II. I Favor The Sunsets -

The truth of the matter is that going downstairs to the basement to retrieve what have you – paper napkins, paper towels, tissue, toilet paper, water bottles, Q-Tips, dishwashing soap – provokes reactionary judgement of myself, by my parents. Failing to bring up all of my folded laundry in one fell swoop, also causes them to call upon historical evidence of my compulsive tendencies to move without a need, instead acting on psychiatric impulse. This is also known as maladaptive behavior – a way for me to burn off anything that I may have eaten at an earlier time in order for me to feel lighter, more delicate, dainty, and feminine.

Femininity for me was not defined by menstruation – which I have not experienced for years due to my restrictive eating – or lack of eating – habits. Femininity was akin to long and lean lines, 2-Dimensional in configuration, without bumps or curves. A clean slate is what I aimed for; I aimed for an aura of perfection that is founded on principles of innocence, one which is maintained by celibacy, for example.

I could argue that past performance does not dictate present ability. But even my response is, and I quote Alexis Beldedel’s character on Gilmore Girls: “Wise men call that a sucker’s maxim.” It is my belief, brought to my attention so articulately by my late friend, Mike, who recently lost his life to anorexia nervosa, that one lives with anorexia nervosa for their lifetime – made prematurely finite by the eating disorder.

“I think for me, I have just accepted my limitations when it comes to recovery. I know what I want out of life and now it is just ensuring I nourish my body appropriately to make that a reality. I’m not going to force feed myself to make sure I’m gaining pounds per week like in treatment,” he said.

“I don’t love the cold. I prefer it over snow, but I struggle to stay warm regardless of the temperature. I guess at this point I have just accepted that I have to live life a bit differently than what might be considered normal. As long as I can still do the things I enjoy, that’s all that matters,” he continued.

It’s true, what he said. I, he/she/they do not want to gain or in clinically sensitive terms, “restore” weigh when suffering from a restrictive eating disorder. No one chooses to passively be uncomfortable and fight the seemingly unstoppable. No one thinks they’re voice – the one telling them that enough is never enough, that being catcalled is their fault, or that the vulgarity is their own body, is not their own but instead is some other being – the abstract, anthropomorphized “Ed” aka “E.D.” or “Eating Disorder.”

Let me be clear: I want to crawl out of my skin. My self-repulsion, my stomach fullness and distention so apparent to me, so sentient to me, that I cannot help but know that I can no longer fill the hole formed between my thumb and index finer with my upper arm, or my entire midsection with the holes formed just that way with both hands, one on either side.

The holes formed by index fingers and thumbs, are now broken, undone, and spilling out with skin and its underlayer of fat and hidden, God-given, muscle. This physical transformation may seem like I’m going into remission, so to speak, and that me again losing weight to an unhealthy proportion, by the powers that be and not me, is the equivalent to a relapse. But it is my truth that I am recovering and am not at a static recovered state.

But the static status quo – the environment I am in, does exist.

When I walked outside of my house during the middle of the day, last Thursday, because I hqd taken off from work, it was like magic, It was like a fantastical world from Alice in Wonderland. Squirrels pranced, boughs of branches bounced underneath birds of different varietals. Dips in cracked and buckled earth, still unscathed by manmade asphalt, welled with residual water from a trifecta of the previous night’s rainfall, morning dew, and sprinkled lawns of suburbia. White spottled mushrooms grew from said lawns, wild, unabashed, and perkily standing erect.

The same could be said for when I left the hospital a couple of weeks ago. As soon as I was discharged, I voluntarily walked out alone, a few shopping bags in each hand, in tow, including my right hand that had a small blood clot due to the intravenous administration. As soon as I stepped out into the summer sun, I felt my soon to plummet again mental health, ever so slightly improve. I felt levity, forcing my still light stature against the weighing down gravitational pull exacerbated by the heat. It was like every car that passed as I waited for my father to pick me up, was a mirage emerging from the horizon in purview of the Long Island desert. It was like I had never seen daylight before. My life was now saved several times, mostly by the sun setting - especially the early sunsets that are so characteristic of Fall and Winter. The darkness gave me life.

In pursuit of living, I am actively doing the uncomfortable, seemingly without agency and autonomy. It’s not passive. It is my self-coerced attempt at recovery. But it’s what my pal Mike said, “Living with this disease is a daily hell that never feels like it ever goes away, even in recovery.”