My alarm goes off at the right moment. It dawns on me that it is Christmas day of 2017 yet I am lying in my bed sickening. Snow is falling in large snowflakes gently covering the ground; my body starts to shiver just looking out my window. Christmas is my favorite holiday, but today I don’t feel as excited as it is my routine. My body feels weak, and my head is pounding, experiencing extreme anxiety as these events seem to be normal feelings these days. I get up and stand in front of my mirror, my body feels bony, but the mirror does not reflect that image. Grabbing my extra skin, measuring my thigh gap, looking at my collarbones, I stand there observing every inch of my body before I get dressed into my favorite dress that suddenly feels so baggy on me.
Its seven hours later and my anxiety begins to rise, I suddenly feel stressed and overwhelmed. The house smells of turkey and stuffing coming freshly out of the oven. I even started feeling like my eyes were drying and drained out because I could not see much as the bedside stated feeling a dim glow. I fumbled with the sheets and struggled to find my way to the bathroom because I thought I was pressed but was not feeling the urge. I tried emptying my bladder, but all I was undergoing was extreme pain which made me rush out. Now I am here staring at my window again as I check my reflection to make sure that I am still human. The haunted eyes create dark images, and underneath the I notice that I am drawn in-face and that they were almost not seen. I decided to wave at the picture, and by a good chance, it shook back, which was quite a reassuring moment. I still feel a dozen needles sharply dancing in my stomach being of the food I had eaten that my belly could not accommodate any more.
I am there standing looking at the distant sunrise glare and shifting my stare around my room wondering what exactly was happening to me and if I would be fine at the end of it all. I repeatedly glanced at the bed as a deep urge kept pressuring to me resort to bed as I thought I would wake up better. The eyes were still registering the murkiness, and my mind would occasionally become flat, and I sometimes felt like I was not standing. It is then that I started feeling anorexic and I knew what it meant. I am there standing feeling an overwhelming trepidation from the thumping of my heart as I was terrified. At that time, I even thought that someone was listening to the heartbeat that was now loud because I knew it was an upsetting moment. I rushed to my window remembering every moment of my binge eating incident the day before. While mind was still engaged in reflective thoughts, I was already throwing up, and it did not occur to me that my window was directly over the top of my little sister’s. I ended up splashing the waste and littering all over her window.
The sound that the puke landed with woke her, and she went downstairs, and I could not help but notice that she was extremely scared. By the time I reached where she was, her yeses were balling out and once the first tear broke out, what followed an uncontrollable scream that alerted the rest of the members as an unbroken yell was inevitable whenever she was frightened. My sister bent and sat on the floor and I could not help but notice that she was pressing her hands on the mat. At that moment I thought she was also suffering from anorexia because she started crying with a force that is comparable to a person who was experiencing an involuntary urge. Her state got me into deep thought because she also thought that I had made myself puke intentionally and that I was aware that her window was below mine, which made it look like the whole thing was deliberate. My parents moved to where she was, and they started consoling her. The reality that dawned on each of us was that it was possibly the worst Christmas celebration that we ever had for years because it had never started so badly before.
At that moment, while everyone was in deep thought, I started pondering about my life and the decisions I had taken that had made me experience what I was experiencing. At this point, my stomach was still sticking out as I tried to rationalize the whole incident. My parents started reminding me how I was almost throwing my life away if I continued with the binge eating habit because I would not be able to stand binge-eating teasing if it was to get worse. The reality that there was worse that could come from my eating disorder made me realize how caring my family was because they were protecting me from stigma as they would tell me I would be subject to weight bias even if I recovered and went on with the bad habit. It was particularly amazing how they appeared caring and gave me a listening ear as I shared my struggles with them. I felt more energized at coincidentally felt my stomach being calm as the reflective moment enabled me to realize how much a problem of the mind I was experiencing. I forgave myself for the behavior the last dinner and resorted to avoiding the trigger to binge eating as I became more cautious with the food I ate.
In the end, the Christmas was ruined, but I took the positive aspects out of it. Reminding myself of the scared reaction my sister gave, I resorted to being positive and leading a nutritionally healthy life and being cautious about what I ate.
