IS IT BACK?

The question in the title popped in my head but it’s wrong. “Is it worse?” is far more accurate. The answer: “Of course.”

 

Talking about my eating disorder again. I have nine hours until I eat. I’m telling myself I’m just dieting, but I don’t think people with eating disorders know how to just diet. As someone with anorexia, my restriction is significant in the best of times, extreme under other circumstances.

 

Sitting here in a café, I perked up when the barista asked if I wanted water: “Regular or sparkling?” I chose the latter, cheered that the bubbles will trick my stomach into thinking I’m consuming something more substantial. 

 

Club soda is now on my shopping list.

 

I recently spent two weeks at the cottage and that “vacation,” a trip intended for relaxation has triggered me. Driving from the airport, I stopped at the grocery store and stocked up on my “safe” foods. I tend to treat myself to a few scones on vacation and I needed to know the fridge supplies had things that would somewhat offset my intake. This is what I always do when I go to the cottage.

 

The problem was this wasn’t a regular cottage stay. Normally it’s almost all downtime, just me and the deck, the beach below offering an inviting morning walk, the river suggesting a quick swim (when no one could possibly be watching). 

 

Throughout the fortnight, however, I only had two dinners on my own. Friends and relatives were around me the rest of the time. It was all lovely. These are wonderful people. But, as is often the case, food is a central conduit for social activity. My eating disorder slithers on the sidelines in social situations. I don’t like to be a spectacle. I don’t want people seeing my small portions and pushing more food on me. When poked and prodded, the eating disorder gets worse. It doubles down. I eat even less. I refuse social invitations. I isolate.

 

I truly thought I was doing well. I ate “normally.” I socialized as best I could. I enjoyed the conversations. I appreciated the food. 

 

The eating disorder was left to sit back and stew. It waited patiently for the visits to end, for the time to take over, guilting me and sending me into severe restriction mode. The opportunity came as soon as I drove to the airport. No farewell donut, no mixed berry scone. Not even that little baggy of pretzels on the plane. 

 

I didn’t stand a chance in trying to dismiss the eating disorder. I was worn out. As an introvert, all the socializing left me exhausted. I was ignoring hunger pangs before I’d even landed back in Vancouver. 

 

People talk about being too tired to eat. For me, it’s the other way around. Not eating makes me too tired. My afternoons are write-offs. No writing. It doesn’t seem to make sense—not much makes sense with an eating disorder—but the only “productive” thing I can do midafternoon is exercise. I never think about food when I’m working out. The exercise is another part of my disorder. It demands full attention. There are no excuses permitted. 

 

I have several friends I’m supposed to contact now that I’m back. It’s been a week and I don’t have the energy to make any attempt to reach out. My social exhaustion is both separate from and woven into the eating disorder. The isolation helps me stick to my disordered behaviours.

 

As I’m sixty now, I wear the weight on my body differently. Even a year ago, some of the weight I perceive as gaining from pastries and full meals would have already dropped off. Only a little weight loss typically shows. Less than ten pounds under my standard weight and I start to look scary—gaunt face, protruding ribs, loss of muscle. The weight insists on lingering this time around. This will make my heightened eating disorder behaviours more established, perhaps even more drastic.

 

Yes, I’m thinking of club soda as a meal.

 

I’m telling myself this is just a rough patch. Some temporary tweaking. I should be so lucky.

 

 

 

 

 

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.