent body is tightly packed into cheap, ill-fitting clothing and on display for all to see. With her olive compection and dark hair swept up into a ponytail I know she looks nothing like me, but when I look into the mirror, it is her I see. I see that fleshy, repugnant body with my head on top of it. That jiggly ass, those sagging arms...they're mine. I am the Fat Girl."
I despise this body, with all its bulges and ripples. I'm 5'6, 119 lbs. and I hate it with every fiber of my being. Everyone tells me I am thin, but I know they lie. The mirror does not. My stomach is too round, my thighs too bulky and my ass simply too...BIG. Clothes I could wear just a year or two ago are uncomfortably tight. My old jeans don't fit like they used to. They used to hang off of me, just the way I liked them...now they are snug against my belly. I used to be able to feel bones when I pressed my fingers against my ribcage--now all I feel is flesh and flab. The funny thing is, when I could fit into those clothes and feel those bones, I was STILL too big.
I didn't eat much my first time in the hospital. Sometimes I would just eat mashed potatoes or jello. At first no one paid it much attention, because I am a vegetarian and the weekly menu had many meat products in it. In spite of my eating habits, I still gained a great deal of weight from my antipsychotics. I left the hospital at 115 lbs, the highest weight I'd been in quite some time.
My second hospitalization at the Royal Alexandra hospital was a month or two later. Because it was Christmas vacation, there were far less patients so it was hard for my eating habits to go unnoticed in the dining room. I was placed on special vegetarian meal trays within the first week. Certain I was gaining weight, I began writing down everything I ate (as well as the calorie content).
After eight weeks in the Royal Alex, I was transferred to the Glen Rose hospital. This was a long-term treatment facility. By this time I had already gotten down to 108 pounds. My calorie-tracking had gotten to the point where I was counting individual Rice Crispies and peas. In the event that I ate, say, a handful of Smarties, I had to count each Smartie and also record how many of each colour I had eaten. At the end of each day, the day's calorie intake had to be carefully calculated and painstakingly revised several times before I could go to sleep. This was very time-consuming, but in my mind I had no other option.
Upon being admitted to the Glen Rose, I was delighted to discover that special meal trays were typically not sent to the Adolescent Psychiatry ward, so I would be eating the same food as everyone else. The staff didn't really watch my eating habits because they weren't aware that I was making any attempt to lose weight. I could get away with eating 5 cucumber slices and half a cup of 1% milk as an entire meal.
I dropped 4 pounds in the first week. My food journal was accidentally discovered, the other patients had commented on my weird eating habits (peanut butter on broccoli, etc.), and I was taking much longer than the others to finish meals because I was so damned busy counting out each individual macaroni piece and corn flake. It became unmistakable to the staff that I had an eating problem.
Other things began to arise. Patients and staff noticed that I didn't touch doorknobs or handles, and that my hands were cracked and red. My germ phobia and secret handwashing rituals could no longer remain hidden. I was also hoarding things....paper medication cups, pill bottles, plastic bags and the like. Soon, the other patients were giving me THEIR medication cups at mealtimes to add to my collection. "What are you going to do with them?" They asked curiously. I didn't know. All I knew was that I had to keep them.
A dietitian saw me and discussed my eating habits, and recommended that I see an anorexia specialist. My doctor and staff had a conference about me in which my patient file was reviewed. It was decided that there was a name for my problem, but it was not necessarily anorexia. It was obsessive-compulsive disorder.
So there it was. That strange something that for months could not be identified...that mysterious problem that kept me in the hospital and yet could not be revealed....it had a name. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The hoarding, the handwashing, the germ phobia, the eating problems....it all tied in. It took awhile for me to accept, but soon I was placed on Anafranil, a drug that is considered to be the ultimate OCD drug. I've been on it ever since. To make a long story short, I took my pills. My eating improved greatly. I grew fat, and left the hospital after 5 or 6 months weighing over 120 lbs. I've remained a disgusting pig since the 1 3/4 years I've been out of the Glen Rose.
Of course, I've been in the Royal Alex a few times since then, but that's a different story. I am now writing down everything I eat, but I do not count my cereal flakes or note the colours of my Smarties. I write things in terms of cups and tablespoons and such. Some days, I feel I have eaten so much that I am simply to ashamed to write it down. My food journal has many blank pages and lapses.
All these years, and the struggle has not ended. Maybe one day, my tummy will be flat and my thighs will not bulge. Maybe one day, I'll be able to live with myself.
I suppose the question is not whether I will ever be thin...the true question is...will I ever be thin ENOUGH?