Year three

Pictures of me at Birmingham-Southern make my eating disorder smile.  I was at my lowest weight, 104 pounds, my 5'11" frame reflecting grace and sparsity, my straight blonde hair not having lost its shine, squaring my cheekbones like accent marks above my jawline, it, too, not bloated from abuse.  I only have a handful of pictures from my only year at my first university - the first being my school I.D.  Days before school commenced, I had  ACL surgery, rendering me to the services of my best friend Madeline, my knee brace, and my pain medication.  I spent the couple of days of recuperation following the operation asleep, waking only to have my soiled bandages gingerly exchanged for fresh by my caretaker, my mother.  My dad came into my room every thirty minutes, holding his hand deftly in front of my nose, breathing a sigh of relief that the medication had not knocked me unconscious, tempting me to drink fluids wafting with chicken broth and ramen, cupping my neck and pouring the liquid into my throat.  My ED was gaining momentum at this stage; my relationship with it had evolved over two years, overcoming anorexia for several months in Geneva only to grasp hands with bulimia during my final year of high school.  I considered my "secret" to be negligible, telling myself I would be able to control my urges in college, the one to two times I purged per day could easily be quelled now that I was sharing a matchbox dorm room with another person, so small I had no place to hide.

After spending two days sleeping after my surgery, I awoke hungry, calling my dad into my room for company.  He asked if I was hungry, and I responded by nodding, asking for Papa John's pizza to stop the rumbling in my belly.  My parents knew nothing of my ED at this stage, yet my dad paused when I requested pizza for my first meal.  I distinctly remember him bellowing to my mom downstairs, inquiring if it was okay for me to eat my food of choice.  This proves to me how my erratic eating patterns had already taken root.  My mom yelled back, "Of course she can have pizza.  She can have whatever she wants."  My dad sat by my side as I ate one of the two pieces of pizza placed on my plate, not knowing that this would be the last time I would keep in any Italian food for the next eight years.

As a response to the Lortab painkillers I was consuming every six hours, my appetite as well as my waist-line slimmed.  My school I.D. was taken three days after my surgery, and the only meal I can recall eating was the one slice of pizza the day before.  My face looked gaunt, sunken, and I loved it.  The picture was my pride and joy. 

ACL surgery is no picnic; I was required to participate in rehabilitation twice a week for two months, to spend eight hours during the night using my motorized knee bending apparatus while sleeping, and to hobble around campus in a full-leg brace with crutches for 3 months.  Madeline was not only my roommate and chauffeur, she was my muscle and entertainment.  She literally lifted my leg into and out of her Mustang ten times per day while maintaining a jovial attitude, laughing she was only helping me for access to my handicapped parking sticker.  Freshman parties and gossip were all duly reported to me by my faithful roommate, she cavorting with new friends as I made acquaintances with my pain killers, expelling as much energy I could muster to make it to class and back, vanquishing into sleep before thoughts of food, yet alone friendships, entered into my world.

It wasn't long before loneliness sneaked into my life, soggy, melancholic time drawn from within.  I lived in a suite where eight girls shared four rooms, two to a room, four to a bathroom, with one large communal area purposed for movie nights and drunken board games.  The door to my room remained shut at almost all times, and I found no reason to open it to guests.  No one ever knocked.  I recognized my isolation, hearing about my mother's sorority stories my whole life, filled with reckless frivolity and permanent happiness.  I compared the life I was paving for myself to hers, feeling entitled to my solitude.  I had just moved from Europe, goddammit, I had just endured major surgery, screw these narrow-minded Southerners who blast Sweet Home Alabama from their fraternity rooftops - I don't want anything to do with them.  Excuse after excuse after excuse.  My entitlement tethered me to my dorm room, to my $200 comforter I begged my mom to purchase to match with my roommates, our stylish purple carpet painstakingly chosen to represent royalty.  My room was my safe-haven from the unknown, allowing my eating disorder to secrete its dysphoria into my creation, the analgesics permeating and pumping in and around, creating a cycle I tumbled into.

My mobility strengthened as the weeks passed, and my social ability remained stagnant.  I do not remember much from this period of my life.  If I wasn't spending my time with Madeline or the few friends I remembered from high school, I was holed up in my room.  I cannot recall anyone's name or face besides those of my professors; I cannot remember how I passed the countless hours between my dull freshman classes (except French and English).  So when the topic of sorority rushing filtered through my dorm room door, I entertained the idea.  Here was my chance - to meet people despite my gimp knee (my future nickname "gimp" forthcoming), to ascend my itching oblivion, and to taste the devout sisterhood of sorority life my mother held sacred.  I was going to live a normal college life.  As rush week approached, I listened to torpid gossip regarding what each sorority signified.  If you considered to pledge KD, for instance, you were classified as a partygoer with modest looks who was always up for a good time.   Pi Beta Phi equated bookworm and unappealing.  I heard the phrase, "I'm praying that I'm going to make it into such and such sorority" so many times I felt sick. My sycophantic side guffawed and spat with disgust.  "Who cares about this crap?" I told myself, so blind and lonely that I defaulted to my learned childhood behaviors, not yet learning that cynicism equals insecurity.  

I told myself I would attend rush to catapult myself into the social scene of the college but that no matter what, I would not pledge.