I’m working through my second order of fries at lunch, and, all of a sudden, it hits me: all of this metaphorical hunger for life is starting to seep into my actual life in the form of an overeating problem. Ever since I’ve said ‘no’ to the drinking and ‘hello’ to the healthy living regiment (complete with a daily dose of Seroquel, Risperdal and Lithium), I’ve been shoveling food into my mouth as fast as I can get it – and the outcome has not been pretty.
‘Pretty’ would be my formerly size 2 self which has now been replaced by a 4 and a side of fries. Every aspect of my life seems to be coming together and then, like clockwork, I develop this wonderfully unnatural and unhealthy disorder as if to counterbalance all of my hard work – if I were still drinking this would not be happening. Is this type of bargaining something that I am going to have to do all of the time in my sober life?
Whenever I used to start to feel hungry was about when I’d throw on my pullover and head down to the bar underneath my apartment; there was always an older woman already sitting there who made me feel better about my 10 AM alcoholism. Without that vice, I’m starting to entertain all types of turkey wraps, chips and more – it’s in excess, too: just the other night I ate an entire package of Skittles because I couldn’t bear to have just a handful.
I think that as each day becomes a little clearer, my insight to the past does as well. I’m allowing myself to face some of my most suppressed memories, and, as a mechanism, I am turning to food since vodka is no longer an option. The most recent realization I’ve made while reliving my mania has been abortions (coincidentally, a rather unappetizing topic) – or rather, the number of them that I have had.
Four.
Four is a good number if you’re talking about how many proms you have under your belt, how many promotions you’ve gotten at work or how many new pairs of ballet flats you managed to squeeze out of your last paycheck, but that is not optimal in terms of how many times you’ve been to the ambulatory surgery center, high on drugs and pretending that you’re going in for cosmetic purposes instead of pregnancy terminations. I have had four abortions while off my medication and in a long-term state of delusion.
There’s nothing I can do about it, but now that I can’t drink about it, I have to actually think about it, which makes me fucking unhappy. I feel disgusting and ashamed of myself, of how I could be so careless and up in my head that I neglected showers, medications and doctors’ appointments until it got that bad. I was so consumed within the world I’d built in my head, that I actually did take a limo to one termination, drinking champagne the whole way and singing. “I’m going to get my boobs done,” I told the driver, “will you wait out front until the nurse calls you so that I can go home?”
It hard for me to swallow some these realities, but it’s getting easier with every day. Hopefully this hunger I’ve adopted will subside as well. They say time heals all wounds – maybe it shrinks stomachs, too…
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