Last Thursday before Brad left work he sent me a text message letting me he wanted to run by Barnes and Noble after he got off and that he would be by to pick me up in a few minutes. As I got in the car with him to head to one of my most favorite places ever, he began telling me about his current reason for going (I say current because he must have a list a mile long of books he’d like to read at some point, and others he’s seen while we’ve been in the store he’s wanted to buy). He had been online during one of his breaks at work and came across the new release list for Barnes and Noble. On that list was “Columbine,” the 417 page book by Dave Cullen that tackles the tough question of why the tragedy occurred by giving, basically, a “play-by-play” of the events leading up to the day as well as the horrific day itself.
You may be wondering why anyone would want to read such a book, but it certainly isn’t the first book of this type that Brad has purchased, I know it won’t be the last, and I know he isn’t the only one that is intrigued by something he couldn’t, in his own mind, conceive. I believe lots of guys follow books like these, as well as their shoot-‘em-up war movies and others where you leave the movie feeling that half the movie’s budget MUST have been spent on the fake blood that is being poured all over the ground.
We follow these stories because they are so different than any real world experience we’ll ever have. And I say “we” because it’s not just a trait that affects men, but women as well. Flip through the tv guide and you’re guaranteed to find a 90210-Sex in the City-Gossip Girl style being shown at any given time. They portray a lifestyle that is extravagant and far out of reach for most of us. But what’s a girl to do but dream about owning every shoe of the season and PRE-own every shoe of next season as Carrie Bradshaw does. And then there’s Serena who partied her way through her first 16 years of life, and when it comes time to buckle down, she has good enough grades (and money) to get her into Yale. None of these shows portray a lifestyle (including drugs, alcohol, and sex all before being old enough to even drive a car) that I would desire to have, but the fancy mansions, gorgeous hair, ahead-of-the-seasons clothing styles, and fabulous hand bags and shoes would not be turned away if you offered them to me. (Like I mentioned earlier…a girl’s allowed to dream)
However, I wasn’t strong enough when I was younger to read stories and NOT let them affect me in a way that didn’t lead me to change my behavior. I remember clinging to books, gluing myself to the tv during Lifetime movies, and focusing on every word during discussions or lectures when the topic was on anorexia. I don’t remember the first time I ever heard the word, but I guarantee you it was the last thing on my mind. Self-esteem wasn’t something I had ANY issues with until I was in at least the 5th grade. And even then, I didn’t have the desire to hurt myself in any way to achieve a new and more “acceptable” look for myself.
I must have read every “Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul” entry on anorexia at least three times. And those lifetime movies were the first thing I looked for when I turned on the tv. I was INTRIGUED by their stories. It wasn’t something I wanted to learn HOW to do, it was just something I wanted to learn about. And this note isn’t to say that those things are what made me battle the disease for years, and they’re not to say that Brad (or any other guy for that matter) will turn into someone that has to shoot a gun to get pleasure out of life…it’s to say that we are so intrigued with the story BEFORE the “tragedy,” but what about what’s left behind.
As I sat with three of the girls in my Disciple Now group last weekend, (I had BREIFLY shared with them that I had struggled for a period in my life with anorexia and that I would probably battle with depression for the rest of my life – mainly just to let them in on who I was, but it did go along with some point I was trying to make as well) I saw myself in that group. Not that I believe she is the next statistic of American culture to starve herself meal after meal to obtain the “perfect” figure, but I saw the younger me, the one that was so intrigued with the books and the movies. She even admitted to me that she had always wondered what it was like, and she didn’t hold back with the questions.
The entire time I sat there with her during that conversation, and for the past week that has followed the conversation, I can’t help but go to my life AFTER being anorexic. I could feed her desire to learn more and more about the addiction, disease, and sin that had a hold on my life for years, that’s the easy thing to do. Answer her questions. Tell her the stories of what a day was like for me. Tell her how good it felt to be in CONTROL of something in my life. I’ve prayed my whole life that God would give me a story to tell, a way to connect with people and to show His glory to them. I believe He has given me MANY stories to tell, and yes, in some instances, my story of how I struggled is perfectly fitting. But sometimes, we need to look at what happened AFTER the event, tragedy, sickness, or addiction took place.
I came home tonight to a stomach ache I have had all too often, one I barely even mention to anyone around me anymoe because I'm so used to them. The fear of not being able to have children won’t start after Brad and I have tried for a couple of years and see no results, it started when I was in the 11th grade and read my first story of what can happen BECAUSE of anorexia and not what happens DURING anorexia. That fear started before I even knew Brad. What if my selfish desires to have a body that was pleasing to what I saw in the mirror damaged my body to the extent that it will cause me an emotional pain much deeper than any physical pains I have felt from the addiction itself?
No “before” picture needed, the after is enough for me.
I began to eat “regularly” again the middle of my sophomore year in high school; however, shortly after (Spring Break of the same year) I began having pains in my stomach that would literally wipe out all my energy. I remember the first night it ever happened. I was with my two best friends and we had just gotten to Blockbuster to pick up the movies we’d be watching during our millionth slumber party together. By the time we got to the checkout line, I couldn’t even stand up on my own. My two friends carried me (literally) out to the car, and the drive from there to the gas station was a complete blur to me. This would definitely not be the last of these “episodes” and by far not the scariest. I can remember lying on the couch in my living room after one of the worst ones and crying because I couldn’t move my arms or legs. I didn't know WHAT was wrong with me.
How could I have been so selfish to harm my body in such a way that food would become the ENEMY? Not that it hadn’t been my emotional enemy for the last several years, but now, it was my enemy in a new way.
Seven years ago, my life changed because of decisions I made to starve myself daily. Not a day goes by that I am not affected by those decisions in one way or another. Whether it’s gagging at the thought of food, not being able to finish a kids meal at Chilis because I “eat like a bird” (as some of my friends tell me ), or pains in my stomach that with each pulse of pain remind me that I did this to myself. I believe I might have been one of the youngest patients in Sulphur Springs to go to the GI doctor for a colonoscopy, and I didn’t have one nurse or doctor at the hospital in Tyler NOT make a joke about the fact that I was having an upper GI “well before my prime.” At the time, I laughed. Now, it makes me sick to my stomach. I’ve been to enough doctors in the last 7 years, had enough tests run on my body, and been sick enough times that I can diagnose myself and tell you which part of my digestive system is NOT acting properly at the moment.
The “after” story isn’t nearly as intriguing as the “during” story. But it’s the honest part. It’s the part that sticks, it’s the life I will live with and continue to adjust to and struggle with for years to come. It’s a pit I pray daily I never fall into again.
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