"Hello Beautiful"

Sometimes, life throws rocks onto the road you are traveling. You can either swerve around them, or drive over them with slight loss of control, though eventually stabilizing yourself enough to move forward. Other times, life places mountains onto your path, and you are not so lucky. No matter how fast you turn the wheel or how hard you slam on the breaks, avoidance is inevitable, and you crash right into them.

My fingers thrash around my throat, scraping repeatedly at my tonsils. I heave forward and my stomach rejects its contents, producing a wave of stomach acid, bile, and undigested food.

I had tried to stop the cycle before it began, but something greater and much stronger possesses me.

Meet my mountain.

Just moments ago, I had shoveled a pint of chocolate swirl ice cream, two sleeves of mint sandwich crèmes, four bowls of marshmallow crisp, and a half a jar of peanut butter through my mouth and into my body until I felt the familiar, yet excruciating pressure in my upper abdomen. This was not the sensation of being full, or even complete, but the uncomfortable feeling of being engorged with sugar, fat, and carbs. Ironically, these were all things I had restricted from my diet during the week, thus leading to a disastrous relapse.

Now, my mouth is raw. My eyes water. Chunks of vile leftovers and saliva are smeared around my face.

How did I get here? How did I come so far, only to collapse into this routine once again?

I back away from the white porcelain monster and crouch down against the bathroom wall, focusing all my efforts into taking steady breaths. In and out. In and out. In and out. My pulse is so low. I am a forgotten corpse, tossed aside and left to decompose.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to perform the mindless task of breathing, but my body is exhausted. All the energy it harbors is used to fill each lung with enough air to keep me conscious. Every inhale and exhale is shallow and diminutive, yet enough to survive.

I glance into the mirror and stare at my upper abdomen in disgust. It was only for a brief moment, but it is the same guileless mistake I make again and again. I am fat and repulsive. No one will ever love me, not after what I’ve done to myself.

From the force and quantity of food, my stomach extends outward. It looks awkward compared to the rest of my skeletal body. I imagine it ripping open, causing my innards to combine with the rest of my slowly collapsing being. Swirls of melted ice cream and globs of half-digested peanut butter bumping against my organs, all while death gradually approaches.

Suddenly, the agony I inflict upon myself draws me back to reality. I hadn't yet expelled enough waste from my body, and the compression of food has me hunched over. My back arches in discomfort as rapid flashes of pain strike me repeatedly. I keep my legs straight, bending only at the waist as I gag myself again and again.

I am dehydrated.

My stomach contracts with each dry heave until the vomit shoots up my throat and sloshes violently into the toilet. Drops bounce off the water, back at my face.

My nose creates a steady stream of snot that drips off my lips and down my chin. As I stare down into the toilet, the world is blurry, and I can no longer see the horrible mess that has exited my body.

I don’t care.

I am disgusting.

I deserve this.

I can’t stop.

This is the most revolting of my OCD routines, stemming from my anorexic behaviors, but once it begins, I feel the compulsion to finish the cycle.

Reluctantly, I flush my mess away and trudge back to my bedroom. I climb into bed, lay my head down, and stare at the ceiling, thinking about what I had just done.

Why?

I was doing so well.

What changed?

The suffocation of finals closing in? Acceptance into an internship program in Oregon? The pressure of a new relationship?

I can’t take it anymore.

From my bedside table, I grab a cereal bowl. It was empty, with only a ring of milk left crusting along the bottom. I lean over my bed and hang my head down so my hair lightly brushes against the carpet. As the blood rushes toward my face, chunks of soggy cookies and whitish liquid rush up my esophagus. They depart from between my lips and slosh into the bowl.

After countless cycles of binging and purging, my body no longer expects food to stay in me long enough to digest. It is more than generous in returning it to the outside world, sometimes without me having to force it from my body.

Suddenly, a small sector of bedroom lights up as my phone screen flashes his name.

A text from Gabriel.

I had almost forgotten the outside world existed after being lost in my disordered thoughts for so long.

I unlock my screen and read the message.

Hey, what’s up?

Immediately, I feel annoyed, as if he should know I am busy having a bulimic episode and can’t talk. As if he should be able to live his life by himself for one hour without having to talk to me.

I just wish he didn’t like me so much. It made things too difficult.

Sometimes, on bad days, I feel nothing but hate, disgust, anger, sadness, guilt, and anxiety. Some days I just didn’t like him, and that wasn’t his fault, it was mine. He deserves better.

To distract myself from my negative thoughts, I grab my laptop from my desk and flip it open. Closing out the various pop ups and virus warnings, I open my email and click on the one sent to me March 21st, just nine days earlier.

It was a day when I was incredibly frustrated with myself and my disorder, but had lashed out at Gabe instead. He had come to visit me at the Asian café where we both work, but I had been cold and distant. I told him he couldn’t hang out with me while I worked because I had “So many things to do.”

When a customer rang the bell for service, I left him sitting on the chopping table in the kitchen, a table covered with torn loose-leaf, open textbooks, and laptop, instead of its usual fish tofu and bokchoy.

When I emerged from the front of the shop after selling a bubble tea, I remember him calmly kissing me on the forehead and whispering to me.

“I know you need to get work done, but hopefully I’ll get to see you later.”

His grey eyes were both tired and hopeful.

“Yeah…maybe,” I huffed, barely looking up.

The kitchen door swung shut, followed by the slam of the front entrance, and I knew he had left.

I grabbed my laptop to check my inbox for any news on my latest psychology project. Instead, I noticed an email sent to me from my own web address just moments ago. Thinking it was spam, I prepared to delete it into the spiraling World Wide Web, but the subject of the email seemed suspicious, and left me wavering the mouse over the trashcan button.

Hey Beautiful.

I clicked on the email and it continued:

Hey you,

I hope your day gets better. Have fun at work! Maybe if it’s nice out later we can grab food and swing outside.

- Gabe

I leave that kid alone with my computer for five seconds…

He is too nice to me.

In guilt and annoyance of the past memory, I slam my laptop shut. Ripping my phone from its charger and throwing it across my apartment bedroom, I watch as it knocks one of my morbid paintings off the wall.

I can’t take this anymore.

Unable to solve the tangled crossword of emotions inside myself, I grab another sleeve of sandwich crèmes. Struggling to control myself, I begin viciously shoveling them into my mouth, wincing as the jagged edge of a cookie slices my throat.

Commencing bulimic round two.

This has to stop.

These emotions have to stop.

How can I love someone if I can't even love myself?

I have to break up with him.