Rachael Stern

November 13, 2003

English Comp 150

Cynthia Hand

Project II

Phase III

"it is so friggin hot, why dont you go put on a t-shirt?"

"Im fine, I"m actually sort of cold, you know Im always cold."

"Here, put this on."

Tank tops are out of the question.

"I'm fine"

So are short sleeves.

"Are you sure?"

Three-quarter sleeves are okay sometimes, but it depends on the shirt.

"I SAID IM FINE"

"Okay, whatever"

Long sleeves are safe. Actually they aren't just safe, they are the only option.

"Rachael what are you talking about?"

Let me tell you a story;

I stormed up the steep Victorian stairway and stomped down the hall. I reached out and turned the round door knob and opened the door. On the other side, I saw my perfectly pink wallpaper, with the perfectly pink flowery drapes. I threw my backpack on the floor with such vigor, that it seemed to pervert the impeccable purity of the perfectly pink room. There were perfectly pink things everywhere. Then there was me. I reached into the (pink) backpack and pulled out the only loose piece of paper in there. There was absolutely no doubting the Red "D" in the upper right hand corner. This paper seemed too dirty to be in my room, in my life. It wasn't the backpack that was out of place, it was me that wrecked the perfect atmosphere of the princessy pink room. I moved forcefully toward my desk. I opened the drawer in hopes that there would be some white out, to get rid of the evidence. I was frustrated to find that there was no bottle of pure whiteout. This could have been due to the fact that I had received a lot of bad grades lately. Instead, I was greeted with pink pencils and a pair of metal scissors with pink plastic on the grip. They were so sharp, so crisp. I picked them up and examined the blade. It was slick and I was immediately drawn to it. I opened the blades and fingered the carefully. I rolled up my sleeve and pressed the sharp metal blade into the smooth baby skin on the underside of my arm. The skin parted and the pure red lava flooded the space where skin had once meshed together. It was bright red at first. It looked like the perverse "D" on the paper; ugly and horrible. Yet somehow, it was calming. Now I felt how the "D" looked and I deserved it. The stinging sensation was human. I felt real. I suddenly knew that everything would be ok. I pulled a pink tissue out of the pink box and wiped away the blood. It rose once again. I did it one more time just to make sure. Satisfied, I washed it off, tucked myself into my perfectly pink sheets and fell into a deep, peaceful slumber.

This day is like a snapshot in my mind, that I take out often. I reminds me of the beginning of something and also the end of something. Something new, something old, something human.

This went on for a while on a moderate scale. I would cut when I was stressed and needed to relax. It was a coping mechanism. Then It suddenly started to spin out of control.

I'm a big girl, there's no hiding that. Its not like saying you cut. That is hide able. Being a big girl has always been a problem for me.

When I was 10 I remember watching a show on Opera about anorexic and bulimic teens and the toll it took on their lives. It would turn the average person the other way running, but it attracted me somehow. I felt a connection with it. I was a big girl, and I wanted to be smaller. It seemed that simple in my mind. Somehow I watched that show and my mind weeded out all of the grotesque details. Nothing happened then. Time passed and I was still a big girl. You know when you are younger and your relatives would come over once a year and they would say something along the lines of  "your such a big girl now."   They used to say this to me, but instead of meaning "your growing up," they meant it as "your growing out and I knew it. In sixth grade, I just couldn't take it anymore. I decided that I would do anything and I mean ANYTHING to be smaller. That night, I arrived home to another "lets cook fat free so Rachael will loose weight" dinner. I ate it and said that I was going to go take a shower. I went upstairs and turned on the shower, but instead of getting in, I stood there looking in the mirror. I was disgusting. I leaned over the toilet and shoved my fingers down my throat. Nothing happened. Once, twice, three times... nothing. I panicked and went back to my best friend the scissors. I took a shower and went downstairs to the 90's computer we had. I signed onto America Online with my then screen name "Broadwaybabyspice" (Yes, Im still embarrassed about this). I went to a search engine and speedily typed in the word bulimic."  Thousands or sights came up. I devoured them and quickly learned that it didn't work due to the fact that I really didn't know how to do it.

The next day I went to school as usual and came home to another "Rachael is fat and we all know it" dinner. I once again told my mother that I was going to shower and would be back. I quickly turned on the shower and looked at myself in the mirror again. This was what I had to do. I leaned over the toilet and stuck my fingers down my throat again. This time is worked.

It worked too well. This is a pattern that I continued for many years. In about eights grade, my best friend, Maggie, started "binging and purging" also. Our friendship quickly became a competition that I would never win.  It was all pretty simple really. She lost weight and I didn't. No one ever would think that the fat girl had an eating disorder, including herself. I watched my friend get worse and worse, or as I perceived it, better and better. For me, hanging out around her kept me in line. I knew that If I had to look at her, that I would keep binging and purging and the same for her, because when she looked at me, she felt in control.

According to many experts "purging buddies" who kneel side-by-side in the bathroom and also divulge their darkest sides (the purger within, who is often a source of shame which is lessened when there is another purger around) creating a secret club type of feeling that appears secure and unique (but is not).

Eating disorder "buddies" teach each other how to be sick (examples: 'try these laxatives they work for me', or 'lets challenge each other to see who can lose weight the fastest', etc.) and can keep each other sick by being "bonded" in the secret.

I came to a point, where I felt like her problems were my fault and that I did this to her. Her disorder was much more visible than mine and she was going downhill fast. I knew deep down that I couldn't cause those problems in another person, but the perfectionist in me felt that I did.

I started cutting again. This time would show itself to be much worse. When I was lonely, I would cut. When I was tired, I would cut. When I was happy, I would cut, simply because I felt that I did not deserve to be happy. It extended to the point where I had to cut just to release enough anxiety to go to bed at night.

It is a vicious cycle. Your fat, so your worthless. You throw up because if you weren't fat, you wouldn't be worthless, then you cut, because it doesn't make you loose that much weight.

Self-inflicted violence, also known as self-mutilation or cutting (though burning is also common), is a self-destructive coping skill that many people, unfortunately, use. It is estimated that 1 out of 200 young women use self-inflicted violence (SIV) as a way to deal with intense difficult feelings.

Although having an eating disorder does not mean someone also self-mutilates, it is common for people with eating disorders to also use this form of "coping". Please don't automatically link eating disorders and self-inflicted violence, but be aware that it is common that people with eating disorders to cut themselves. My guess is that it is an easy jump, to use the body as a way to express feelings that seem too big (and too intense) to express verbally. Starving, stuffing, purging, cutting, burning all of these seem to temporarily make the awful overwhelming feelings go away. The problem is (besides that all of these behaviors can kill you) that these behaviors DO NOT actually make the pain go away. The relief is only TEMPORARY. If these behaviors "worked" then you would do them once, and be done with those terrible anxious feelings. Instead, you feel temporarily relieved and attempt to continue living your life, but then the feelings COME BACK and you find yourself turning to the self-destructive acts yet again. And then again and again and again and again. Until you collapse, bleed accidentally to death (which happens with self-cutters, by the way), have a medical crisis of some kind, or bravely seek help.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining over Los Angeles and over American Academy of Ballet. I was taking a ballet class, like I did every other day of the week. I was standing at the barre with other girls my age. All the other girls had ballerina bodies. It is very uncommon in ballet, that they let someone without a ballet body, progress to the top levels in a competitive school. However, my technique was nearly perfect and I loved it. Back to the barre.

I was standing at the barre and we were finishing our series of plie's in fifth. I was dressed in tights a long sleeve leotard and a large shirt over it. We were about to start Ronde de jambe's and my head was spinning. The bulimia had started to take its toll on my voice, so I had stopped eating entirely.

I collapsed.

When I came to, with a whole bunch of ballet girls around me, one girl came up to me and whispered "œcelery has negative calories. You burn more calories chewing and digesting it than they have in it."

My world stopped. How sick was this. How sick is this. How sick is out society, that we honor and even encourage this behavior.

I cant say that this was the last time I cut and I cant say that was the last time I have engaged in disordered eating. However, this was the moment that broke the pattern for me. It has been a struggle trying to get better, and it is something that I will probably have to deal with for the rest of my life. But now I have perspective and that's what matters.