My Eating Disorder - I Had a Problem with Food Essay example -- Person

My Eating Disorder - I Had a Problem with Food Everyone wanted to see me get fat, I was sure of it. For once in my life I had some semblance of control over my body in a way no else did. Managing my body took discipline and I was not going to have anyone interfere. I sat crouched in the small space between my parents’ bathtub and toilet, the cool white ceramic tiles reflecting the blonde of my hair, the tears that somehow managed to eke out of the eye ducts were streaming down my hot, mucus slathered face. In the corner behind the toilet, the dog hair swirled in little eddies, and the rim of the toilet had faint speckles of urine, unnoticeable to anyone not at eye level. The shower was on and the fan running as a distraction. Every once in awhile I would knock a bar of soap into the tub with a heavy thud or set a bottle down hard enough so that anyone listening at the door would be fooled and actually think I was in the shower. I used to vomit in the shower, pushing the chunks of food and bright colored foamy mucus down th e drain, but one night, in my hurry to clean up, I had not been able to push a slice of pickle down the drain grates and my mother found it. Pickles, raw vegetables, and spaghetti were the hardest foods to fit down the drain. As I basked in the hazy afterglow of my purge I tasted the blood, sweet and thick as it trickled down my throat and knuckles. Lately there had been more blood and my knuckles were forming bright red raised scaly patches, scarring over in thick nubs from the constant scraping against my teeth. After a meal or a drink I would wait ten agonizing minutes until I could leave the table and say I was taking a bath. Locking myself in the bathroom I would run the water, hover over the toilet... ...awed its way into my mind. For every plea food made to be eaten, and every moment my emaciated belly begged to absorb it there was an even louder voice in me that told me to deny it. There was a constant battle raging; food and my physical body on one side, my brain on the other side, telling me I was weak, fat, and a slob. The fear of food was only one small link to my anorexia. Although other emotional issues catalyzed my anorexia, starvation simply a manifestation of my deeper psychological problems, the fear and anxiety I felt around food was the most accessible avenue to understanding and explaining my condition. To admit my fear of food was not only a starting point from which to begin recovery, but it was also a point of personal acceptance, finally admitting to myself that I had become a prisoner in my own body, cowering from the voices screaming in my mind.