Over sixty hours without food. Just water and coffee. I even managed a night and full day of yoga teacher training without calories. Watched my weight drop 4 pounds in two days.
My manager dropped a “good job” candy bar on my desk (per usual) because our team met last week’s goal, and I was overcome by instant panic. The fibers of my hands shook and tingled, my heart flopflopped, breath left me in a silent gasp and did not return. I smiled, said thank you, and when she walked away I passed it off to my friend in the next desk. Like a live grenade.
The nausea is neverending; I can smell the faintest traces of food in clothing, around mouths, in hair, and the full volume of a freshly peeled banana is assaultive, violent, gag reflex engaged.
Comments that I appear gaunt, fragile, frail, unwell, sad eyes. Sobbing on the phone to my mom, sobbing in the car, silent sobs in yoga, dry, staccato sobs at my desk. I run over the marks on my right thigh with my blade, enhancing, widening, deepening.
Joseph and Mom and Robert (and people at work, and my yoga friends, and my best friends) are worried so I ended my fast and ate dinner Saturday night, half a bowl of black bean soup, and ate two meals on Sunday with Joe, panic and rising waves of vomit the inevitable chasers.
They gave me Klonopin (.5 mg) when I discharged from the hospital late Wednesday night, take as needed. I’ve been taking it right before bed, since the stillness of my pre-bed rituals allow much room and silence for panic to set back in. The Klonopin helps.
I have an intake assessment with an eating disorder program on Wednesday morning. I’m scared. Scared I’m sick, scared I’m not sick enough. Just scared. No food until sometime in the future that is not today. Just empty empty empty. It’s getting harder and harder to use words to describe the way I am because the substance of syntax weighs more than my worth. I do know, without hesitation, I have given in entirely. I know where this goes and that faraway heart has broken, again.
Not eating feels better than eating. Simple truth.
