The Importance of Being Thin    by Susan Scott                 Mar 2003

   Tubes. I had tubes going into my nose and down my throat. Tubes ran into veins in 
my neck, arms and legs. There was even a tube that drained my bladder into a bag. I reclined in the 
hospital bed, being invaded by tubes, and pondered. 
     At what point in my life had the problems started?
  In the fifth grade I wouldn't eat meat. I would cram piece after piece of pork or beef in my mouth, 
chewing it and then adding another until I thought I'd choke. When nobody was looking, I'd spit the wad
into my napkin, tucking the bulgy soaked mess into my pants at the end of the meal. I'd either take it outside to 
toss into the bushes, or to the bathroom to flush. I learned to be sly out of desperation. 
     In the sixth grade I used to sit with my feet on tiptoe, so my thighs wouldn't spread out on the chair. I was a 
beanpole back then, but my best friend was skinnier than me and I felt fat.
  In high school I had an appetite to match my rapid growth. Seven inches in four years. All I heard when searching 
the kitchen for a snack were my mother's repeated warnings, "One day you'll stop growing up and start growing out. So 
you'd better watch what you eat." Or, "You eat more than your father, sister and I put together."
  I pretended to brush them off, but the words were like lashings to my heart, leaving scars that I would always touch and 
remember.
    When I was eighteen, I had a boyfriend whose constant refrain was, "If you'd lose ten pounds you'd be perfect."
Even after the extra weight was long gone he wasn't satisfied. So neither was I.
    Years after the boyfriend had been dumped, I heard his voice whenever I examined my dwindling figure in the mirror. I saw 
a pudgy girl who needed to lose ten pounds. I was 5' 11" and weighed one hundred-fourteen pounds.Friends would tell me 
they wished they were as skinny as I was. While I was secretly pleased, I couldn't help wondering if they were crazy. 
    My life was hell.  Constantly counting calories and thinking about food. Wanting...denying... feeling guilty for eating. "I'm 
huge," I'd tell myself. Blubbery stomach and impossible thighs. I'd grab a handful of skin and think it was fat. And I'd cry, 
despairing of ever being thin.
    "So fragile," a guy murmured in wonderment, catching hold of my wrist. I took it as a compliment and resolved to lose five 
more pounds.
    "Hey ghost lady!" Someone hollered as I crossed the college parking lot. I walked on, pretending he wasn't there.
  "Do you eat? I never see you eating." My brash boss's boss stormed through the office, "we don't want you starving 
yourself around here."
     I smiled politely, wishing she'd mind her own business. 
     "You need to gain some weight, hon. Try eatin' them starchy foods. They'll pack the pounds on." An ignorant lady cornered 
me in the vegetable aisle of the Safeway, aggrieved at the sight of me, like I'd insulted her in some way. I lied, telling her I was 
dying of cancer, and was pleased to see her face turn beet red. Very apropos.
  I hoarded the three C's: candy bars, cookies and cup cakes; and regularly binged on them when stressed to the max. The 
pressure inside me would mount, and I couldn't find a release, so I locked the bedroom door and ate. Shoving the vile 
calorie-laden crap into my mouth as quickly as possible. I didn't want to think about what I was doing. When nothing was left 
but torn wrappers and crumbs, the guilt and fear rushed in. Panicky, I ran to the bathroom, stuck an index finger down my
throat and threw up the contents of my bloated stomach.
  Brushing my teeth afterwards, I thought of the girl who had taught me the finger trick. Her teeth were black, all the enamel 
eaten away by bile. Too gross for words. I was careful, so that wouldn't happen to me. I hid the trash under my bed, until I 
could sneak it to the car and dump it somewhere later. Nobody could know about my secret.
  I finger-combed my hair and was alarmed at the amount of strays tangled in my hands. Could I be going bald? The hairs 
felt like straw-with no body or shine. Hot oil and mayonnaise treatments didn't help at all.
    Now mom was harping about the lack of food I ate, and I took pleasure in throwing her earlier words back in her face. "I'm 
only doing what you told me to do."
     I started having dizzy spells. In the middle of the night my heart fluttered all around my chest, I thought it was cardiac arrest. 
First came relief at the idea of dying, my ordeal would be over. Then fear and loneliness crept in, so I said my prayers and 
yelled for Mom and Dad.
  Doctors did all kinds of tests in the emergency room, and decided I had a heart arrhythmia. They used paddles to shock 
my heart back into a regular rhythm and prescribed meds. I thought that would be it, but a crafty doctor kept me overnight
for observation. Then she wanted me to stay another day, and another. What a surprise- not. My traitor parents were scheming 
behind my back, I was sure of it.
  "Do you know what anorexia is?" A pompous psychiatrist came in to talk to me, but I hated the sight of him and refused to 
say a word. He finally asked if I'd mind moving upstairs to his floor, so he could observe me better. Yeah, right! His was the 
eighth floor--the locked-down psycho ward. No way Jose!
  Late that night my heart stopped. I woke up in the cardiac care unit, hooked up to all kinds of beeping machines. And there 
I lay, trying to figure out where it all began.
  I could see myself as I had become: a skin covered skeleton bent on destruction. Eyes sunken into sockets, cheekbones 
protruding--a face of death.
     Superimposed over my true self, I saw a fat person. Morbidly obese, with rolls of blubber. A pig, a whale. That was the 
person who looked back at me from a mirror. 
     Somewhere in between reality and distortion floated a third, elusive image. One of a normal healthy happy girl. She could 
eat with her friends and not worry. She didn't hide food; stuffing her face and feeling ashamed, guilty-knowing all the time she 
couldn't keep it in her body, couldn't risk it. That girl smiled and laughed, hair blowing in the wind, sun shining on her skin. She's 
the girl I used to be a long time ago.
     I was so cold. The chill penetrated to the very marrow. Depression settled in and couldn't be pushed away. My muscles 
were wasted, bones brittle, skin aged and yellowed. Parched. My body was still fighting to live, drawing everything it could 
from skin and bones, leaving them dry and fragile, nothing below the surface layer. I couldn't think as clearly as I used to. I felt 
muzzy and addled. My body was munching on the brain too; one by one gray matter cells were consumed.
     Why? The media pushed Barbie-doll figured perfection in TV, magazines and movies. Supermodels, actresses, 
celebrities--major and minor--all had to be flawless. I saw my male friends pant over these perfect women and despaired, 
knowing I'd never measure up. Yet I tried. 
      I hoped, for future generations of young girls, that one day standards would shift. Inner beauty would be revered more 
than a dress size or number on a scale. I believed that it was too late for me to change. Even if I could go back to the beginning 
it wouldn't matter. I'd still hunger to be thin.
  But something surprising happened while I lay in that bed. Suddenly I wanted to live. The need to survive surged through 
me, and determination replaced apathy. I made plans, baby steps to leave the hospital, toddler steps to get healthy and then 
long strides back into life. It took well over a year before I was going to college and working again, but I managed with the help
of doctors, therapists and nutritionists.
     Some things will never be "fixed", like the damage to my heart, digestive system and nervous system. But that's okay, at 
least I'm here. I also battle my rebellious mind constantly. It still screams, "too fat, too fat!" Sometimes I listen and skip a meal, 
but more often I manage to ignore it and eat. Not that I'll ever be a junk food junkie, the idea causes red alert signals to start 
bonging around my head like a pinball. But I do munch on pizza with friends now, or dive into buttered popcorn at the movies. 
And I laugh on those perfect days when the wind blows through my hair and the sun shines on my skin.
     I'll never be the normal girl I used to be. Anorexia is a disease like alcoholism or drug abuse, once it gets a hold it never lets 
go. But it can be managed day by day. I'm doing that, and with success. 
     I've helped others like me along the way, by giving peer counseling and writing about my experiences. Every new day is a 
struggle and a joy, and I am ecstatic to be a part of it all.
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