Anorexia Nervosa

There is really no simple way of defining an eating disorder, and no simple way of knowing someone who has or has had one. Someone who has one is so ashamed of something, whether it be themselves, something they’ve done, or something someone has done to them that they’ve resorted to causing themselves physical harm, conscious or not, and obviously this is not a simple psychological disorder. Someone who has overcome one can’t be justified as highly as they should be. The willpower to overcome such a thing as an eating disorder is something to be considered carefully, with great care, and great respect.
The person I interviewed has agreed to the interview on the grounds that he remain anonymous. So I will hereon refer to him as John. As such an emotional subject, and as this person is such a close friend, I want to respect him as much as I can. The fact that he has agreed to talk to me about it, let alone let me interview and pry into the subject, when I know even four years after he’s reigned in the disorder he still feels uncomfortable talking about it, gave me even more concentrated respect than I already had; and that was quite a bit to begin with.
When I got to John’s house, we first sat down at his kitchen table in silence. I had forewarned and asked in advance if talking about this subject would be okay. Meaning, I had made sure he was comfortable talking to me about it again, although we have talked privately about it before. Although he was aware, we both sat in silence, sitting almost uncomfortably at his kitchen table sipping our coffee, watching the television with detached interest as the subject loomed closer.
Finally, he picked up the remote and almost hesitantly turned off the television. The screen turned black and sucked itself into the little white dot in the center of the screen. He looked at me, obvious fear in his eyes. He knows why I’m here; he just hates having to re-confront this disorder that plagued him for so long; even years after he forced it into the shadowy depths of his consciousness, under the shimmering translucence that is his willpower.
“So what’s your first question?” John asked me, his hands shaking slightly on his coffee cup. I would normally attribute this to heavy doses of caffeine. That night, though, betrayed by that curtained fear, I know it wasn’t the caffeine.
So I pulled out the pre-typed questions from my bag, and he chuckled. “Lord, Amanda, you’re prepared.” His face relaxed a little, his hands stopped shaking just enough for me to see his shy smile touch his nearly innocent eyes. I saw the veins in his hands lose tension. Obviously his belief that laughter is the best medicine is held in deep regard as the truth.
So I nodded and smiled, and looked at my paper. Took the last deep drag of my cigarette and butted it out in the ashtray at my elbow. He decided this was the time to light one, and as the lighter touched the tobacco and the cherry lit up with inhaled breath, I asked him, very quietly, my first question. My voice was tangled with pre-conceived sadness at the emotional barriers we would be crossing in the next couple of hours ahead of us. “How did it start?”
John stared into his empty cup, looking as if he was looking to the void in that blue ceramic, with “Starbucks” adorning its cracked side, for answers. Taking a drag from his cigarette, he looked at me with sad eyes. “It started where you go to school, actually, Castleton State College. I went there five years ago. I only went for one year. I was addicted to pain killers and looking for a way out, you might say. After I passed out for two days straight from taking too many, and woke still in my dorm bed realizing none of my ‘friends’ had tried to wake me up or bring me to the hospital, I started to get really depressed. Realizing I had no one around me who really cared was a huge blow. I don’t really know how to pinpoint when it started, I just slowly stopped eating.”
I’d heard this story before. A couple of months after I met John, he had told me this story, telling me that it was a part of him and a part of his past, something that was important to him and important to know, to someone he was coming to consider a best friend.
I wrote feverishly, understanding he was anticipating the next question as a gateway to more memories, but also anticipating it as getting closer to the end of the interview that made him remember something he would rather not reminisce on.
Shuffling the first question and its answer under the pile of papers that held other questions, that as a pile really meant nothing, I looked at the next question, reconsidering whether it was really appropriate to ask. He must have seen my careful consideration, the thoughts racing through my mind, because he managed to say, “You know you can ask me anything.” Paper in hand, almost ready to shove it under the pile with disregard, I carefully placed it back at the top of the pile, sliding my hand over it, taking a deep breath.
“When did you realize you were descending into something unhealthy and potentially dangerous?”
He considered it carefully, looking at his stucco ceiling and rubbing his chin with one long finger absent-mindedly. “Well,” he began, taking another long drag off his cigarette, “I was bone thin at my lowest point. I’m 5’10”, and I was only 95 pounds. I never noticed my weight, but I was obsessed with it. I weighed myself up to 30 times a day; it had, quite obviously, become an obsession. But I never noticed it in the sense that I was malnourished and dying.” He stopped, looking quietly at the picture of his mother on the table: Remembering something, but seemingly considering how to go on. I continued writing notes fervently, glancing up to write his actions and his emotions laid bare before me, like they were on a chopping block being considered for purchase. Finally after a few moments, he looked at me. I wanted him to know I was listening, really listening, so I put my pen down and looked at him.
“I knew I was in trouble when I blacked out while I was driving. It wasn’t for very long, maybe five seconds, but I was on the curb of the road, on the right side, still moving. I stopped my car and put the four-ways on. I remember sitting there, not thinking it could be that I hadn’t eaten more than 100 calories in two weeks. I just thought I was sick. I was so deep in denial that I had an eating disorder that I thought something else was wrong.
“I remember I called my mother; she was at work. She asked where I was, and when she realized I was near the hospital, she told me to go to the emergency room if I thought I could drive there. I told her I could. I hung up the phone, sat back in my car seat recuperating, if you will. I drove myself to the emergency room. They told me within minutes that I was dangerously malnourished—then they asked me my eating habits, and I reluctantly told them. Long story short, they diagnosed me with anorexia.”
He paused, took another drag, and continued. “The next few months were so filled with therapist visits, nutritionist visits, and doctors visits it seemed I did nothing but work and visit various doctors. And eat, quite reluctantly, to be honest.”
He rubbed his eyes and chuckled. That kind of laugh you hear someone force out when they’re falling to their tears. One slipped precariously down his cheek, quite dramatically, and he wiped it viciously away. He looked at me, smiling weakly. “Sorry. It’s kind of hard reliving that time.”
I smiled my stupid, don’t-know-what-to-do-in-this-situation smile; just seeing him like this brought tears to my eyes. I grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Do you want a minute?” I asked, willing to get up and pretend to use the bathroom if he felt it was necessary so that he could regain the composure he so obviously wanted.
“No, no. We might as well just keep going.” A frown touched his failing smile, briefly, and I took the very quiet hint.
“I just need to use the bathroom.” I chuckled. “I really need to pee.” I got up and let myself into the bathroom. I stood at the sink, looking in the mirror, assessing myself briefly. How the hell was I going to give him the credit he deserved in this paper? I thought about how other students in the class were going to react. It’s a very touchy subject—I don’t know if anyone has been through something like this, or if it’s going to touch the wrong nerve. I’ve never been through an eating disorder. I’ve been through my own trials, but not this. Is someone going to find my questions harsh and insincere, without any thought behind them? Is John going to feel this way?
I took a deep breath, turned the water on for a minute, making it seem as if I really had used the bathroom.
The door creaked as I opened it, and the light switch clicked loudly as I turned the light off; an almost obnoxious announcement that I was re-entering the room. John looked up from his coffee cup, steam pouring out of it again. I assumed he had poured another cup while I “used the bathroom.”
Looked composed again, John smiled his goofy half-smile as I sat down.
“You want to continue? We don’t have to.” I asked him this carefully, skirting the idea in my own mind that stopping now would leave for a harder paper to write, but I was willing to work with what I had if he didn’t feel like going on.
“Eh,” he shrugged and smiled. “We’ve already started, right? Can’t stop halfway through.”
I shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. “You sure? It’s really not a big deal. I don’t want you to feel like you have to go on.”
He shook his head. “I want to answer all the questions. I can’t leave something knowingly unfinished—you know that.”
“Well then, okay.” I looked at the next question. I knew, at least, that they got more positive from this point on. “When did you realize you were getting better?”
His lips scrunched and moved to the side of his face. He laughed; short, staccato, and obviously light-hearted. “Well, I really knew I was getting better when I could chew a piece of gum without worrying about how many calories were in it.” He smiled. “After I went to the hospital that day, I went to Ohio for a month. Got away from everyone and everything that was familiar to me, and I started to get healthy again. It was a rehabilitating time for me. From that, it was a long road to recuperation. But now, I consider myself healthy again. I eat on a regular schedule almost religiously. I had to work to be able to eat healthily again. My body was so fucked up. I worked my ass off to get better.”
I looked at him. “Thanks.” This is all I can really say without seeming pretentious and overbearing. I respect him so much for overcoming this—and I know “working his ass off” is not quite as simple as he’s put it. But I also know that he came from a really dark place in his life to a very bright one. This is evidence enough at how hard he’s worked.
I only had one last question, and I was hesitant about asking it. He knew what I was thinking, and simply said, “ask away.”
Quietly I stacked my papers, shuffling and reshuffling. I lit a cigarette.
“Do you think it will ever happen again?”
He seemed to consider this carefully, more carefully than any of the other questions. He tapped his fingers on the table. In his eyes, thoughts flew by so visibly it was like seeing into his mind through newly cleaned windows.
“I guess it could. But I’ve surrounded myself with supportive people, and I know even if it does happen again, without those people doing anything out of their way or anything out of the ordinary, just knowing they’ll be there for me no matter what, will help me get through it easier than last time. But to be honest, I like being healthy. I like eating, and having energy. I’ve learned to re-live my life, almost. I learned to look at it from a fresh perspective. So honestly, it could happen again, but I don’t see myself succumbing to it again.”
I know John well. I know who he is and just seeing the determination through other things in his every day life makes me see that he wouldn’t succumb to it easily, if at all. I also know that he has incredible support all around him.
Then he looked up. “I brought something I want to show you. Since I knew what we were going to talk about.” He took his black leather wallet out of his back pocket, stuffed to the hilt with dog-eared punch cards, scratched savings cards, faded business cards, and crumpled cash. From between two one dollar bills, he pulled out a folded picture. It looked as if it’d been opened, and refolded numerous times—some sort of memento. He opened it and looked at it for a second. Slowly, he folded it once and handed it to me. The corners look as if they want to flutter off and drop, like dying butterflies at the end of autumn; the ones who didn’t make it south in time. I took it from his slim fingers, and held it for a second, looking at the creases, wondering if this was something I should open. I looked at him. He was looking at his palms, examining the lines crisscrossing that plane, his face a little red.
“I’m a little embarrassed,” he confessed quietly. “But look at it. It’s from when I was still sick.”
Slowly I started to open it, and then I stopped. “Is this the only picture you have?”
He nodded. “I only kept one picture from that time. Just to remind myself of how bad I let it get; and to remind myself where I never want to go again.”
I nodded slowly. Still folded, the picture rests lightly between my two hands, level. The last visual memory of something passed. I sighed. I didn’t want to look at it—I’m satisfied knowing who John is, not who he was. What someone has been through shapes them, but doesn’t necessarily dictate fully who they’ve become. Choices are conscious and unconscious. In this case, this was a conscious choice he made.
Finally, I obliged. He wanted me to see this, and out of respect, I should want to see it—but I don’t. I unfolded it reluctantly. The picture blooms out of creases and dog ears.
Two women stand on either side of a younger John, hair long and curly and pulled back, restrained under a blue bandanna. One woman is his mother; the other, I concluded, is his aunt—though I’ve never met her, I know she was there throughout every ordeal and trial he faced through his recovery. His mother has a forced smile on her face; I’ve met her and seen her genuine smile, and this is too drawn and tense to be genuine. His aunt, like his mother, seems to have a forced smile as well. As if the person behind the camera said “CHEESE!” and then had to ask them again nicely. But John stands in the middle, drawn, malnourished, and unsmiling. He looks as if he is a skeleton with skin and eyes and tendons. The red t-shirt he’s wearing in the picture hangs off him like the tattered sails of a lost sailboat, and his arms hang loosely at his sides, the tendons and veins protruding from under his skin like ropes trying to break free. In the picture, his eyes are empty. The person in the picture and the person who sat in front of me were no longer the same. The one in front of me was happy, and healthy.
There isn’t any good way to justify a person with writing, purely because of that; they are a person. They are more complex than mere words. Human beings are, in essence, complex beings, made up of emotions, flesh, bone, and soul. If this was not anonymous, I would bring a picture of John then and a picture of John now; because anything I write cannot truly justify the incredible path John went down to get better, or how amazing this man truly is, or how worthy of respect he is. I can’t put his voice or pure emotion into my words. He is a human being, and an incredible one at that. Anything I write down will never come close to living up to who John really is. In essence, he has contributed his own voice to this: But every description I use to try to convey his emotion does not come close. Complexity in a human being is such a hard thing to grasp with words.
As I continue every day to get to know John, I am only met with more stories that encourage me to respect him more. Each story is only presented in truth and with raw emotion, left to be interpreted by the one listening. As any story should be told, in truth and as a raw emotion, I also strive to tell this one as such.

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