This is Anorexia
Ant Rantz are personal fixations. They’re deep dives into the psyche. They’re often brought on when the mind is running 3000 miles an hour at 3 in the morning.
Empty.
That’s the magic word. It’s the best version of you that you can be right now, while trying to get to where you want to be physically, which is perfectly thin.
The less you eat, the thinner you’ll get, scientifically speaking. To maintain your current weight you’d have to eat over 1500 calories per day. But of course, your eating disorder wants you to lose, lose, lose, and quickly. Waiting a month to have a couple of the pounds fall off isn’t going to cut it.
So you eat 900 calories instead.
The weight sloughs off of you like a waterlogged raincoat and you feel absolutely euphoric. You’re finally going to lose that weight and gain control over your life. Soon everyone will be complimenting you and you’ll fit into that pair of jeans the way you knew you always could.
Except the weight loss slows down.
Within just three months you’re stuck with a groggy metabolism and cycling between gaining and losing the same couple of pounds.
So, now you eat 700.
The eating disorder, affectionately named Ana, tells you a fast for three days will do the trick, so you do it. After that, you begin over-exercising. Ana says you need to run 4-5 miles every day and do 100 sit-ups right after. The pounds are coming off, but slowly. Painfully.
500 calories.
Ana’s voice clangs and bangs against the inside of your own skull:
Exercise more … Don’t eat that … Fat pig … Fast at midnight … Useless … Don’t let anyone notice … Don’t you DARE eat … You haven’t earned it … Be strong … You’re being weak again … Pathetic.
It’s all you can hear, day and night, night and day. At first, it’s almost scary, but then it makes you feel strong. Strong enough to resist the temptation of food.
You’re empty.
Clean.
No…
Pure.
You’re doing so well.
Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, right?
300.
Your hair is coming out in clumps and sticking to the bruises that pepper your legs. There’s a sore spot on the back of your head from passing out in the wrong place. You’re wearing 2 sweaters because every room is freezing. The weight is coming off again, but you can’t exercise anymore; you can’t even climb a flight of stairs without your heart beating out of your chest.
Suddenly, you plateau. The weight on the scale refuses to go down, or up for that matter, but your hipbones aren’t visible yet and you need to keep going until they are…
200.
Pictures of women with their bones poking at the skin flash behind your eyelids.
Your loved ones cry helplessly in front of you. Your partner points out the purple nails, matched in shade by the rings etched above your pointy cheekbones. Friends beg you to stop before you die. They want you to get better, to eat, but they don’t understand.
You have to do this…
100.
You pass out at the wheel and cause an accident. Harsh hospital lights burn into your eyes as you wake up. There’s a feeding tube (1500) in your nose. You try to pull it out and you’re restrained. Your parents are tired from spending nights at the hospital, and the nurses look down at you with pity in their eyes.
If only they could hear Ana they would understand.
You’re in an inpatient facility now. They shipped you over from the hospital. You’re not allowed shoelaces, drawstring sweatpants, to shower alone, or to starve. All meals are monitored until plates are completely clean. Group therapy groups pepper your mornings. Your afternoons are meetings with therapists, nutritionists, and psychiatrists. Worst of all; you have no idea how many calories you’re consuming. It could be 1500. It could be way more. The idea of it makes you feel like clawing at your stomach. It’s an addiction, they tell you. You’ve been here before and so all the advice they give sounds empty; like a word repeated over and over.
EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY
You’re hesitant to eat at first, but if you don’t you get the tube again, so you eat. Play along, move the pawns, watch the number on the scale go up, up, up. After a month they let you move from residential to a partial program. You get to go home to sleep, at least. Everyone tells you that you look healthier. It begins to sound like scratching a chalkboard. They mean you look fat, Ana replies.
A couple weeks after that, they say you only have to go a few times per week. And then they pronounce you healed. You get to go back and live your life. And at first, you think you’ll relapse. The cycle starts again, right?
But then you fall in love with recovery. You finally get to exercise again, or to go out with friends. To eat whatever you want for the first time in years without guilt. You don’t cringe when you pass a mirror or cry when you eat one too many chips.
You realize that life is so much more than weighing cheerios and counting calories.
GET HELP, you deserve it:
National Eating Disorders Helpline:
Call: (800) 931-2237
Monday through Friday 9am to 9pm ET (5pm on Friday)
Text: (800) 931-2237
Monday through Thursday 3pm to 6pm ET
Friday 1pm to 5pm ET
Get help for eating disorders at the Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders in Center City Philly: