When I was younger I was extremely sick. I suffered from a combination of anorexia and bullemia.
I remember never feeling like I was skinny enough. In high school almost all of my friends were smaller than I. I wore a size 9 most of my high school life. Actually I prolly wore a size bigger than that at some points, but I refused to shop anywhere but 5-7-9 so I made those clothes fit me.
Once I lost my skirt for RoVaSi and a friend let me borrow her short black skirt for the performance. It was a size 7. I had to starve myself for a few days but I eventually fit into it. (i also got the rudest compliment ever from Liam when he asked me if I intentionally was trying to give every guy in the school a hard on ... I blushed but I honestly don't even know if I completely understood what he was saying to me)
There was a time in my life I stopped eating. I ate nothing but jello and chicken bouillion soup. I even used to munch on chicken bouillion cubes in order to get some flavour and sense of food in me. (i figured that if I was gonna eat it anyway dissolved in soup that chomping it wouldnt' be any worse).
I lived on tons of coffee. or iced tea. (ironically I didn't drink much water during this time in my life) And if i ever felt the uncontrollable urge to eat something I would make myself something (like a sandwich) and chew it to get the flavour of it and then spit it out before I swallowed it.
If I DID decide to eat (cuz sometimes it was inevitable) I would eat about half a package of laxatives in order to get it out of my body as quickly as possible before I gained any weight.
Add to this the daily exercise regimen I had at this time (during summer months) of running about 4 miles every morning and then riding my bike as far as I could until the sun came up (at which time I would turn around and head home)
Once I got lost and ended up on the Southfield freeway over by Van Born road (about 8 miles from home).
At the peak of this I think I weighed about 120lbs...which for me was amazing! I think I spent most of my high school life weighing in at about 135-140.
I really hated myself in high school. I never had a boyfriend. Never had a guy ask me to a dance (well once ... but he totally stood me up after I had gone out and bought a dress and everything) If I got up the nerve to tell a boy I liked him he was already interested in one of my friends. (I can't TELL you the times I had to suffer watching my best friends date the guys I was madly crushing on) I guess I figured that if I got skinny then I would get dates ... or at least the possibility of dates (since I technically wasn't allowed out on them anyway)
Looking back I did have a couple of guys who were interested in me. And had I not spent most of my junior and senior years pining over those Williamson boys I might have even noticed.
It finally came to a head one New Year's Eve.
I had walked downstairs from my bedroom to use the bathroom late at night/early in the morning. I remember feeling light headed when I got out and hearing my mom call out, asking if I was ok. I thought I said yes and started towards my room. I didn't.
Apparently I was just staring into space unable to even form anything intelligible. I scared my sister to death. And my mom, realizing that something was dangerously wrong, rushed me to the emergency room.
I remember she didn't even have me get dressed or put on shoes. Later she said that she thought if I walked in the cold snow it might jolt me and bring me back to some sort of consciousness.
When we got to Wyandotte Hospital we spent FOREVER in the emergency room. I think they took a urine sample and I remember being embarrassed cuz someone I knew was working there that night and I had shit stains on my underwear cuz I had a small uncontrollable bowel movement thanks to all the lazatives i had been pumping into my body.
Eventually I think they diagnosed what was wrong with me and pumped me full of electrolytes. I don't know if I told them what I had been doing or not. I still don't know if my mom knows how horribly i was treating my body.
I do remember her trying to keep my spirits up singing "Homeward Bound" by Simon and Garfunkel. (cuz it was taking FOREVER for them to release me!)
After I was released I must confess that the rest of the day was a fog. I knew it was New Year's Day. I may have slept. My sister would know better what events transpired later on.
I do know that I stopped that craziness. I still rode my bike and ran alot, but I didn't torture my body by denying it food as i had before. At least I think I didn't.
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Sometimes tho I get the urge to help myself with this uphill battle of losing weight and getting back in shape to revert to my old ways. Not so much the living on jello part, but the laxatives are surely tempting. Sometimes I even find myself in an aisle at the drug store right in front of the laxative display....sometimes I even have them in my hand (extra extra strength chocolate flavoured). Then I remember how devastating it was to my body and to my family and I set them back down and slowly walk away.
