Sunday, September 16, 2012

Scared.

190 calories never used to mean terror.
Neither did watching the brown tinted vomit swirl down the sink.
Sometimes it feels too easy.
One second I'm smiling/ happy/ normal.
Next second screaming/ crying/ fucked up.
Diseased.
It's disgusting how easily starvation comes to me.
90 calories is comfortable.
100 is itchy.
Anything over 150 is tilting my universe.
Over 200 and I'm ripping at my skin, pulling out my hair, rushing to the nearest isolated place.
Whether it's the solitude of a bathroom, or a darkened corner of the back yard the occasional pair of headlights skipping over the girl with her fingers down her throat; it doesn't matter where.
As long as whatever was in me is now laying in the dirt/ toilet/ sink/ drain/ side walk/ plastic bag.
The weirdest place I've ever purged to this day has been my closet.
I've purged in bathrooms in four different states.
I've purged in over thirty bathrooms.
More than 20 of those being public restrooms.
I've purged at two of my friends houses.
At the park.
In the shower at four different houses.
By the tree in my back yard.
In the woods a block and a half from me in New Jersey.
The kitchen sink down stairs.
A dark street in Pennsylvania at 6:15 am during a "run".
It was so easy to lean over allow the contents of my stomach to just slide over my fingers.
A gag or two.
Silent puke.
I could have been washing my face.
It's usually hard for me to purge.
It always has been.
Taking thirty minutes to five hours to get what takes most bulimics minutes even seconds to empty out.
I have ripped tears into my throat more than sixty eight times.
This shouldn't feel normal.
And I guess that's the scary part.
The relief that washes over me.
Completely calm once the food is flushed, tears and blood wiped off.
My heart feels less heavy; weight removed from my chest and now I can breathe.
I am comfortable when I am sick.
The psych ward felt like a safety blanket a thick blanket they give you when you are screaming in shock and terror.
Of course you get tired of people watching you.
You get tired of the child gloves and demand an out.
But those people that walk around in scrubs with a dead look in their eyes; those people who have been broken at too young of an age to know how the world works, they are my people.
The people who know what it's like to take handful after handful of pills or cry in front of their plate of food on a particularly hard morning.
I hate being surrounded by people who are sane enough not to count calories religiously.
The people who don't know the pain of a swollen throat cause by purging.
The people who have never occupied a bed in the psych unit.
The people who don't know the feeling of dragging a blade across their flesh and hoping for the courage to press down.
These people feel wrong to me.
Just like full feels wrong.
Or smooth skin feels wrong.
It's foreign to me.
That scares me.
But not as much as the idea of recovery does.

1 comment:

  1. You know, I don't ever think I could recover either. I mean I guess it isn't to do with the weight even, kinda like the loss of control that it represents. Maybe one day you will. Everyone has a breaking point. :) For right now though, you are still alive and functioning, but maybe time for some kind of intervention. I've heard that there are support groups for ED patients. I mean. If its like AA for bulimics, fuck it. Why not. :) You'll be okay though. And you know you can always call if you need. Xo

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