Dear caged-freed,

I think you're right. I shouldn't have to work up any perfect thing to say. Voices are meant to be used now. Here we go...

I've never taken a hard look at eating disorders, which considering my past is simply a testament to the strength of denial. After all the work that I've gone through in other areas of my life, I can say that I do struggle with what you call SCASID. And so you would think that if I knew that, I would be able to look at the patterns in my life concerning food and relate them to that same general disorder. But I am good at controlling the amount that I let my unhealthiness get out of control (follow?) and so I don't have to face (what part of me says would be) the shame of saying, "I have an eating disorder." That way I don't have to face abandonment from people who would be freaked out, and I can feel secure in my identity of near-perfection that I've worked so hard on for years.

Is this making sense? I worry that I'm just babbling and not saying anything. I read the paragraph I wrote and think to myself that I'm blowing everything out of proportion. I hear whispers of "you might not be healthy, but you make sure that you're not in danger, so it's not a disease" or "they call it an eating disorder, and your eating is very ordered" or "you don't have the right to claim a battle that's not yours. you aren't fighting it. so stay silent." So many arguments. And yet I know that when I consider other issues in my life, like sexual abuse and depression, I can say, "there is no black and white." Is that true with eating disorders? I don't know...

It's not like it's something I've kept completely quiet about. I've shared with three people in my life the things I do that aren't healthy. And no one has seemed very concerned. I think it's because I look completely healthy. And because I can say that I've fallen into these patterns for periods of time since sixth grade, and fallen back out, and back in... and I'm still here. I'm still standing. So what's the use in making a big deal about it?

These aren't all rhetorical questions, by the way. People with more wisdom, share.

So I don't know what else to say about me and eating disorders. That's the extent of things. Just a jumble of confusion and darkness.

But I can't talk about eating disorders and not talk about CL. I met her ten years ago; she's been gone for seven. We were kids. We were just girls. She was one of those girls I looked at and desperately wanted to be friends with. And sometime during seventh grade English, after staring of the picture of the rose she drew that hung on the wall by my desk, I got the courage to talk to her. The way that I remember it, the room was warm and yellow when we talked. Her shy smile made me forget a lot of the awkwardness that I carried around in seventh grade. I told her I liked her drawing, which got her excited. She was so passionate about art. She encouraged me, a non-artist, to draw... she taught me to draw. I still draw roses and dragons the way CL taught me.

She started disappearing in eighth grade. She was in different classes and we talked less. I still was excited when I saw her, and wished I had her red hair. She avoided my eyes more when we talked, and I was not socially adept enough to help her verbalize what was wrong.

I learned the word bulimia in ninth grade when she had to leave school. That year she wasn't in any of my classes, but we saw each other in art club, and I would sit next to her at the meetings. I remember the outfits she wore. I remember her tennis shoes. I remember being scared at the size of her arms.

And one Thursday when I was in basketball practice, just weeks after she had to leave school (it was the end of February, I remember, though I can't remember the day), she lost her battle.

We lost an artist, a poet, a friend.

A girl.

And I didn't cry. Isn't that awful? I didn't ever shed a tear. Because T was devestated, because T couldn't even stand up. I could have cried then, but I didn't want to. I wanted to be strong and make people feel okay. Today I want to cry, but I can't.

That's definitely plenty for one entry.

-perdiendome

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