A BELATED AFFIRMATION

There are days when I wake up in my hospital bed and I still wonder if I belong here. For the past five weeks I’ve been in treatment for an eating disorder, an affliction I’ve struggled to acknowledge within myself and I’ve struggled even more to get others to understand.

Each and every time I’ve dared to disclose to someone, the response is quick, a snap judgment. “You don’t have an eating disorder.” 

I don’t feel like having to prove my point.

It’s true that I don’t look the part. I’m male, I’m in my fifties and I’m not rail thin. I even sport some pesky love handles. 

Twenty-four years ago, I dared raise the possibility of an eating disorder with my family doctor, a compassionate gay man whom I assumed would have many patients with low self-image issues, disordered eating and excessive exercise regimens. I had a great deal of angst in the build up to telling him what I thought I might have. He dismissed it as if to reassure me. It only made me feel more alienated. If I didn’t have an eating disorder, then how could I get help? I was starving myself for huge chunks of the day, obsessing over fat content in foods and exercising through injuries, feeling trapped by my workout routines. If I missed a day, the belly would never be tamed.

There were ebbs and flows to my disorder. In relationships, I’d sometimes let up. I’d eat ice cream and pizza with my boyfriend, feeling like a sinner but happy to have a partner in crime. Whenever I wasn’t with my boyfriend, the food restricting would kick back into high gear. Aside from my non-skinny appearance, a big reason so many people haven’t thought I had an eating disorder is because the key behaviors happen when alone. It’s a clandestine disease. When my eating disorder ruled me, I didn’t want to be caught. I didn’t want anyone telling me to change. My eating disorder brought a twisted sense of comfort. It represented control and self-discipline when I felt powerless in many areas of my life. 

You don’t have an eating disorder.

I heard it so many times, I felt I couldn’t get help. I was embarrassed to bring it up. I didn’t want to be invalidated again.

Even when I was hospitalized for depression five years ago, refused food and obsessively exercised in my hospital gown on an elliptical, professional staff failed to recognize my ED behaviors. It took a second psychiatric hospitalization for a psychiatrist and dieticians to piece things together after the nurses complained about my resistant behaviors to eating meals and to eating with the other patients. I finally got a referral to an eating disorder program. 

There are no elliptical machines during my current hospital stay.

I’ve since been assessed by doctors several times. Each time, I hear a common refrain in my head: You don’t have an eating disorder. Each time, I am both disheartened and relieved to hear the doctors confirm the diagnosis. Yes, I have an eating disorder.

As I sit in groups with other patients with eating disorders, I nod with them. They say the same things I think. They nod when I speak. By golly, I belong. 

When I awaken at 5 a.m., I can’t help but wonder if much of my life would be different if I’d gotten help twenty-four years ago. With earlier intervention, maybe I would have overcome the insecurities about my body and chipped away at all the self-hate. 

In my hospital room, I tell myself it’s not too late. I want to believe this old dog can learn a new way of living and can be more forgiving of all the imperfections I obsess over. This cycle of treatment ends, however, in nine days and I know I’m nowhere near real change. Many of my co-patients have had multiple hospital admissions. Is it the program that’s unsuccessful or is the eating disorder just too strong? Maybe it’s both.

I’m lucky to have more counseling and another treatment program on the horizon. Another team of professionals is recommending I stay three months in a group home for people with eating disorders. 

Me? I may not look the part but suddenly the professionals won’t let me slip through the cracks. My behaviors still feel entrenched but I have some hope for change. I want this hospital stay to be the start of a different way of living.