Meet My Friend A.N.
A story about Anorexia Nervosa
I am not a doctor unless of course you count the Juris Doctor degree bestowed on me by a great institution of higher legal learning in the state of North Carolina. The J.D. I insert behind my name has nothing to do with the practice of medicine or the diagnosing of any medical conditions. I want to be clear that I have no medical training. I have not conferred with any physicians concerning my findings. This is my personal story. One I feel a sense of responsibility to be honest and precise about.
I summoned my medical records from my hometown after I married and retained a new group of physicians. I somehow received a handheld copy which I examined. It did not reveal any diagnosis concerning any eating disorder. The wonderful doctor who treated me during my teenage years was also a close family friend in addition to being my mother’s employer. I believe he would never put anything in my records that might harm me in the future. I praise him for his discretion towards my medical records and his candor when speaking with me. It was this doctor who first made me face the hard truth that I in fact had an eating disorder. In simple words he told me, “Eat or Die.”
I tried to eat. I still try to eat. I don’t dislike food. I have preferences in taste. I have food passions. My problem is that I will turn away from even foods I enjoy and love and then find a good reason for doing so. This past month I have given up coffee and chocolate. My reasoning, I can’t tolerate much caffeine. This is probably accurate since I have violent mood swings following drinking coffee and eating the smallest portions of chocolate. I am a much calmer, accepting person without the effects of caffeine. Just yesterday I discovered an article addressing individual’s thresholds of tolerance towards caffeine in the Ladies Home Journal Magazine. The article suggested abstaining from caffeine if you have certain conditions. I feel strongly that I have one of those certain conditions. I will slip up and eat chocolate. I will slip up and drink coffee. I will not partake of them freely as I have done for the past several years.
I need to explain that A.N. and I were not the best friends for the past few years. I have three children who took precedence over my relationship with my dear old friend. I enjoyed my pregnancies. That is to say I was happy to conceive and bring children into this world. There was much about being pregnant that was debilitating. My first nine months was not so terrible. I gained a total of twenty pounds. My start weight totaled 135. My finish weight recorded on the day before birthing my firstborn was 155. (My doctor’s office was kind enough to issue me a booklet that the nurses updated at each doctor’s visit. It contained such information as my blood pressure history, weight gain, and fetal height. I have all three booklets from all three pregnancies. They are keepsakes and have a place of honor in each of my children’s baby books.) I was in very good shape before and throughout my first pregnancy. I walked a lot and carried book weights around during my first year in law school. I delivered on my actual due date. My delivery from the first sign to the final push lasted five hours.
During my second pregnancy my start weight was again 135. I had been a few pounds under that, but by the time I arrived at the doctor’s office my body had already started responding to the pregnancy. This pregnancy was entirely different from the first. I was terribly sick for the first trimester. I endured the unmentionable ptyalism until the third trimester. Even still I gained over fifty pounds. Two days before my delivery I weighed in at 186. I elicited a lot of laughter at my enormously protruding midsection. Still happily I submitted and committed to the wonderfulness of bringing forth a new life into this world and at the end I was rewarded with my second son. He was a much bigger son, but still a precious addition. Less than a year later, I presented into this world our beautiful baby daughter, nearly nine pounds and greatly anticipated. She was nine of forty pounds I acquired. I started my third pregnancy in the 140s and with six days to go, I weighed 186. Soon afterwards it was done, .my portion of Eve’s longstanding debt paid. My post-partum weight somewhere in the 190s, I swear.
It has been eight years since the birth of my first child and three and a half years since the birth of my third. I have finally sometime within the last two months reached my pre-pregnancy weight. My last weigh-in occurred two days ago at 136.5. I must describe the smile on my face as I paused for a second after typing those numbers. It slid in from the side and grew to my eyes but stopped short of lighting my entire face. I am happy, but it is fleeting joy. For I know I did not get back here alone. My friend has returned bearing gifts, and she hasn’t changed much over all these years. Let me tell you what she has been up to while we were estranged.
I thought it strange that I had not heard from A.N., but I felt it was completely by my own choosing. I thought it was not a good idea to have her visit while I enjoyed being fruitful. I took very memorable pictures during my pregnancy depicting my proudness. I had many beautiful moments. I accepted my growing body and even the seemingly permanent changes. My grandfather taught me how to roll quarters in the folds of my stomach when I was child like a belly dancer. I look at my stomach now and wonder which fold to start with. I haven’t given up that battle yet. I believe I am going to beat it. I will get back my stomach. Not my old stomach, but I will get back a flat one. Until then I have managed to secure a weird two-piece swimsuit. The bottom covers way up over my belly button. The top is a small bra. With a matching high-waisted sarong, I appear to be dawning a bikini. Where there is a will there is a way. This swim season is all about new fashionable cover-ups. I will be looking for one that I can proudly wear into the water. This has more to do with my feelings of maturity than shyness over my physique. Most of my body has bounced back, even my arms, but I must confess that my husband and I have been self- remodeling a house for the past two years. And I dance on occasion from morning until way into the afternoon when the feeling hits me. Most importantly, I recently discovered the powers of green tea that has replaced my morning cup of coffee. It seemingly suppresses my appetite, but again I confess to know nothing of medicine.
I’m sorry if I am wavering. It is intentional avoidance of getting to my point, my true confessions about A.N. She didn’t visit much over the past few years, or so I thought. I came to realize recently after praying for relief from my ongoing violent mood swings that she has been near me all the time. She was quietly cloaked sitting in the corner waiting for me to notice her. It took me a very long time. I’ve been very busy with three kids and remodeling a home and trying to figure out how to balance being a stay at home mom with being a licensed attorney, a licensed real estate agent, and pursue my passion for writing and painting. I admit that I haven’t figured it all out yet. I have recently called upon the Eternal Trio (The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) to help me. They have eased my burden significantly and revealed so much to me. So I’m sticking with them and sharing what I have learned about A.N. She is deceptive. She had been watching me to make sure I didn’t completely forget her and all her ways. We didn’t meet face to face, but I hardly forgot her.
But she is a friend, and she had made it clear that she does not intend to abandon me. I have not yet found a way to completely sever ties with her even though I know she hasn’t been straightforward with me. I knew nothing about her deceitfulness. I always thought she was forthcoming about her aversions to eating. You stop wanting to eat, you stop being hungry, you stop eating food, you lose weight. No secret there. Yet it doesn’t stop there with A.N. When I attempted to leave her alone, she became quietly controlling interfering with otherwise positive and healthy relationships.
I found a way to detest my relationship with innocent people because of a misunderstanding and miscommunication surrounding the control over my food. The result was mental suffering over the past few years for no other reasons than my past relationship with A.N. and the aversion to eating that I thought I had overcome. In plainer English, if they messed with my food, they messed with me.
If you love me and want to keep me in your circle, don’t ever hand me a plate, with food on it, that is. Worse than handing me food is taking away food that I have decided I will partake of. The people who did that became sworn enemies. I have called them every name under the sun without even knowing why I was angry with them. My neighbors, the few sweet ones who kindly delivered chocolate cookies, brownies, and truffles to welcome my family into the neighborhoods did not intend me any harm. Harm still resulted since I could not resist eating their offerings.
I never visited any of them. I swore that each of the three women were a spy, a witch, or a demon. I repent. I am terribly sorry. I didn’t understand why I took such a disliking to them all at the time. Another neighbor gave food to me and I in good conscience immediately handed it off to my in-laws because it contained nuts and one of my sons is allergic. This neighbor is still in my good graces. I’ve never even considered her to be anything but a friendly neighbor. Family members, who have yearly gatherings centering food that I find pleasurable, are not my most favorite people in the world to visit. If you’re not the best cook, nothing to fear, I can visit comfortably. Those who ever fed me on request or gave me exactly what food I asked for when I asked for it, I have held dear to my heart.
It is a shameful admission. One I am trying no longer to face alone. I have held on to A.N. because I thought our friendship had had more advantageous than disadvantages. I like fitting loosely in clothes. I don’t like snug anything, not even ankle wraps on espadrilles, my favorite shoes. A.N. helped me accomplish reaching my weight goals. Yet that alone is not enough to consider her to be the best kind of friend. Unknowingly I adopted all of her ways and fused them with mine own.
I know I may no longer base my relationships on something as quirky as a food choice or control over food. I know that my relationship with A.N. has been harmful. I suffered from hyperthyroidism until it went in remission during my pregnant years. I used to think that being friends with A.N. had to do with my own vanity issues. It does not. A.N. thinks nothing of my looks. We cling to each other whether I am beautiful or distorted. My most distinctive feature has always been my uniquely shaped eyes. When I suffered from hyperthyroidism, my eyes bulged a bit. If it were only an issue of vanity, I would have blamed A.N. then, and abandoned her. The relationship survived.
God has answered my many prayers and has granted me the desires of my heart. I know if I ask, He will deliver me from the hold A.N. has over me. I haven’t brought myself to ask. She is indeed an old friend, and she has made it clear that she will never abandon me. The old folks in my community used to tell the youth to pray and fast. Well A.N. is still smiling at that one!
