Does this relationship make me look fat?

I’m better off on my own, I’ve known this for a long time. Whenever I’ve gotten myself out of a relationship and the emotional riptides that go along with seeing the light, giving up, letting go…breaking up, subside, I realize I’m centered, productive, happy, and well, just more alive. For years as I’ve felt this freedom that comes with moving on when a relationship has run its course, I’ve told myself it was just because I wasn’t with the right person and that somewhere out there, Mr. Right was still waiting for me and when I found him, I’d finally experience a relationship in which I could share my life with someone and still be centered, productive, happy and alive. Recently though, it has occurred to me that this lack of balance hasn’t been about the person or the relationship, it’s been about me. I could be in a relationship with a man that is a dead ringer for Matthew McConaughey in every way from charm, to humor, to abs and I’d still end up in the same place I always do when I’m in a relationship. I’d end up in that place where I’m insecure, unhappy, a little bit crazy (but I’ll only cop to a little bit) and well, lost. I’d end up down the rabbit hole.

As my husband and I have been working through some boundary issues and figuring out how to untangle our now separate lives, my eating disorders are taking me to the mat. It started earlier this week when we were discussing our son’s schedule for the weekend. “I’m going to a friend’s house for the game on Sunday.” Now, this sentence shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I immediately wanted to know who the “friend” was. Was it someone I knew, male or female, if female was the answer to the last question was this a party or just the two of them… And then it hit me, this Sunday didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, the truth is, he will move on, if not tomorrow, someday, and it will rip my heart in two. I’ve always known he’d move on, though I’d like to think he’d spend the rest of his life missing and wanting me, and earlier this week, I finally understood that at a deeper, visceral level. As I found myself sitting on the floor of my apartment eating pork fried rice so fast I didn’t even taste it, I suddenly connected the dots for the first time. Sitting there with my messenger bag over my shoulder, with my coat still on, pounding down Chinese food I knew would make me sick, I had a moment of clarity. I was trying to ease the pain of losing my marriage and quiet the fear of the unknown I now find myself in…with fried rice.

I went through treatment for anorexia 15 years ago last month. I’d first joined the ranks of those diagnosed with an eating disorder back in 1986 by an ER doc when my parents took me in after they found an empty box of laxatives in my bathroom trash can (yeah, I never said it was a glamorous disease so if you think it is, think again). A quart of activated charcoal later, and after a promise that I’d eat “like a good girl” I was released. Time marched on, the dark side of life intervened and that promise proved to be a lie. Eight years later I found myself so in love with this man that I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with, that I could hardly breathe. The problem was, he wasn’t in love with me. Not only wasn’t he in love with me, someone else had caught his eye. She was more his “type” he had said at the time. The more-his-type comment sent me full throttle into starvation mode. Because I’m neurotic to the core (again, yeah, the line forms to the left boys, don’t all rush me at once) I wanted to know everything about her that was different…better. She had a job in an office, she rock climbed, she didn’t have an ex-husband and a son, she had long, beautiful curly hair, and she was, well, smaller. That last one was what I latched onto. Losing as much weight as I possibly could became my sole mission, I wasn’t going to lose this man without a fight. For weeks I allowed myself lettuce, but only if I was about to pass out and nothing else. I got up early so I could workout both before and after work. I pushed myself beyond my breaking point and still kept going. Finally, one morning on the way to work, we had a fight over his new interest that culminated in my anorexic bottom. After unsuccessfully pleading with him to either walk away from her or walk away from me (I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to walk away from him at the time, it is true what they say about hindsight) I went into work and immediately collapsed. The emotional stress of the situation had proved to be too much for my beaten, broken, staved body. When I came to, there were a couple of firefighters leaning over me. They explained that they weren’t able to find my pulse and that I had to keep talking to them until the paramedics arrived. “Stay with us, everything is going to ok.” When the paramedics arrived, they were able to find my pulse at a jaw dropping 60/40, knowing nothing about medicine, I’ve since been told that’s bad. Later at the hospital, I was given fluids and forced to eat. To this day I can still taste those hospital pancakes if I close my eyes and think about it. Once my vitals were stabilized, the doctor on duty pulled a chair up next to my bed and said “Before I release you, I need you to understand that you will die from this if you don’t get help.” There wasn’t a “might” or a “maybe” in there, only a “will.”

The following Monday, I had an intake evaluation (scored 100% for all the warning signs and symptoms, take that Mr. Gimple for that comment to my parents at parent/teacher conferences about my lack of work ethic) and by Tuesday, I had entered day one of 28 at Fairview Riverside. During our first group therapy session that day, my blood pressure bottomed out again and I had to be transported up to the ER. Since I was already in the hospital, there were no cute firemen this time…damn, only one of the counselors from the ED unit holding my hand and making small talk while a clumsy nurse poked around my arm looking for a vein for the IV. Once I was stabilized, I was able to rejoin the unit and continue with treatment. At the end of that first week, we were saying good-bye to a young man that had successfully completed his 28 days. As part of that session, the counselor that was facilitating the session brought out a ball of yarn that we were to pass around. When we passed the yarn to the next person, we were supposed to say one thing we admired about them. I got the yarn passed to me several times but the only comment I remember came from that young man. He said “I admire that you’re a fighter. You got knocked down the first day in here and you came back.” At the end of the exercise, we cut the yarn and each kept a piece. I still have it 15 years later.

He was right, I am a fighter, I do get knocked down and so far, I’ve always gotten back up. But lately I’ve been thinking maybe I need to stay down this time, at least in terms of romantic relationships. For some reason, those push all the ED buttons that will eventually kill me. Earlier this week, while I was sitting on the floor literally (ok, not literally) inhaling that pork fried rice, the question “does this relationship make me look fat?” came to mind. The thought of it made me laugh…and then cry because I was laughing so hard, and then eventually cry because there was so much painful truth in it. Relationships put me through hell, they send me down the rabbit hole, they bring out the absolute worst, most insecure parts of me…they turn me into a Michele that I don’t like. Now, before you argue with me, let me assure you, I get that it’s not really the relationships that do this to me, it’s me. It’s my lack of trust and complete insecurity (if I had a superpower, it would be heroic, almost epic levels of insecurity) within intimate relationships that put me through hell and send me down the rabbit hole. I don’t know if that will ever change, nor do I wish to spend any more time worrying about that. For now, this is a fight I haven’t trained for so I’m staying down.