Restricted
A Novel of Half-Truths
Jennifer Kinsel
Copyright © 2010 by Jennifer Kinsel
http://www.jenniferkinsel.com
Kindle Edition
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is available in print at most online retailers.
For those who know how it feels to be restricted,
and for those who have broken free.
Chapters
Acknowledgments
Preface
Prologue
1: It’s Not Hard to Get Sucked In
2: Cracks in the Lies
3: The Body Fights Back
4: Test Anxiety
5: Point of No Return
6: Silent Suffering
7: Facing Reality
8: Beginning of the End
9: Therapy for My Mind
10: Intense Path to Recovery
11: You Need Money for That
12: Numbers Do Matter
13: Family Dysfunction
14: Bottle It Up
15: Celebrating with Paper Candles
16: Stepping Back into Life
17: Slippery Slope on Repeat
18: Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes
19: That Can’t Be Me
20: Journaling Exposes the Soul
21: Feeling the Feelings
22: True Test of Willpower
Afterword
Resources
About the Author
Acknowledgments
There are many people who I would like to thank individually, and it would be impossible to name everyone in this small space. But if we have crossed paths, you have surely played a role in my journey.
My therapist, Kristin Grasso, Psy.D., for providing a listening ear, for believing in me, and for challenging me in the best ways possible. For the safety and empathy that's given during each session, I'm very grateful.
The rest of my treatment team, past and present, especially Amanda Bechtel, MS, ATR, LCPC; Hannah Huguenin, MS, RD, LDN; and Mindy Lais, Psy.D.; for giving me the tools to help dig myself out of the eating disorder, and for pushing me when I wanted to go no further – even though I didn't always agree at the time.
Those who I’ve met in treatment, for giving me inspiration and insight. Each of you are amazing and I’m certain we will all make it to the other side. I’ve learned from every one of you; I hope I’ve taught you something, as well.
My mom and dad, Beverly and George, for standing by me through the years. Although I know it’s hard to completely understand things from my side, the effort has been made to learn with me. I know that I'll always have support.
Preface
I often wonder how others react to serious topics such as eating disorders. In today’s society, eating disorders have somehow become glamorized in the media. It has become the “it” thing to have among celebrities. Those who do admit to having a problem sometimes seek treatment, and the rest of the world only hears that she (or he) is now cured after a stint in a top-notch treatment center.
Only, it rarely works that way. Those suffering are lucky if they can enter treatment and even luckier if their eating disorder does not still rule their life after treatment. Insurance companies are hesitant to cover those asking for help, and in many cases, patients are kicked out of the facility before they are ready to leave. Out of all psychiatric illnesses, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate, and many suffer throughout their entire life. Not all who battle an eating disorder are on their death bed like those shown on television for shock value. I am quite baffled at the variety of people I have met through treatment; those who could easily be your daughter, your next door neighbor, your idol. Eating disorders do not discriminate between sex, race, social status, religion, or sexual orientation.
I have written this book based upon my own experience in battling an eating disorder. While I am not recovered, I am in recovery. I know very well the evil, yet tantalizing path an eating disorder can lead. Although this is not a memoir, most of the contents hold some truth. This book is not a glamorized portrait of eating disorders; it is a real glimpse into the pain and suffering behind so many smiles trying to hide it all. It’s a look at the difficult and trying process of recovery.
Prologue
I thought that once I had lost the weight, I would feel better about myself and maybe I would be something special. Well, I have lost weight, I do not feel better about myself, and I am still nothing special.
I glanced up from my notebook to see a fidgeting girl across the room, tapping her foot on the floor and shaking her leg to an imaginary, silent beat. Her anxiety disturbed others and it was distracting me from the assignment that was passed around for the group to quietly work on. Like yawning, it seemed that when one person fidgeted, everyone else caught on, and soon numerous legs were all simultaneously bouncing on the ground. Tap. Tap. Tap. How was I supposed to concentrate on my work with jumping legs in my view? My thoughts were not focused on the worksheet that was before me. I was trapped inside a very big, dark room with eight other girls and women, ranging in age from 15 to 43. We were all there for the same reason, yet we all arrived at that point by taking different paths. My mind drifted to a scenario, sparked by the worksheet’s questions.
She swung her tiny arms around and felt the cool breeze against her skin. Her legs held her little body upright as she turned and gently pointed her toes to the ground. The smile on her face showed how proud she was for showing off the simple dance move she learned in ballet class the previous week. A three year old was sometimes hard to teach, yet she was able to pick up a lesson very quickly. Her mother clapped as her daughter finished and went back inside to finish cooking dinner, while the young girl stayed outside to keep practicing.
The leotard the girl was wearing reflected back at her like a mirror on the glass door. She was fascinated at the image and stared into the window pane, analyzing the outfit and her body. A full length image gave her a very different view of herself, a view she was not used to seeing. Her arms appeared shorter, her legs appeared thicker, her hair appeared darker. Questioning the validity of the reflection, she tried to judge herself by seeing her body from her eyes. Looking down, she noticed that her stomach was not as flat as she thought it should be. She consciously sucked in, using her stomach muscles to make her appear thinner.
“I’m fat.,” she thought. Before that moment, the thought never crossed her mind. A bit of confusion entered her mind, not from questioning the critique itself, but from the lack of self-criticism before that moment.
Self criticism was not uncommon for her to hear, as she heard it quite often within her household and family circle. Often, her mother would find herself looking into a mirror and saying, “Ugh, I need to lose some weight.” The little girl did not recognize that her mother needed to lose weight, but she recognized that the comment made was self loathing, in a way that something needed to be changed in order for her to feel better.
Was she even aware of what “fat” was? At three years old, most children were worrying about which lollipop to choose or which doll Santa Claus would bring for Christmas that year. But she was different and she worried about many things that other three year old's never thought about. Feeling fat was not even necessarily a logical response to seeing herself in the mirror. Feeling fat was quickly being learned as a way to describe being uncomfor
table, being overwhelmed, being anxious. She did not know that feeling fat had nothing to do with her physical self at all, but it would play a huge role in the years ahead.
The only thing more sad than imagining an innocent three year old thinking herself as fat, was admitting that I was that three year old. One of my earliest memories was dancing around in a leotard and sucking in my stomach because I was not happy with my body. It saddened me because I knew that was not how three year old's were supposed to react to their own bodies. Instead of focusing on that little belly, I assumed that the majority of children would rather focus on the sequins on the leotard or the way the fluffy tutu bounced up and down while dancing. I did not have a chance to pay attention to the tiny details as I was critiquing my own self through a microscope. It was how I learned.
I started learning to critique myself about 16 years ago, when I remember judging myself. I am now 19 years old and a sophomore in college, although a lot of the time, I feel like I am still that child facing herself in the glass door.
“Erin? Are you okay?” the young therapist asked as my mind drifted off and my eyes stared into space.
“Uhh…oh, yeah. Yeah, I‘m fine.” I scribbled down gibberish on the paper to make it seem as though I was actually working. I did not need to give an answer to the question, any way. I had already received the worksheet before and my answers had not changed. If I was asked to give my opinion, I could easily remember what I wrote last time. Luckily, the clock soon turned to 8:00 and it was time for us to leave for the day. We all ran to the door and waited for one of the nurses to swipe her ID badge to let us free in the outside world.
The outside world was a much more dangerous place than the locked quarters of which we were confined, but we felt liberated once we stepped past the barrier marking the safe place and the world beyond our bubble. Most of us did not know how to survive in the more dangerous environment. Whether by choice or force, we have had to trust that the confined, safe environment would be a place where we could learn and grow, eventually giving us the strength to know how to survive.
“Bye, guys! See you tomorrow.” I shouted, as I walked to my car and began the drive home. Driving was my time to think to myself, to have alone time, or to jam out to loud music if I wanted to lift my spirits.
Within a half an hour, I made it home, and was prepared for the daily questions about my day. I opened the door and soon heard the automatic greeting my parents had grown to love: “So, how’d it go?”
I was never quite sure how to answer the question, as I was not convinced it was something they really cared to hear. My parents were not the type of people who asked questions to know more about someone’s day, and they only started asking me because it was mentioned in therapy as a tip in order to be more helpful. I was sure they wanted to be more helpful, but sometimes it was annoying to be asked to explain the day when all I wanted was to relax and rot my brain in front of the television after hours of thinking.
My answer to them: “Fine.” Usually, that answer satisfied them, but I knew I could not use that answer for the rest of my life. Eventually, they would learn that I am not “fine” every day, and that by saying “fine” was just another way of saying “I don’t really feel like talking.”
Emotions in our house were rarely talked about. For whatever reason, our emotions and feelings were swept under the rug and were magically dealt with, without us ever explaining them or rationalizing thoughts. I assumed that it worked like this in every household so I never questioned it. My dad was brought up to be the macho man, to take care of the wife and kids, to bring home the bacon and suck things up when things got rough. My mom was raised in a similar fashion in terms of emotions, in that they were just emotions and they did not really need to be talked about. Talking things out was not necessary then and it was not necessary now.
“I’m going upstairs.”
“What about your snack?” asked my mom.
Having a snack every night was a new routine for me. I did not like the routine because it was a foreign experience, something I was not used to, nor was it something I enjoyed.
For such a long time, I got away with eating very little throughout the day. My weight dropped and my mind became a mass of crazy thoughts that made no sense any more. My brain was not functioning properly and I am not sure how I was able to complete school projects while running on empty. I did not want to eat, yet I knew that eating would be the only way out of the fog that was my world. When my body was starved, the world around me seemed so distant and so unreal. The real world became the outside world of which we are all so afraid. Even though the fogginess clouded everything in sight and my body was too tired to do much else but sleep, the fear was still there, making its way closer and closer every passing day.
I had never been good at dealing with the problems of life, even from a very young age. The thoughts and emotions that came from my head sometimes frightened me, yet I kept them to myself and never said a word. Anxiety became a big part of my every day routine. I mistakenly thought that every eight year old must have felt that sense of impending doom, that one day everything would fall apart and the world would end. I did not recognize that others my age were not worried about the sky falling. They were not anxious about the test coming up in three weeks. The forgotten homework was not a big deal to them.
Anxiety was something that I had never been able to shake, and so started the endless battle of trying to rid myself from it. The emotion of anxiety was not something I would wish upon any one, not even my worst enemy. My weapon of choice to fight the battle was food.
Little did I know, that choice would not only make that battle worse, but it would also start a new war within myself.
1
It’s Not Hard to Get Sucked In
I stepped toward my instrument of obsession as my heart pounded faster, the beating echoing in my ears. The anxiety I felt was nothing new but I had never been able to get used to the feeling. The overwhelming sense of failure and defeat washed over me even before I could know whether or not those feelings were even legitimate. Perspiration began to collect on my palms and my heart rate increased even more. I took a deep breath and made the final step onto the platform. My hands shook nervously as I carefully slid the weights back and forth on the scaled rod. It was a balancing act, not only literally, but my sanity was increasingly becoming something less than stable. The arrow came to a stop and pointed out the result I was so anxiously awaiting.
I lost weight. Yes, I lost weight! A smile appeared from my terrified grin and I pumped my fists in the air in excitement. My pulse quickly slowed down to normal and my racing thoughts disappeared, waiting for the next chance to haunt. I was relieved, at least for the moment. In that moment, I was content and satisfied with the outcome of my daily test, but it did not always work out for the better.
The scale had become my monster’s tool. Instead of an angry, fear hunting creature under a child’s bed, what I feared most was an inanimate object used to weigh people and things. There was nothing scary about the exterior; it was only one big piece of metal with a few mechanical parts. There was nothing fancy about it, as it was designed only to do its job. But what that monster dragged out from within me was scarier than any demon I could imagine.
Even though I was terrified of the monster, I was also obsessively attracted to it. I chose to let its decisions rule me and my decisions. Based on what it told me, I could have either an amazing day, or a horrible day, despite the actual events that were occurring. I am not sure where, when, or how the fixation started, but what I do know is that once the monster had its grip on me, it felt nearly impossible to free myself from the lies and deceit.
Somehow, a simple tool such as the scale became the tool that dictated emotions and reasoning, something I was never very good at, any way. The scale became my decision maker. There was only one thing that needed to be remembered: Losing weight will make me happy. That is it, no ifs, ands, or buts. It replayed in my mind over
and over again like a broken record. If I achieved that, my life would play out as I had always wanted. Losing weight would make me confident and give me the courage that I lacked before. Losing weight would make life so much easier and I would not need to question anything ever again. I would be given the answers to life.
At least, that is what the monster had promised me.
It crept into my life ever so slowly, seemingly innocent and non-threatening, appearing in disguise as my New Year‘s Resolution. I held my arms wide open and welcomed this new presence into my life. Finally, I thought, I would be able to make myself happy. I had found the answer! I did not have anything to lose and I was willing to give up everything. I tossed my better judgment aside and chose to put my faith in the new-found idea. The promises sounded so tempting and I could not look away. I had found my best friend, but that best friend was wearing two faces. I failed to see the evil side and mistakenly agreed to play the game. I signed my life away and from then on, my actions would be controlled by some other force, a force much more powerful than my own rationale and myself.
Restricted: A novel of half-truths Page 1
