The Weird Disordered Eating Habits That Got Me Institutionalized
And the strange habits that kept me there
The weird disordered eating habits that got me sent to a mental institution are ranked in order of difficulty as follows:
- What sends you there
- What keeps you there
- What sets you free
What sends you there
Dad’s verbal abuse
Epiphanies hit you when you least expect them. Mine came as I was walking with my family to our car. We were coming from the 98 Cent Store, one of the most treasured places a kid could go.
Everything was, well, 98 cents (or less!). Our family was so poor that we often lost our electricity and got groceries from a food pantry. Going to the 98 Cent Store with even $1 made me feel like royalty.
I only remember now how much my parents were arguing about sex. Both how little of it they were having, and how much of it the son of my dad’s friend wanted to have with me.
I became convinced that the only way to feel safe — because actual safety would never be possible again — was to starve myself into invisibility.
No one noticed when it happened
No one noticed when the strangest belief struck me.
It’s a belief that’s stayed with me all the way through today.
It isn’t so much the desire to die, the desire to be thin, not even the desire to be attractive.
It’s the feeling of power. That and the belief that I have no other source of power than the one that will eventually kill me.
Starvation is a powerful tool. It can be used to force all kinds of things to happen to yourself, to others, to the world around you. How helpless must I have felt to know a sense of safety only when I refused to eat?
My parents were upset. Of course they were upset. I wouldn’t do as told. The sweet little girl was not turning into the proud little boy God had promised.
They noticed something was wrong. Not at first. I hid my shrinking body under sweatshirts, but then my my mom noticed. She touched me in ways that couldn’t hide what was happening forever.
She sat me down at the kitchen table and made me a bean and cheese burrito. She used to make them herself. She mashed up the refried beans, mixed them with cheese, heated up the tortilla in a microwave. And she did all this with great ceremony.
It was a ritual I knew would bring comfort.
But the day my dad sat down to demand I eat it, the burrito no longer brought comfort.
I wouldn’t touch it. I wouldn’t eat it.
My mom stood in the corner of the kitchen. My dad sat at the table. He pushed the food at me. He glared at me. He waited for me to eat. He told me to pick it up and put it in my mouth. His lips began to tremble like a little kid who didn’t get their way.
He was like a time bomb waiting to go off. Then he did go off. He slammed his hands on the table. His face got red. He screamed, “EAT!!!!!!!”
He hadn’t had his fill of me yet, you see. The problem was I had nothing more to give.
What keeps you there
Millcreek
I stayed at Millcreek maybe a little over a month while thirteen years old. They’ve been open now for thirty or so years, but back in 1996, they’d just barely opened their doors.
No one had ever paid such close attention to me, so while I was there, I ate food in a weird way.
I ate food like a chipmunk.
I chewed it into tiny bits.
I left behind a little, but never too much.
The food I’d chewed stayed in my mouth.
I held it in the back corner, the pocket between your jaw and your teeth.
I kept it there. I didn’t say much, so it’s not like anyone would have noticed me sounding weird.
If I did talk, I’ve always been good at ventriloquism. I don’t have to move my mouth much to sound just like you.
So I hid the food until no one was looking. I waited until I was back in my room. Until I was alone.
Then I went to the bathroom and spit the food into the sink.
I did it who knows how many times.
I could feel safe again. Hunger would remind me. Hunger would provide.
But they caught me.
The suites back then were connected with a shared bathroom. I spit out a hot dog into the shared sink. I guess I didn’t chew it enough, or maybe I’d found the one kind of food that wouldn’t wash away as clean as my sins.
I walked away thinking everything was fine, but the sink stopped working. It overflowed with water. Out came the hot dog.
They didn’t think it was me. No, not me. So well behaved! They thought someone else had stuffed a bunch of food down the sink drain as a prank. Unruly kids who loved to cause trouble had surely caused trouble.
They took me aside and said talk.
“Talk to us.”
“Tell us.”
“Because we think you know who did it.”
What sets you free
Whitfield/Oak Circle
Your body doesn’t belong to you
I begged him not to make me eat it.
I would eat anything else, but he wouldn’t listen.
Part of my dinner was potato salad. It tasted disgusting. I mean every bite made me want to throw up.
He stayed there with me at the table. He waited patiently. He had all the time in the world.
The other patients finished and left the cafeteria one by one.
I stayed. He stayed with me.
I curled into a ball on the chair.
I begged him not to make me eat the potato salad.
I did what my father had convinced me would never help. I told the truth.
I told him it wasn’t about calories, it wasn’t about food, it was about how physically revolted I felt eating this. Please.
He said no.
He said, “You’re going to sit here until you eat it.”
I cried. I let out the few final tears left to me until I got out.
I told my parents the truth, and look where I was.
I told my brother the truth, and look where I was.
I told my sister the truth, and look where I was.
I told this nurse the truth, and look where I was.
Last week, the same nurse had offered to let me drink a protein shake. They were loaded not just with nutrients but calories in such a small amount of liquid.
My strategy was to make every meal take as long as possible. I squeezed hamburgers of every ounce of fat (and moisture) before taking a bite. The protein shakes were like eating five hamburgers in a single bite.
But this nurse didn’t care if it was good for me.
He delighted in convincing me to drink one.
He delighted in breaking me.
If it was hard, he would make me. If it was easy, it couldn’t be good.
The potato salad was impossible, at least for me.
Who knew how much eating it might cure?
PS. If that was too heavy, here’s the alternate cover image
