Labor Day of
2015 I binged and purged for 12 straight hours, that was the last time I ever
did it, a finale of sorts. It’s still hard for me to believe I’ve been in
recovery for over a year, for a long time I never thought I’d stop. I was sure
I would continue until the bulimia killed me, and I was so fucking miserable I
wished it would hurry up and get it over with. My life was like an especially
shitty version of the movie Ground Hog Day. The same monotonous cycle of bingeing, purging, obsessing about food and telling myself it was never going to
happen again. I couldn’t help but wonder how in the world it came to that…
Well, I
blame lasagna. That hot, carb-filled, cheesy, meaty heaven. Lasagna was my
request for every birthday dinner or special occasion. This makes it fitting
that it is also the first meal I forced myself to puke back up. I think my Mom
might say it was more heart breaking then fitting if you were to ask her
though, she’d also probably take about 5 minutes to say it; she likes to talk
even more than I do.
Let’s
journey back to when I was nineteen years old, a freshman at Mankato State
University. It was one of my first nights home on my month-long Christmas break,
as if I needed a break from consuming numerous boxes of Franzia. Of course, my
fabulous Mom made me a welcome home meal; a big pan of lasagna with garlic bread
that makes my nostrils flare in happiness to think about. I consumed a large
helping of salad, several pieces of garlic bread, and a piece of lasagna the
size of an average head. I say average head instead of my head because mine is
unusually large. That’s right, unusually large, not ‘oddly shaped’ as one guy
on tinder told me. Okay, back to my first time. I was in Mexico on spring break
when I made eyes at handsome Canadian man on the beach…whoops! Wrong first
time.
Getting back
on track now. Myself, my two older brothers and my parents sat at the dining
room table. We didn’t often eat together as a family anymore and I don’t recall
this meal’s topic of conversation, but based off past family dinners, we can
safely assume there was at least one argument, and that I was part of said
argument. I devoured the home cooked meal, while simultaneously being short and
rude with everyone at the table; my brothers didn’t call me a fat bitch for
nothing. Writing this now, for the first time I’m wondering if it was something
said that night that set off the years of me damaging myself mentally and
physical, or if it was the stress and anxiety that came up by being with my family.
At this point, I suppose it doesn’t matter.
After “enjoying”
family time upstairs, I rushed down the small spiral staircase to the lower
level of my parents split level home. I locked myself in the safety of the bathroom—decorated
by my mom in creams and gold—steadfast in making myself vomit this time. This
wasn’t the first time I had tried, but it was the first time I was successful.
I haven’t been as dedicated to anything in my life as I was to getting the
entire contents of the meal out of my stomach in and around the toilet bowl.
I shoved my
fingers down my throat as deeply as they could go, they met resistance but I
pushed through it, much like my other first time. Suddenly what can only be
described as a lump of lasagna came tumbling out of my mouth, compacted as if
it were garbage. It dropped into the bowl and cold toilet water splashed back
up into my face and widely opened mouth, that was an unfortunate surprise. I continued
shoving my fingers down my throat until the entire contents of my welcome home
dinner were flushed down the toilet bowl. The aftermath left me, the toilet and
the bathroom covered in plops of puke mixed with water that jumped out of the
bowl with an unexpected force and landed all over the bathroom. My eyes were
blood shot and watery, my breath was rancid. Despite this, I was ecstatic. I
have never felt so relieved in my life, and while I often miss that feeling, I
do not miss toilet water jumping in to my mouth.
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