RochelleBilow.com

National Eating Disorders Awareness Month, Eight

February is National Eating Disorders Awareness Month. Okay; it’s technically a week. But because everyone works on different schedules and one specifically mandated week will inevitably cause conflict for participants, many people dedicate the entire month to raising awareness. This is an astronomically important event for me, as I spent much of my childhood and teenage years ensnared in bitter battle with anorexia and bulimia.

Eating disorders are painful, wretched, frightening diseases that hold victims with an intoxicating power. I hate them with my whole self, with the very Chianti-spiked blood coursing through my veins. I want them eradicated. I want them gone. I will fight them for the sake of every woman and man who doesn’t feel strong enough to face them alone. I will kill them.

(I really hate them.)

What better way to raise awareness than to tell my own story? What better way to tell my story than through my blog? (Because, okay, I don’t have a book deal yet. That would trump the blog.) The way I related to food and eating as a child is – absolutely – the driving force for how I relate to it now. And you know what? It’s a pretty damn good story, if you ask me.

And so, for the remainder of the month, I’ll be telling the story of my journey. I’ll do it in installments. I’ll intersperse the installments with my regularly scheduled programming, because a month chock-full of bulimia is a little too intense – even for me. And I’m hardcore.

Disclaimers? Always: Be aware that some names and identifying details of characters have been changed. I am, of course, leaving a little out. It’s a scary story. It was a scary time. I’m healthy now. I’m happy.

Sexy Girls Eat is, more than anything else, an eating blog. Every day, I thank my lucky olives that I’m able to enjoy food with such purity and wholeness. But it wasn’t always that way …

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Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight: You’re Fine/I’m Not Okay

The following text contains graphic and disturbing imagery.

I continued to see the young, attractive therapist, but I might as well not have. I brought food with me, tucked into the front pocket of my backpack, to each session so that I could begin cramming the second I left her office. My feelings were especially raw after leaving a session, even though I never really divulged anything noteworthy. I didn’t want to deal with the intensity of any emotion, though, so I kept my escape route close at hand, close to mouth.

Still desperately in need of money, I applied for a job at the University bookstore. I had absolutely no experience in retail, but, I figured, how hard could it be? I was hired almost immediately, and began training. (Let me tell you something about cash registers. They’re confusing as all hell. Every night, without fail, I’d get a phone call from my managers, asking if I remembered screwing up such-and-such transaction.)

I got paid bi-weekly, and at around $7 per hour, I wasn’t making much headway. Still, it was progress of some sort. An hour of work could buy me a package of Oreos. A fair trade, I figured.

My bosses allowed us to snatch up the candy and cookies past their expiration dates, and I took the allocation to the extreme. I recall one time we received a case of defective Power Bars; I think the wrappers were slightly opened. I took them all and ate them that night. I didn’t particularly like Power Bars, but my radar was super-sharp. Free! Free! Free! I attempted to purge. The thick, chewy texture got stuck in my throat with every thrust of my hand, and I scraped my esophagus raw.

My boyfriend visited every weekend. He’d take me to local restaurants – we visited three in heavy rotation. My favorite was a huge Mexican joint. The cheesy, crunchy fare was so yummy, but it sat like a rock in me as it tried desperately to digest. At midnight, I’d wake up, rocking back and forth in attempt to make peace with my angry tummy. To be fair, I’m sure the restaurant served quality food – it wasn’t the grease or fat that upset my stomach. Rather, it was simply the fact that my body had forgotten what to do with food once it got past my stomach. Despite the fact that I couldn’t purge when my boyfriend stayed over, I looked forward to our restaurant-hopping. It was nice to get dolled up, to apply makeup and wear a nice blouse, pair of heels. And the food was always very good.

We fought constantly. He knew something was wrong, but because I was fiercely private about my bulimia, he assumed I was cheating on him. (I did, once or twice, but the transgression seemed so small in comparison to my self-inflicted pain, I never brought it up. Besides, I thought and fucked, if he was going to be so insistent about my infidelity, I might as well go ahead and do it anyways.) Once, I called to say goodnight at 9, hoping to get the obligatory phone call out of the way before indulging in a binge-purge at the dining hall. He was immediately skeptical. I insisted that I was going to bed early; it’d been a long day, I said. (It had, of course, been a treacherous day, but bed was nowhere near my immediate future.) We spat out angry words and I cried, smearing my makeup with my swollen, scarred knuckles.

In attempt to reconcile after a particularly nasty telephone argument, he bought me a rabbit – a real one – for Valentine’s Day. It was the best present I’d ever received, and I immediately fell in love with the little ball of fur that clung close to my chest and nuzzled his tiny head into the crook of my neck.

“This will change everything,” I said to myself. “I have to take care of him now,” I thought, stroking his ears. “I can’t spend my time bingeing and purging anymore.”

I did, though. I avoided his eyes as I heated up bowls of noodles, devoured entire sleeves of crackers. I was convinced the rabbit hated me, resented my addiction. I vowed to do everything in my power to make him love me again. After I cleaned up from a binge/purge, I’d hold him tight to my chest, recreating our first meeting. I hummed to him, fed him carrot sticks, let him romp around my dormitory. Once, he got stuck behind my desk and panicked. He kicked and scratched frantically until I was finally able to lift him to safety. I clutched onto him and sobbed, my tears matting his soft fur. I was mortified that I could let someone I loved get that lost, feel so alone.

I was afraid of myself. I didn’t know who I was anymore, or if I even really existed as a person. Oh, sure, I went to class and talked on the phone and muddled through a minimum-wage job – but the person who had been intrinsically Rochelle was gone. I had completely submitted to my bulimia; I was aware that I simply could not be alone and not binge. Every afternoon, hour, moment in solitude was an opportunity to gorge myself and vomit. There were times, few as they may have been, that I simply didn’t want to.

“No matter,” Bulimia flipped her hair. “Eat,” she hissed, her hands wrapping around my wrists. Before I knew what was happening, I was walking along a bike path, shoving frosted cereal into my mouth. Before I could comprehend what I was doing, I was gulping chocolate milk with my arm elbow-deep in a bag of cheese curls.

I looked horrible. My eyes were sunken in, my glands swollen, my face puffy. One weekend, my mother and father took me out to dinner. We ordered calamari, and for the first time in my life, I tried it. I loved the taste, the texture, but I only allowed myself one piece. “That’s quite enough,” Bulimia muttered, slapping my hand as I reached for another.

As we exited the restaurant, my mother commented on my weight.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked.

I assured her I was, and later relayed the story to my boyfriend.

“That’s silly,” he said. “You’re fine. I see you eat an enormous bowl of granola every morning.” True. I did eat granola. Every Sunday, before he headed back to Syracuse, we’d grab breakfast. I swirled what probably amounted to two and a half cups of granola into a bowl of strawberry yogurt, mashing the whole thing together. I always ate the whole thing and never felt guilty. Why? Hell if I know.

But I wasn’t fine.

I smelled awful. Sometimes, hours after washing and cleaning up from a purge, I’d bring my hand to my nose and make a face in disgust; the scent of puke never seemed to leave my skin. I showered constantly – usually two or three times a day. I scrubbed my body viciously. So desperate was my desire to feel clean, that I sometimes stole my roommate’s toiletries. Maybe, I thought, this shampoo, this soap will rid me of the dried vomit, the ever-present guilt.

The nightmares came in droves. No longer could I sleep through the night; I was routinely awakened by my own feverish traumas, my skin glistening with nighttime sweat.

I began making the two-hour drive home every weekend. I claimed to my parents that I missed my boyfriend. In reality, I just couldn’t bear to spend the long, empty days by myself. Every Friday, I packed Norbert, the rabbit, and his cage into the backseat of my car, along with all of my vomit-stained clothes, and made the drive home. I’d run to the washing machine, loading it up before my mother could see what I was cleaning, before she could notice any evidence.

Weekends at home were slightly more bearable, but I still binged and purged. I did it at night, while my parents slept, and in the afternoons, when they ran errands. Still, there was something about “home” that made me feel marginally calmer.

One weekend, while riding in my mother’s car, I turned to her. “Mom?” I began. She looked at me.

“I’m not okay,” I said. “Like, I’m really, really fucking sick.” I added the “really really” for emphasis, but I felt that the “fucking” was simply necessary.

She waited for me to continue. The words came quick and convoluted. “I … eat and purge all the time.” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word “binge.” It’s still hard for me to spit out that word today; it makes me uncomfortable, hot, red. “I have no money left, because I spent it ALL, and I’m just so sick of it. Sick of it all.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I know. We know; your father and I.”

I looked at her, my eyes moons.

“Rochelle, how could we not?” I fixed my eyes on the floor and nodded. This is hard, I thought. This is not fun.

She spoke again. “It’s okay. You need help. We’re going to beat this. I know you can. You can beat this. Someday you will be completely rid of this.” She was rambling, but I needed to hear those words. I didn’t believe them – not one – but I needed to hear them.

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For more information on eating disorders, please click here. If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder, do not hesitate to begin a discourse with someone you trust. For one should never be ashamed for feeling sexy or for eating what one likes.