Erin Donohue
This New, Brief Body
(Content warning: anorexia/eating disorders)
The most universal confusion is this: being shocked at how different I look through a camera. One night, when I was getting ready for a performance, I tried on every black article of clothing I owned. I was in my mother’s room, searching her wardrobe, and came across a pair of black pants I had never seen. When I put them on I was, well, surprised. I thought, wow. I thought, that is not me. I thought, I can do this. Later that night, when there was a photo taken, I was embarrassed to see the apparent truth. How different it was from the image I had held in my head as I walked through the front doors; as I talked, alone, in front of a group of people. Nothing like how I remembered looking in the mirror.
There have been a few nights like this. And even more nights when I wasn’t lucky enough to have the fleeting, intoxicating spark of confidence. All the nights I settled for another t-shirt dress. All the nights I opted for a big coat that I would not take off. All the nights I held my old, too-small clothes that I had refused to throw out and vowed to be in them again by the next night out.
I have kept all of the clothes I wore when I was a dying girl. One therapist suggested putting them in a box under my bed, so at least I wouldn’t have to see them every day. But they have remained in my drawers, slowly covered by the baggy clothes I bought after deeming them acceptable enough to wear outside the house. Even now, I have a large wardrobe of clothes that do fit me that I have not worn in months, or years even, because of what they reveal or how they sit. All of the ways they are not right. At my worst, I whittled my extensive wardrobe down to this: one long, thick skirt, three t-shirt dresses, one baggy denim dress and an array of dark-coloured long-sleeve t-shirts.
*
When I was a dying girl, I was certain it couldn’t get worse: five appointments a week, daily blood tests, the endless weigh-ins; the constant threat of the admission, of the Mental Health Act, of the feeding tube. And then finally, the hospital, the clinic, all of the inpatient stays.
It was one of the busiest times of my life and I was the most incapable and exhausted I had ever been. It didn’t make sense, really. If I could just skip an appointment. A weigh-in. A meal. If I could just rest, it would surely help. But I couldn’t; there was always something to be done. There is little I remember of the details, which is often how people deal with trauma. I gain my understanding of what happened largely from the people who watched me shrink. From friends and cousins who tell me what it was like in music class or at Christmas. I remember being off school for a month. I remember every meal being a fight and ending with me lying on Mum’s lap while she stroked my hair. I remember missing my exams. I remember a handful of strange details from the hospital and inpatient stays: using the wheelchair to travel two metres to the bathroom because I wasn’t allowed to walk; all the times I was forbidden to go to the toilet alone; the reruns of The Nanny; seeing the other girls secretly exercising; the weekend a man came to install more locks on the doors to stop patients sneaking through the clinic to access the staff toilets.
Now, heavier and mostly nourished, it sounds busy and overwhelming. The admin of being sick was exhausting alone, but it was clearer. There were perimeters and guidelines. My weight, my potassium, my heart rate. My blood pressure and temperature; it was good or bad or heading to one of the two. It was clean and precise. There were answers and goals to reach. Clinical. Tangible. Recovery now is vague and uncertain. It is mental and muddled and the meaning of it changes day by day. The line between normal and disordered only gets blurrier. There was a time when no meal could be skipped, when exercise was almost criminal, when there was a team of people who were dedicated to making sure everything headed in the right direction. Now, it is up to me to make the right decision every minute of every day. To assess my own motives behind every urge I have. To decipher if it is me or the anorexia talking.
I am sure I hate my body more now than I did then. My understanding of my body image is more complex and confusing. It is not a simple hate anymore. But a disconnect. A genuine and palpable confusion. I could not tell you what I looked like if you asked. Every time I see myself, I am surprised in some way.
*
Lately, I have discovered a new and unsettling layer of body dysmorphia. It is jarring and scary and uncomfortable. Mostly, it happens when I am at home and at my most comfortable. When I am safe and wearing shorts or a singlet. When I am the most visible version of myself.
My arm will move in front of me; almost detached. Floating. If I turn it a certain way, like a gem catching the light, it will become unrecognisable. I will freeze. Stare. Confused and suspect; this is not what I thought my arm looked like. It looks smaller and shorter and sometimes even beautiful. All of which is to say, it does not look like mine. It is not the image I carry with myself as I move through my life. I trace the length of my arm with my eyes, ensuring it connects to my body, making sure it is mine. I will stay still, certain that if I move it will morph into something familiar and displeasing.
A common phrase used in my anorexia treatment was that other people don’t see me the way I see myself. But even I don’t see me when I see myself. The truth is impossible to find. What version of me is the right one? What version of me is the one the world sees? Several times this year, when I have finally braved the clothing store to add to my wardrobe, I have picked out a size I expected to fit only to inexplicably need three sizes smaller.
This new understanding. This new, brief body. I will stare at my arm or my leg or my cheeks, whatever part of me is new this week, until someone says my name, until I have to go to bed, until the night closes in around me.
*
I have tried, like many people in long-term recovery, to accept my body as it is. To be neutral towards it. But how can you be neutral to such a mystery? How can I accept my body when it may look so different tomorrow? How can I learn to see myself only one way? And which way would that be?
When I was a dying girl, I was certain it couldn't get worse. And it did; though quieter and less dramatic, it got worse. Over and over and over again. In boring and, I guess, predictable ways. The hardest part of recovery is whatever part of recovery you are in. Which is to say now. Now. The hardest is right now.
Erin Donohue is a Wellington-based writer and editor. Her first novel, Because Everything is Right but Everything is Wrong, was published in 2017 by Escalator Press. She is currently working on writing more poetry and finding a home for her second novel.