Read Online Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher - Free Book Online
Authors: Marya Hornbacher
Ads: Link
the neighborhood girls in the basement, under the stairs, fueling my furious, nightly self-flagellation for infinite sins. Sex was a taboo topic in my house. No one had ever even explained where babies came from, though of course I'd figured it out—and as kids are wont to do, I'd become very interested in the whole affair. This interest, however, seriously conflicted with my truly crazed anxiety, and suddenly the rather innocent rubbings and gigglings I was engaged in took on the sharp tang of bad-wrong-dirty-evil, leaving me lying silently on my bed, my hands pressed into my temples to beat back the headache, the racing thoughts. In my chest, a great hole sighed open, wide as the sad sunny sky at which I stared.
It is commonly assumed that women with eating disorders have a neurotic fear of sex, and that this fear manifests itself in a desperate attempt, at puberty, to stave off the increasingly visible sexual signs of their bodies. Some women do have this fear, but in some cases the reasons are perhaps less related to an individual's own fear of sex—I personally was not afraid of sex, merely ashamed that it so fascinated me—than to a fear that other people will see them, and judge them, as sexual. Eating-disordered people are often far more concerned with other people's perceptions than with their own feelings. Fear of sexuality may well have something to do with a culture that has a highly ambiguous, conflicted view of female sexuality, as well as a family that shares this perception. My parents'
response to my general craziness—the reports from school that I was talking dirty to other girls, their sense that my girlfriends and I were up to something nasty in the basement-was not to sit me down and tell me that sexual feelings were normal but something I might want to keep to myself. They stared at me, bewildered and angry, and told me to stop using “sewer words.”
Fourth grade, and I was terribly worried about the strange and painful swellings on my chest, nubs of prenipple. I pulled my mother into my room, yanked up my shirt and said: Look! Something's wrong! I have cancer! I said. She peered at them and took me to the doctor. The doctor, who was very nice about the whole affair, said, She's just starting to develop. Oh, my mother said. Oh, I concurred. We got into the car and drove home. After a while I asked, What does that mean? It means you're going to get breasts, she answered. Oh, I said. Oh, dear. I looked out the window of the car, watched the McDonald's go by, the Bridgemann's Ice Cream Parlor, the Poppin' Fresh Pies. It was a sunny day and the seat belt hurt my chest. I kept shifting around. Dear God I'm sorry for everything. Counting the driveways, the cars, my breaths, counting, counting, counting the even, steady throbs in my head.
I am aware that puberty is not an occurrence that's particularly uncommon , but I was (a) not prepared, and (b) not interested. My body, which I felt unruly to begin with, suddenly did what I had always feared it would do: It defected. Without my permission, and without warning, my body began to “bloom.” I woke up one morning with a body that seemed to fill the room. Long since having decided I was fat, it was a complete crisis when my body, like all girls' bodies, acquired a signify-cantly greater number of actual fat cells than it had ever possessed.
At puberty, what had been a nagging, underlying discomfort with my body became a full-blown, constant obsession.
With fourth grade, along with a steadily swelling, repulsive body, came a new house, a redoubled anxiety, insomnia, nightmares, compulsive eating, headaches, and a desperate fear of being alone.
Because I am a masochist, I begged my parents to let me stay home alone after school. They were both working a lot, and I usually had baby-sitters. I wasn't a baby (I howled) and didn't need to be sat upon. It was a matter of principle. I wanted them to think I was responsible, I wanted them to trust me.
It is commonly assumed that women with eating disorders have a neurotic fear of sex, and that this fear manifests itself in a desperate attempt, at puberty, to stave off the increasingly visible sexual signs of their bodies. Some women do have this fear, but in some cases the reasons are perhaps less related to an individual's own fear of sex—I personally was not afraid of sex, merely ashamed that it so fascinated me—than to a fear that other people will see them, and judge them, as sexual. Eating-disordered people are often far more concerned with other people's perceptions than with their own feelings. Fear of sexuality may well have something to do with a culture that has a highly ambiguous, conflicted view of female sexuality, as well as a family that shares this perception. My parents'
response to my general craziness—the reports from school that I was talking dirty to other girls, their sense that my girlfriends and I were up to something nasty in the basement-was not to sit me down and tell me that sexual feelings were normal but something I might want to keep to myself. They stared at me, bewildered and angry, and told me to stop using “sewer words.”
Fourth grade, and I was terribly worried about the strange and painful swellings on my chest, nubs of prenipple. I pulled my mother into my room, yanked up my shirt and said: Look! Something's wrong! I have cancer! I said. She peered at them and took me to the doctor. The doctor, who was very nice about the whole affair, said, She's just starting to develop. Oh, my mother said. Oh, I concurred. We got into the car and drove home. After a while I asked, What does that mean? It means you're going to get breasts, she answered. Oh, I said. Oh, dear. I looked out the window of the car, watched the McDonald's go by, the Bridgemann's Ice Cream Parlor, the Poppin' Fresh Pies. It was a sunny day and the seat belt hurt my chest. I kept shifting around. Dear God I'm sorry for everything. Counting the driveways, the cars, my breaths, counting, counting, counting the even, steady throbs in my head.
I am aware that puberty is not an occurrence that's particularly uncommon , but I was (a) not prepared, and (b) not interested. My body, which I felt unruly to begin with, suddenly did what I had always feared it would do: It defected. Without my permission, and without warning, my body began to “bloom.” I woke up one morning with a body that seemed to fill the room. Long since having decided I was fat, it was a complete crisis when my body, like all girls' bodies, acquired a signify-cantly greater number of actual fat cells than it had ever possessed.
At puberty, what had been a nagging, underlying discomfort with my body became a full-blown, constant obsession.
With fourth grade, along with a steadily swelling, repulsive body, came a new house, a redoubled anxiety, insomnia, nightmares, compulsive eating, headaches, and a desperate fear of being alone.
Because I am a masochist, I begged my parents to let me stay home alone after school. They were both working a lot, and I usually had baby-sitters. I wasn't a baby (I howled) and didn't need to be sat upon. It was a matter of principle. I wanted them to think I was responsible, I wanted them to trust me.
Similar Books
