FAMILY

Zoe Gac

12th Grade • William Jones College Prep

My parents admitted me to the hospital as a last resort. They never intended on it, none of us expected my condition to get to the point where I was beyond their help. By late spring they were pumping me with three thousand calories a day, yet I was dropping weight every week like clockwork. The ship was sinking. They were desperately plugging up every hole they found, but I was carving more holes into the wood than they were aware of. I was dead set on drowning. Against all efforts I was only getting worse. Every attempt was met with an equally intense backlash, many of which they never found out about. They could smell something poisonous, something taunting them, but anorexia is an unseen force. I was killing myself with what they couldn’t see, and it drove them crazy. Rendered them helpless.

Initially I blamed them for handing me over to the hospital, but at the time I didn’t realize it was the only thing keeping me from death. My family was worn out, I was worn out. The hospital wasn’t an ideal ending by any means, but the alternate ending was unspeakable. Imagine that: fighting so desperately for all those months to bring me out of my delusion only to have me die anyway. I would have left them with something even worse than nothing. Unrelenting guilt, unspeakable grief. The ghost of my suffering roaming the halls every night, asking them why couldn’t you save me? Of course none of it was their fault, but if I died it would have all come crashing down on them. The

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heaviness of my absence would smother them. Their final memories of me would have been my skeletal body screaming at them, pulling at the skin on my stomach and begging them to admit that I was fat, that they were trying to make me disgusting. Screaming I HATE YOU YOU’RE RUINING ME YOU’RE KILLING ME over a plate of scrambled eggs. They would not have sweet memories of me to relish in. What they’d remember is bony blue fingers pulling apart a carefully cooked grilled cheese and throwing it across the room. Me stabbing a fork into my porcelain plate until it made that horrible screeching noise, over and over and over and over. They would be left with the memories of our disturbing daily routine. And it would play over and over and over and over as they tried to go to sleep at night, as they tried to continue a normal life for what was left of our family. Over and over and over and over they’d remember my tragic last weeks.

Over and over and over and over they’d play.

Over and over and over and over.

I wonder if anyone heard our house all those years back, if the screaming ever stopped someone in their tracks, made them stand on the sidewalk and cock their heads. Gaze up at our Greystone house, gaze in through the deep red curtains and wonder what is going ON in there? It’s human nature to be interested in something tragic, I bet the curiosity must have swelled in these strangers so unbearably high that they’d be thinking about it when they’d try and fall asleep. That’s exactly what my parents were trying to avoid. Even in the sweltering summer, we had to keep our windows closed. Or else the whole block would be forced to listen to something they simply couldn’t understand. The eating disorder didn’t care about who heard it, the eating disorder had no shame, even though I did.

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But what I thought didn’t matter, all that mattered was not eating the entire plate, getting my mom to divulge how many calories were in that smoothie, or getting my parents to finally admit that I’ve been fat this whole time.

The screaming never ceased. Our home was a hell house, a freak show, a place between death and hell. Meals were carefully sandwiched between hours of argument, before, during and after. The way I was fighting would make you think it was a matter of life and death, the sounds that bled from our house indicated something horrible. To the outside stranger walking their dog, it would sound like I was weeping to the high heavens after I found my family murdered, wailing to some outside force to come rescue me from unspeakable abuse, screaming bloody murder as my father cornered me with a knife. In reality, the only abusive force in our house was something you couldn’t see. The only weapon in the house was a plate of food with too much guacamole. And to me, that was worse than death.

But my parents never broke. In those months my family showed me what unconditional love meant. If you love someone, you will do anything for them. My mother watched and cared for me despite my relentless delusions. She cooked my food with care, knowing that I might just rip it up and throw it across the floor. At the time it felt like they were trying to hurt me, when in reality they were saving me. If I would have been left to my own devices, I wouldn’t be writing this. Anorexia was torturing me every waking moment, and I was so scared of her because I trusted everything she told me. Back then I resisted food because I couldn’t even imagine what my mind would do to me if I didn’t at least put up a fight. Now, in retrospect, I can’t imagine what I would’ve done to myself if my family hadn’t put up a fight.

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