I never know how to restart a blog after months, or years, of silence. It’s not like nothing has happened to me — tons, in fact, has happened. It’s just a matter of sorting through what is worth posting.
So I’m no longer controlled by an eating disorder. Good. That means that, a) I am no longer emaciated and b) I am no longer bloated from binging. So, what am I? Am I normal? Does my life take on the fetid appearance of any other? I suppose so. Yet, I constantly return back to my experience with ED. With the knowledge that, though now I am a “normal” weight, and that I am a fine-looking gentleman, I am defined somehow by it. When I play sports, I remember that once I could not, from being too weak and too malnourished. When I run to catch the subway, I wonder how it is my legs again work, pumping blood through my muscles to my heart, as they once shut down and I had to be wheeled by my mother through the airport like a quadriplegic.
It is with no little shame that I recall these events, and yet I am fascinated by them, completely delighted by how they changed me, defined me, and gave me experience. I suppose that is what I yearn for, more than anything, more than the friends I want and the money I need and the relationships I blunder; I make experiences for myself so I can remember, and learn from them. Maybe not even in a healthy way, but from the perspective of a well person admiring his fortitude during illness. There are days I do want to be once again defined by ED, or by drug addiction, or by one of those taboo topics in our society that people latch on to.
When I was going through recovery, and regaining all that weight, I wanted to be sicker yet. I needed to be in control, so that I could come out of this the sickest person they’d ever seen. Being a man was strong enough reason for their fascination — I got that in spades. But it was more to be the thinnest, the weirdest, the…
And now… and now, my girlfriend’s sister is going through bulemia, laxative use. She is killing herself, and her family doesn’t know what to do because her BMI is still within the healthy range. She binges often, and then purges, and now blood is coming up. And I want to help her. A few weeks ago we had a long conversation about how she needs to want to change, want not to be thinner than everyone else, or how it’s useless to be scared of gaining those three pounds, which has kept her pinned down by the binge-purge cycle (to eat and not purge is to gain weight. Simple). She doesn’t yet undertand this, and because she is still so new at being thin, all the attention she is getting is overwhelming any immediate need to begin recovery. I remember those days very well.
It’s raining this morning in Toronto. I have no idea what I’m going to do today. It’s just a grey day all round.
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