They make us eat six times a day. Three meals and three snacks. We all sit in the kitchen together and there is a monitor at the head of the table making sure we eat everything on our plates and drink everything in our cups. This is called the refeeding process. It must be done slowly and steadily, with more food added on as time progresses so we don’t shock our systems. So we are not in danger of ending up like Karen Carpenter — she gained too much weight too fast after starving for a long time, and her heart couldn’t take it.
The bathroom doors are locked so the bulimics can’t go in and puke. (I myself have never been a purger.) When you need to go, you must ask a monitor to unlock the door for you and after she lets you in she stands just outside the door and then you must either count while you are on the toilet, loud enough so that she can hear you, right up until the moment you exit, or you must let her flush for you after you are done — so that there is proof that you didn’t vomit your food into the toilet.
Every morning they wake us up at seven and we all put on hospital johnnies, first thing, and go and have our vitals (temperature, blood pressure) checked and have ourselves weighed. I have gained five pounds so far. I’m doing well. I’m a model patient, weight gaining-wise. My mental/emo health is another story — a longer story, a work in progress.
All I want is to be well and to have energy and to get back on track and to have my quiet little life back. It was a lonely and solitary life, but it was mine. And I was basically healthy-ish. And I was free, in a sense.
Singer/songwriter Juliana Hatfield, who blogged this in early November, while in treatment for an eating disorder at the age of 41. That’s some hardcore shit, and props to Juliana for being so honest about it. She recently released a memoir titled When I Grow Up. Obviously, she’s still working on it, as are we all.
wow…..I’m sure bulimics find somewhere else to puke though, no?
Jeez though this is so sad. It’s awesome that she can talk like this.
wow
Glad she’s getting it together. What’s scary is that she looks no different than Paris Hilton or so many other celebs. Sick world where women wind up looking like starved children. Weakness. Weakness. Weakness is the new black.
i thought karen carpenter’s heart gave out because she was bulimic & anorexic, not because she started eating again.
i was going to say that she looks just as skinny as paris hilton, lindsay lohan, the 90210 cast or any other starlet out there…which concerns me, especially when these girls keep speaking out about not having eating disorders. listen, i know girls who are petite and naturally skinny, my roomates a twig, but i still don’t see her collarbone jutting out or skin and bone legs…
but you know what? i really just don’t even give a shit anymore. they can deny it all they want and act like total idiots who think they are in control of their bodies, but while they’re busy denying rumors and acting superior to gossip they’re slowly killing themselves and they won’t realize what it cost them until, they too, are in the hospital being fed through a tube.