This Is Us
I Had a Choice to Make: Andrew or My Eating Disorder?
When the most important man in your life is the one telling you not to eat too much
For over a decade, the most important man in my life was the one in my head who told me not to eat too much. Many people with eating disorders find it helpful to personify the disease. Mine didn’t have a name, but I felt sure it was a dude. Our relationship was a classic case of codependency. We’d been together so long, I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.
I’ll call him ED. We met in high school. His voice spoke to me from my magazines, in the tips to stay svelte and the instructions on “how to eat.” My manual for womanhood. But he wasn’t entirely a stranger. I’d heard whispers of him before. At the dinner table, when I ate pasta with my dad and my brother while my mom ate salad. When my grandpa described the perfect female leg with three distinct spaces: crotch, calves, and ankles — the original thigh gap. It was clear that to be small was to be worthy. I wasn’t about to let my unruly body jeopardize that.
At 15, we were young lovers. I was clumsy, my emotions rampant, unable to sustain restriction. I’d be “good,” preparing my magazine-prescribed meal while waiting by the phone for my older boyfriend to pick me up…
