Starving BY ALLISON ARNOLD
Surviving an Eating Disorder
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hen describing how her depression began, Elizabeth Wurtzel, in her book Prozac Nation, refers to a scene in The Sun Also Rises where Mike Campbell describes going bankrupt, “gradually and then suddenly.” I read The Sun Also Rises about a year after I was discharged from the adolescent psychiatric ward. That was nine years ago. It’s my favorite book, and I often find myself reading it when I feel myself beginning to sink. I don’t know why. My grandfather and I used to sit at a picnic table slicing watermelon into rings, chopping them in half, and nibbling at them until it was just the rind, resembling a thin crescent moon. We would spit the seeds out into a bucket while telling each other stories. He moved in with us after my grandmother died and when he began deteriorating from cancer. I was a sophomore in high school, trying to find my way. In grade school I had obsessive-compulsive disorder
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to the point I would wash my hands until they bled. In middle school, I was sent to a therapist for depression. And in high school the mix of anxiety and depression boiling up in my blood for fifteen years, erupted into chaos. One night my mom made dinner, and I remember feeling good about the fact that I went to bed slightly hungry. At Thanksgiving, I remember feeling confident wearing a new outfit my mom bought me because many of my clothes were too big. I said the dinner prayer and tears fell down my grandfather’s face. I began obsessing over food. I would eat a piece of fruit and a granola bar at lunch. I would obsess over what was for dinner. If I ate too much I would break down. The thing is, I was never consumed by my body image or weight, and all of a sudden I was a 15-yearold throwing tantrums, terrified of getting fat for eating a bite too much, or feeling full. While the lack of calories and nutrients in my body made me highly irrational, I recall knowing that I was thin, even too thin. It was the feeling of control that
One night my mom made dinner, and I remember feeling good about the fact that I went to bed slightly hungry.
Women’s LifeStyle Magazine • May 2020
