The History of You
By Rachel Posner
Nov02
It’s funny how I remember you, the history of who you were to me. Before I knew you, you were just something I read about in health, a movie with the girl from Growing Pains in it, a page in a textbook, something I joked about with my little friends. “Look, guys—I’m anorexic!” I’d say, and eat like half a piece of a green bean. You were something only dancers knew how to be, some secret club all the A students were a part of, the elite, the Aryan race. Too special for someone as mediocre as myself. I was so sure of that fact that when I actually met you for the first time, who knows exactly where, I didn’t even recognize your face. You smiled at me and I tried to smile back. I don’t remember if I did. I didn’t know who you were, or why you would be smiling at me. I was in awe. You looked so strong standing there, so beautiful, so perfect---everything I wasn’t. Everything I wanted to be.
How did we become friends from there? I’m not sure. I guess it started because you’d keep me company at lunch. We’d make up the rules, and they didn’t seem too drastic, and I followed them with a perfection I didn’t know I was capable of. “See! You’re good at something!” you’d whisper to me. From then on we were together---I was with you in a crowd, with my friends, at the dinner table with my family, the mall, and even when I was alone in my room. Sleep was all that separated us, and sometimes not even then. I thought about you until I fell asleep. I didn’t even dream---I just listened to my nightmares. Soon you were everywhere, and you told me that if I listened to you all the time, I’d never have to feel bad. I’d never have to feel anything, and when I thought about it, I knew you were right. Since I’d met you, I had felt alienated from everyone, and I loved the feeling. It was the ability I’d always wanted, to not care. There was no more pain. The anxiety at school had begun to fade and I was strong. I’d never felt so strong or so safe, especially around people. It didn’t matter if my body was growing weaker because of it, if my nose bled during class, if my skin was green and my head ached, if my heart pounded. The people who asked didn’t matter. Stupid body---it was to blame for everything. I didn’t care what happened to it as long as I had this, as long as I had you. I would punish that body for all of its crimes, and I would not spare a single moment’s pain for that horrible creature that killed me in so many ways. Now it deserved to die, the beast, and I would kill it if it meant killing myself! It had been the source of pain for so long. At least...I thought it was...the shame I felt for my body looked a lot like the shame I felt in every other aspect of my life...but this was closer to me, this was my goal.
You and I had become one, and we were more powerful than ever. I began losing pound after pound, and nobody really understood except you. They’d all stare at me and talk about me and they hated me because I wasn’t weak anymore and they couldn’t step all over me. They hated me because I was beautiful. We knew that they were just jealous. They wanted me to tell them about you, but I wouldn’t. They were afraid of you and I didn’t want them to stop us, so I lied. When I’d lost another fifteen pounds people began to talk, everyone, and my mother who was hysterical put me into therapy and sent me to see a nutritionist for my “eating problem.” That’s how they found out. But I didn’t have a problem. She did. She was the crazy one, with the scary health-freak boyfriend. She let him berate me, she showed me how to be weak, she made me terrified of being a woman and so many other things. I was just normal for once. I was confident, and they wanted it. They wanted me to turn you in. They wanted the only thing I had left---and the world suddenly seemed full of greedy, horrible people. But you wouldn’t leave me. You reminded me to stay on track, that I was still fat and gross and a horrible person and that the only way I could be accepted was if I lost more weight. That was the only option I had left, and I took it with a smile. You always knew what to do. I’d show them.
After a year or two of talking to the therapists and staring at them blankly, I got bored, and we decided that ninety pounds was just not cutting it anymore, so I dove...down. Lettuce became my favorite food, and tea became the center of my world. When anything I needed wasn’t in the house, I would freak out, and beg or scream at anyone who was listening to get me whatever it was. I didn’t care who I hurt or what I had to do. I lied, I stole, I cheated, I manipulated. I was losing it. I was losing everything---not just the weight. My hair was coming out in huge chunks. Every face except my own in the mirror was unfriendly and painful. They reminded me of a life I was no longer a part of...my life. I didn’t know anyone anymore. They were all either somewhere far far away or in my way. My family were obstacles I had to get around, my house was just a place I was sleeping at night. You were the only real thing left, everything else was an illusion, a distraction. I didn’t feel alone even if I was. Your presence was always with me, encouraging or shrieking at me, I could barely tell the difference, but I knew you were there. And I was still comforted, still fell asleep to the sound of your voice.
After a few months, I wasn’t feeling so on top of things anymore. I’d stopped going to school. I just lay on the couch all day wishing I had the strength to climb the stairs up to my room, but it was such a long, long way. I was so tired I couldn’t even pull the brush through my hair, and when I took a shower, thinking it would be warm and calming, each drop left a bruise that made me cry out in pain. I could have another cup of tea in half an hour, but my body was frantic for something, anything---now! My brain was in more than one place. My legs never stopped moving, from fear or the cold, I didn’t really know which it was. Then you and me got into our first fight ever when my mom gave me the choice of waiting another three weeks to get help or going to the hospital right then, and I didn’t say anything. I held a pillow over my face and hoped you wouldn’t kill me. “I’m scared,” I told you later in my room. I knew you wanted to wait, to see how much more I could lose. “I can’t believe you’re so weak!” you said. “What about everything we’ve worked for! You’re throwing it all away!” I just turned away and cried because I was afraid that you were right, and I was afraid of losing your support. But I was more afraid to die. You went along with me to the hospital. We started to have more fights, especially toward the end. Sometimes you won and sometimes I did. No one was really keeping score. All I knew was that your face was changing. It was no longer the beautiful, perfect face it had been---shiny and hopeful. It didn’t have the answers I thought it did. Now whenever I looked in your eyes, I saw pain and destruction, exhaustion and loneliness, savage anger, like a trapped animal. You were no longer my best friend, and the more I looked at your smile, the more it didn’t look like a smile at all.
When I left a few months later, we weren’t always on speaking terms, and the following few years were up and down, eventually more ups than downs. Some days we were inseparable, like old times, but I didn’t believe in you the way I used to, and you knew it. I guess that got in the way. The more I knew about you, the less I could trust you, but whenever things got tough, I’d always cry and find myself calling you up. “Please come back. Make me safe again. I need you! I’m sorry! Please...don’t leave me!” And you’d come back and you’d smile and help me and kill me just like I wanted you to.
More years and I don’t see you so much anymore, but I hear people calling your name everywhere I go, and it seems so strange...not to know you, not to have you in my life. People sometimes ask me if I knew you and I say yes, and they ask me who you are and I don’t know what to say. I realize I don’t know who you are. I only know who you were to me. I miss you sometimes, especially when I’m having a hard day. I think of that time you told me I was special and that I could do anything, or when you said you’d always be there for me. Sometimes I see you in a stranger’s face, or an emaciated body, or a child’s frozen eyes. Sometimes I still see you across the room and I want to talk to you so much. But when I start to speak, I remember how much you hurt me. I remember all the pain and fear, and I can’t go through with it. I turn and walk away.