One day I wake to hear my mother urgently telling my father that she thinks I am very ill and starving myself. She thinks I might need to go to the hospital. She is worried that I may die. My father says that he does not believe that anyone can starve themselves – it is not normal – and that when I am hungry enough, I will eat. He is a practical man.
My mother starts a subtle battle of wills with me…but not so subtle that I don’t notice. She is an exceptional cook and she starts to cook the most delicious smelling foods. Day after day. Week after week. It makes me crazily irritable. I want to scream for her to stop – but that is not my right – it is my parents’ home and she can cook whatever she likes.
I have a deep understanding that while living in my parents’ home, under their roof, I will obey their rules and bide their will. It’s only fair. When I get married, I will be able to leave. But my body is my own – my parents do not possess that. And I swear that when I leave my parents’ home, no one will ever tell me what to do, ever again. My mind is also my own and I am fascinated with the power of my own will.
For someone who is exhausted and irritable and terribly anti-social, I do extremely well at Uni. I perform brilliantly in all my exams and research papers. I achieve high distinctions with relative ease. University is the only place that I experience true freedom. Freedom to manage my own time and my own intellect. Freedom to interact or to be alone.
In 3rd year of Uni, I stop going to lectures and practicals completely. My stomach gurgles and churns all the time and sitting in quiet lecture rooms and laboratories is embarrassing. Sometimes a random student will turn to me and say, “I don’t know who is louder – your stomach or the lecturer!” or “Is your stomach competing with the lecturer again?” They are right. My stomach is unbearably loud. So I sit out in the sunshine (getting darker still), often in the middle of the main-quad at Uni, and read and read and read. Books are my refuge. They impose no boundaries.
I am not especially interested in the other students or even the lecturers and tutors. And I can learn everything they teach in a quarter of the time from my books and the internet – even anatomy. There is no new knowledge being imparted – it is all regurgitated. I feel no desire to mingle with my colleagues. In fact I feel no desire at all. I mostly just want to be quiet and still and just be, without anybody looking at me or judging me or telling me what to do. I am convinced that when others look at me, they are all repulsed by this hideously fat and ugly girl. If only I could realise that everyone is too busy living their own life to be overly interested in how I look.
I also know that I still do not really want to be a doctor. I am repulsed by illness. Draining a cyst or examining another person’s body at close range makes me nauseous. And I believe that for some sick people, the best cure is to take a genuine break from their daily lives and go sit in the sunshine somewhere and just let the stresses drift away. So I am not very sympathetic to patients. My bedside manner sucks.
So after after 3 years of Uni, I decide to take a year to do some scientific research as a part of my degree. It will add ‘Honours’ to my qualifications and also buy me time to think about what to do. Plus I have developed a distant crush on one of the PhD students in one of the medical laboratories – the laboratory in which I plan to conduct my research. I do not know how I have the energy for such a crush…it must be a biological imperative!
So I start working in the laboratory and conduct my own research over a year. The PhD student in whom I have developed an interest is also interested. And pretty soon, we start hanging out together all day in the laboratory and bantering over lunch. I don’t try to go out at night because I know that my parents would not approve – but they do not seem to be overly concerned about what I do in the middle of the day. I am not breaking any of their rules – but neither am I telling them about my new friend.
The upside of the crush is that I start to nibble on food again. It’s hard for me but it’s harder to sit with someone over lunch every day and NEVER eat. I do not at huge quantities – but enough to be sociable and not be questioned about my eating habits. On these days I make sure that I eat no other meals. Water only. And my laxative use goes through the roof. Buying laxatives everyday eats up much of my small income. I may be helping the Laxative company’s share price rise all by myself! Perhaps the upside is not so up for me.
The object of my crush starts to get curious. He is curious about why I never invite him home. Why I never introduce him to my parents. Why I never go anywhere with him. Why I refuse to have any physical contact beyond the minimum. I never explain that I think that if he actually saw / touched me, without my multiple coverings, I think he would be repulsed by how fat I am.
He thinks that if we get serious about each other, then I might thaw a little. So he makes noises about getting engaged – but he puts a caveat on the engagement though: his words are, “If you would change your religion to mine, we could get engaged and then married.”
On one level, I am flattered that anybody would even consider marrying anybody as hideous as me – but on another level, something in me is repulsed by the condition placed: to change religion. So I drily respond that I am only 21 and not even remotely interested in engagement or marriage. There is more to life. He backs off and we continue this strange ‘relationship’ which is really more like a ‘buddy-ship’.
In my mind though, I consider the possibility that I could get married. It would be one way to escape from my parents’ house, but with some ‘respectability’ still intact. And then if the marriage does not work out, I could always leave it – but then I would never have to return to my parents’ house. And while my parents would not be happy about my divorce, they would not force me to live with them at least. As a ‘single girl’ I cannot move out on my own. My parents would not accept it. But as a ‘married woman’ (subsequently divorced), I could be free.
My heart and soul are becoming as wretchedly empty as my stomach.
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