“I am a prisoner to a digital number on the scale.”
Cal’s Story:
Wednesday, August 29, 2018:
“Dear Diary,
I was going to lie and tell you that I I loved it. To tell you about all the new friends that I made. That I’m going out and having so much fun in college. I didn’t want you guys to be afraid because I knew me being across the country kills you. But I couldn’t. I tried to speak over the phone so that my voice wouldn’t crack. So my tears wouldn’t run down my face. But I couldn’t. Instead I could only utter words in between throngs of choked tears. I don’t miss home. I don’t cry because I want to see you guys. I cry because I’m alone. I’m not sure what to do and I feel trapped. I couldn’t drive to the next town. There seems to be a group for everyone but not me. I don’t fit in. I try to connect with other people but my efforts are unproductive. I used to find an escape in the classroom but I found that my uncertainty has followed me there. I question my own passion. I don’t want my horse out here. I don’t even want to be out here. I was supposed to be the independent one. The one that made anywhere on the planet home. But I cant. I look froward to nights where I can sleep and forget my reality. I hate admitting my boredom. I stopped eating. It brings me pleasure and control. The worst of it all is to admit that I’m scared. Nope. I’m not just scared, I’m absolutely terrified. I used to be bold, barreling through life from one moment to the next with glittering eyes seeing where the world would take me.”
This is an entry from Cal’s journal at the beginning of a time that is supposed to be one of the best years of your life: Freshman year of college. For Cal, it was the perfect storm. Since grade school Cal had eating disorder type thoughts, and would catch herself excessively working out, throwing up, or counting calories. Her depressive episodes began in high school, but at the time she was living with her family who was there for her. She was able to get through them. This was different.
“I had never been so low in my life. I stopped eating. I would try to sleep all day and things just kept snow balling. It was so difficult. I felt helpless and went to multiple counselors. I had to fill out a questionnaire and one of the questions was about my eating habits. I was eating 200 calories a day at that point, and the counselor said: ‘okay, well let’s try to eat tomorrow.’ I told him that I hadn’t been sleeping because of my depression and he said: ‘okay, also try to get a good night sleep.’ It was a punch in the face.”
Cal closed herself off completely. She made her parents worry. She made her sisters worry. They were terrified about what she was going to do next.
“I made the decision to come home after that semester. I felt like I was a coward and running away. This is something I carried with me for a long time. I was taking medicine to sleep. I was taking medicine to wake up. I was taking medicine to feel happy. I felt like I was a machine taking my pills to function.”
October 2, 2019:
“Dear diary,
I’m not quite sure one single emotion would be enough to satisfy the description of what I felt. It had more weight than to be reduced to a word. My face got warm and my eyes filled with water and I lost focus. What if this is just the way I am? This is just what I have to carry around…the constant battle…the ceaseless game of tug of war. I want to get better, but I don’t want my demons that creep in my shadows to leave. They had deceptively comforted me. The chaos they made lived in my bones. Maybe I wasn’t finished letting them control me. Or maybe I just didn’t want the peace that their absence would bring at all. It’s been the norm with me for so long. But finally I took the step towards peace. My demons still tripping me along the way…but still I’m going.”
Cal began getting into horrible fights with her family. Her family didn’t understand why she had to take medicine, even when she told them it was because she couldn’t sleep or be happy. “Well, just stop taking it. You’ll get tired finally. You’ll sleep,” her dad said.
October 29, 2019
Dear Diary,
I’m sorry Cal. I’m sorry for not feeding you enough. I want to celebrate you and all the astounding things you are capable of. I love you from your little toes to your wild hair. I wish I could provide better for you…to give you what you. There is nothing wrong with you. Just know that you deserve better than a hand that doesn’t feed you and a brain that doesn’t think you need it.”
“I thought coming home was just going to make thing magically better.”
November 9, 2019:
Dear Diary,
Me VS E.D.
I’ve worked so hard for you. I’ve fought so long for you. To find peace within your bones. I wanted nothing more than to love you without any condition…to celebrate the gratitude that comes with every breath of existence. To simply fight the battle until we win. I fought for you, I won’t stop fighting for you, and this is my promise to you.”
One thing about her father was that he was never intentionally trying to hurt her. He came from a nose to the grindstone type of family, and a lot of times if the issue wasn’t a broken bone, then it didn’t exist. Cal’s mental health caused tension in her relationship with her father.
November 23, 2019:
Dear Diary,
Life without E.D.
I guess this is what people mean when they talk about leaving a toxic relationship. I didn’t have that weight anymore but carrying it around for so long made me strong. Thoughts of reassurance echoed where snide remarks would once lash. The love I was able to give my home, my body, each one of the cells that made me whole. The wires and chains that once restricted me from fully experiencing life are now like vines that I am able to swing from while wind flows through my hair and sun dances on my skin, as my laughter fills my soul.”
“I lost 30 pounds in a month and a half, and not by any healthy means. I didn’t workout a single bit. When I came home I gained fifty pounds on purpose. I wanted to see how much I could lose after the weight gain. It was like a game. I was clinically over weight and not at all this thin little figure anymore.”
February 25, 2019:
“Dear Diary,
I step into the shower and let my fingers run along different parts of my melancholic body. My unaccepting fingers always revealing terms of disapproval and critique. The same fingers that still have red knuckles that helped rid my body from a few regretful calories. I watch the water hit my skin and flow down to the floor over all the roundness and ridges of my body. I wish instead for it to be elegantly glossing over protruding ribs and hip bones. I was programmed like this. Obsessive and compulsive about a reflection. I’m a prisoner to a digital number and the scale, and kneeling to the toilet an unfulfilling religion.”
Cal eventually opened up to her family and told them that she was struggling with depression and an eating disorder. She began taking online classes, but was completely isolated mentally. No one was checking in on her.
December 15, 2019:
Dear Diary,
My praise comes in forms of cramps and growls from my stomach while I press my hands against my hip bones. This is what you want Cal, the voice infected my head. How charming are you? Wrapping all of these little lies in such a pretty bow! No I’m not going to eat, I’m not hungry. The perfect lie to gloss over your absence at the dinner table. Remember, this ideal figure you want…you can’t just eat whenever. You’ve convinced me that the nutrients I gave my body for breakfast had to be worked off, until all 130 calories of energy had been expended. Oh what an obsessively fun game of numbers this has turned into. What a gratifying feeling stepping of the treadmill is, knowing that the day’s almost over, and I have burned everything I have ingested. Short of feeling light headed beyond belief, it is better than making yourself throw up again. The cuts on my hands are still infected from that.”
“There was one comment that was made that was the straw that broke the camels back. I was on Zoloft and my mom told me that the medicine had made someone else gain weight. I began to question everything about my eating disorder. I didn’t know if I could go off the medicine to lose weight, or if I should stay on it to try and improve my mental health. The anxiety was horrible."
The Zoloft never worked for Cal, and she eventually went off of it completely. Being around her two older sisters was a big part of the progress she made. Cal went to multiple therapists and a dieticion. She ended up realizing that her current college was not a good friend to her mental health, and ended up transferring to a different college.
“Finding a good balance is important. Mental health is something that you can’t fully cure.”
I’ve personally found this statement to be accurate and common in the interviews I’ve conducted so far. Medicine has done wonders for my mental health, but with an eating disorder like Cal’s you’ll always have your relapses. With depression you’ll always have those moments when you just want to be in a room alone.
April 22, 2020
Dear Diary,
Here is a reflection of where I was a year ago now. I’d just found out that I would put Yanke down and was clinging to a relationship that existed over a phone screen, because I was too upset to leave my room. He didn’t understand but it wasn’t really his job to anyway. Hours turned into days and days turned into weeks. I was quietly wilting in my room. Today marks the fifth month that I have been off of antidepressants. I’m so proud of myself. It’s been so long that I’ve been this happy and healthy. Reading through old pages, the past two and a half years I numbly clung for hope for better days because I knew this couldn’t last forever. But today I'm still getting the hang of things, learning now that I have absolutely no idea how to write when I'm happy. I’ve always just used these pages for consultation when I felt nothing. Things didn’t magically go away but I have no intention to find the girl I was two and a half years ago. Recovery still waxes and wanes. The good days are accompanied with the not so good days. I’m getting better. I’m doing more of the shit that I like, and remembering how grateful I am for the body that has carried me so far.
