September 06th, 2020

(part 1) My first time in eating disorder treatment was at a hospital in Massachusetts, they had an Ed unit on the top floor. I was finishing my 2nd year of college and I knew I couldn’t go home in the shape I was in. My eating disorder was running the show and Shira was barely recognizable anymore. My voice was drowned out, my body shrinking, my identity confused, and my values were whatever everyone else’s were.

I remember driving myself to the hospital, parking the car, taking the elevator to the top floor, and walking into the unit with one bag over my shoulder and another bag in my hand. The people standing in the hall were thin and lean; I remember someone crying, one girl running down the hall, and someone else sitting against the concrete wall. There was this eeriness that I had never experienced or felt before. It was quiet, still, almost dead-like, and bland. The walls one solid color and it seemed like the hallways went on for miles.
I don’t remember much from that first experience, I was there for a few weeks, I went to groups, ate in the dining room (almost constantly or it felt that way), talked with a therapist for the first time in my life, and had a whole team of people “assigned to me”. Wow, I was that special? I don’t remember having that many people interested in my life, ever, and now a bunch of professionals were taking an interest in me.

I do remember one group almost vividly. We sat around the table, an art therapist leading the group stood at the front next to a chalk board, and a bunch of art supplies were strewn on the table: Paper, stamps, stickers, markers, crayons, paints. I picked up an off-white piece of paper and a brown colored pencil. I drew an oval. I sat there and looked at the oval and had no idea what to draw next. The therapist running the group said something to the extent of, “Draw something that relates to your eating disorder”. That seemed straight forward enough, I just don’t know if I ever really gave it much thought.

I looked back at the oval and drew 5 circles around the outside of the oval. I stopped again, put down the pencil and starred at it. Tears began to well up in my eyes, I didn’t even know what I was crying about. I recall the therapist telling me to add to the drawing, but I was just frozen. I sat there, like a stone. Unable to move, unable to speak, with tear drops dripping down my cheeks and onto the paper. When the art making time was up, we went around the group and shared what we drew. As others shared, I kept thinking silently, What am I going to say? I have no idea what this even is. When it was my turn, my mouth opened, unprompted and without conscious thought, I said, “This is my family’s kitchen table and this is where my eating disorder started.”

(part 2) I drew an oval. I sat there and looked at the oval and had no idea what to draw next. The therapist running the group said something to the extent of, “Draw something that relates to your eating disorder”. That seemed straight forward enough, I just don’t know if I ever really gave it much thought.

I looked back at the oval and drew 5 circles around the outside of the oval. I stopped again, put down the pencil and starred at it. Tears began to well up in my eyes, I didn’t even know what I was crying about. I recall the therapist telling me to add to the drawing, but I was just frozen. I sat there, like a stone. Unable to move, unable to speak, with tear drops dripping down my cheeks and onto the paper. When the art making time was up, we went around the group and shared what we drew. As others shared, I kept thinking silently, What am I going to say? I have no idea what this even is. When it was my turn, my mouth opened, unprompted and without conscious thought, I said, “This is my family’s kitchen table and this is where my eating disorder started.”

(part 3) As a child this was my normal: mom (or another mom in our carpool) drives us to school and back home, I hang out a few hours after school with my older sister, mostly playing “school” or gymnastics in the basement, my mom calls us upstairs to help get ready for dinner, and mom cooks dinner every night. Minutes before my dad would arrive home at about 7pm my mom would say, “be on your best behaviors, dad has worked physically hard outside all day, and had a long day.”

My sister and I would sit at the table, polite little ladies (she was 3 years older than me) and wait for my dad to come into the house. He’d pull into the driveway with his truck, park in the garage, and come through the garage door into the house. The moment the door opened, I knew I had to be good. No crying. No laughing. No bickering. No messes. Quiet, Peaceful. Attentive. Calm. Mom would put the hot food on the table, my dad always got served first and then us. Then, we ate.

Without fail there would be something that was “too much” for my dad, and he’d get set off. Fists slamming the table, yelling, threatening, he’d turn into a monster. Most times it ended with me and my sister running to the bathroom and closing the door behind us, as my mom stood up to my dad. I don’t remember if we ever got though dinner. The chaos would settle down and mom would come and say, “everything’s okay”. And, we carried on.

What does this situation teach young children?
*food is scary
*meals are tense
*adults have power
*kids are powerless
*what may look or seem pleasant can turn ugly

And, those were the things I carried with me, into the doors of my first hospital stay. Timid, shy, afraid, powerless, concerned, unsure. I could not trust that people would remain calm and friendly, there was always a hint of question in my mind, of what could and would happen, if….?

How were meals when you grew up? Describe your family, mealtime, food comments below.

(part 4) During my adolescence I felt like a mini adult: protecting my older sister when things got ugly and messy at the house; raising my little sister; I was the go to neighborhood babysitter; and the sounding board for my mom for a variety of topics like marriage, my dad’s business, and her relationship or lack there of with her sister. I felt like the peacekeeper. I knew a little bit about everything, yet nobody knew anything about me. My life was kept silent and protected. Partially because I was told not to say anything to anyone, partially because I thought growing up this way was normal, and partially because I adapted to this role in my family and in life. I think it was at the age of 16 that I first realized childhood abuse is not normal, that parents can actually (and should) handle their own emotions and adult qualms, that rage is unmanaged anger, and that tempers are not part of normal everyday experiences.

I was astounded. What I had come to believe was in fact abnormal and not mainstream. That new information turned my life upside-down. It was like taking everything that I knew putting it in a jar and shaking it, then unscrewing the cap and pouring the contents out. You still have everything you did before, but now it’s all mixed up and in different places. Nothing was solved, nothing was taken away, nothing was fixed. I had a new piece of knowledge and that affected me. It changed me in a way that I didn’t plan for. I was now aware of my situation in the context of my friends and the greater community. I was different. It made me more insular, embarrassed, ashamed, and insecure.

I so badly wanted to fit in with other people, that I would do anything to alter myself so I would and could be a part of the crowd. I compromised who I was, I postponed becoming my full version of myself, and I learned to change my image based on what other people around me were doing. I was adaptable and flexible. So many times I was praised for this ability, yet in reality I was lost. It’s like my true north didn’t exist. I looked good from the outside, had it all together, looked the part, but was so sad and confused on the inside.

(part 5) My teen years were filled with good grades and a slow death from starvation. It seemed like every high had a low and every low had an even lower low. Nobody knew how bad I was hurting because I only cried on the inside. On the outside my smile and poise kept me upright and moving forward.

I was a determined young woman, with a false sense of security in the discipline I had with my body, food, and my thoughts. I felt indestructible. I was indestructible. Or so I thought. Never in a million years did I think my life was headed in the direction of living within the confines of a disordered mind, perpetual negative thoughts, self hatred, self destruction, self harm; and within the four walls of hospitals and treatment centers.

That wasn’t who I was supposed to be. It wasn’t who my parents wanted to raise, it definitely wasn’t who I envisioned. That girl was not in the deck of cards for my family, because that would mean we weren’t the perfect family. The silence of challenging topics made it seem like there were no difficulties and so I carried on. Closed off, quiet, and abiding.

I appeased others. I became flexible and overly helpful. I was a caretaker and a people pleaser, I wanted to make others proud, especially my dad. So from that moment forward I dedicated myself to doing what would make others happy and proud of me. Yet, it seemed like it was never enough. And the expectations of the world, of my family, and of my self grew so quickly and with such enormity I became small.

Small in comparison to others and small in size. I wanted to be smart because that was good. I wanted to be small like my sister, because that was praised.

(part 6) If I thought my teen years were bad, my 20’s were 100x worse. Now being in my late 30’s I’m fortunate to say I lived through my twenties and came out alive. Really my 20’s was a culmination of many areas of my life that were unstable: schooling, profession, living situation, identity, family, siblings, and my legacy.  While I survived day to day, I watched myself spiral out of control: promiscuity, abortion, suicide attempts, self harm, anorexia and bulimia colliding, shoplifting, dishonesty, and feeling demoralized while existing in and out of eating disorder treatment and hospitals.

I faced a lot of my shit in my 20’s and things got ugly. It was like running through a fire with clothes on,  seeing your clothes go up in flames, and you just keep running. I ran and ran and ran. Partially to try and escape the pain, partially because I was living off of adrenaline, and partially because I wanted to start over and be someone else. The reality is, you can’t start over. You’ll always have what you had, and you have to work with what you got. It doesn’t mean it has to always be miserable and dark, however it’s more like learning to become a better version of yourself.

In the hell of my 20’s I hit many rock bottoms. I sank low into depression and used the eating disorder to mask it. If I lived by the eating disorder rules, maybe I could feel a sense of accomplishment, but that didn’t really work out either. With every twist and turn I thought I could outsmart the eating disorder. I thought I could close my eyes and just wake up from the nightmare I was in, but I had gone too far down.

It was when I turned 30 that my outlook on my life began to change.