My eating disorder: part 4

I spent two weeks in the adolescent psych ward. It was not pretty. I refused to eat, and started having auditory hallucinations. I self harmed. I was put on heavy medications that made me sleepy and lethargic. The doctors wanted me to go to inpatient/residential treatment for my eating disorder. My parents were not so thrilled about that idea. I begged and pleaded to go inpatient, I did NOT want to be at home with my parents and sister. But they had other ideas.

I was pulled out of the hospital and driven straight to my new school -a behavioral school. My parents child locked me in the car and drove me kicking and screaming to my new program. The school was run by two abusive social workers. The first day I was at the school I threw away a bag of graham crackers. Another student ratted me out and the female social worker, who I'll call "C", screamed in my face in front of the other students. I was also forced to put on a bathing suit and swim 100 laps in the swimming pool. It was surreal, like a dream. I didn't know what to do besides sob.

The school was hard. I was screamed at pretty much every day. I had been vegetarian, and I was forced to eat meat again. I was brought to restaurants and burger joints and fast food places and forced to eat while I screamed and cried and made a scene. If I did not eat, the other students would get consequences. I was told that if I lost weight over winter break I would have severe consequences. I didn't care. I restricted all of winter break and came back to school having lost a significant amount of weight. My consequence: All my clothes were taken away. I had to live in one outfit. This lasted for almost 4 months. I cried at every meal, had to have someone in the bathroom with me (I forgot to mention I had started purging). Things were bad. And my parents were glad because they could blame ME for misbehaving and creating problems. I was the bad guy. I was the problem. It was MY fault. I had ruined the family. I needed to be fixed.

And I started to eat... not enough, but enough to stay alive and stop losing weight. I downed ensures, pints of whole milk, and threw up because of eating too much. I ran and did push ups and sit ups and swam and did tons of exercise. I gained muscle. When I reached my target weight (which was much lower that it needed to be) I got a make over - new outfit, hair, make up, the works. Eating started to become easier. I went on a trip to Israel with my family and our temple friends, and did really well.... I went back to school proud that I had not lost any weight while on vacation, only to pass out and have an ambulance called. I was very dehydrated. I was "better" but certainly not in the shape that I needed to be in. I ate and drank my ensures. I excelled in my school work. I ran the mile and did Presidential Fitness.

The honeymoon period did not last. Things with my parents got bad. My mother pulled a knife on me over not putting butter on my bread. My father screamed at me about mundane little things. I was afraid to be at home, and my social worker C started to see how abusive my parents really were. She started believing me and I called her sobbing on the phone after my parents had gotten in my face. Several awful experiences with my parents lead to my fear of being at home, and I became very attached to C. She became like a mother to me. It was once I got close to C that my parents decided to pull me out of the school. They didn't want anything to do with the school once C started seeing how they treated me.

I went away to summer camp when I was 16. It was a Jewish leadership camp, and I flew to the camp across country hoping to drop weight. I ate virtually nothing for a couple weeks... but girls in my cabin had bags and bags and BAGS of junk food... candy, cookies, pastries.... and there was one night I was SO hungry I started to eat, and eat, and I found myself sticking my finger down my throat and throwing everything up. I had purged a little previously but not severely. I started purging everything I ate. I came home much thinner than when I'd left for camp, and transitioned out of the behavioral school. Nobody knew I had fallen into a dangerous patter of binging and purging. Shoving food down my throat in the middle of the night and then sticking a toothbrush down my throat and vomiting. It became a vicious cycle and I lost a significant amount of weight. I was desperate and sick and alone. And my parents ignored me. They wanted nothing to do with me. Once again, I started to waste away.