Empty Bottles

How did I end up here? Bottles of pills come in from the pharmacy with my name on them. When did I reach this point, seeing three therapists and being weighed every week? I never cared much about the mind until I lost mine. 

~

People would always tell me what beautiful hair I had, and what beautiful eyes I possessed, and how brightening my smile was. I’d blush and believe it. Why shouldn’t I? My attention-driven personality ate it up. The people around me made me feel like someone worth caring about. As if I was someone who could escape the harsh grip of the world and live a peaceful, untouched life. 

Then I started kindergarten. And first grade. And second grade. By the time I had finished fourth grade, I had been knee-deep in jealousy of my peers and everything they had. All their parents let them have sleepovers and hang out on snow days. But I still maintained solid friendships with Hailey and Erin. 

Hailey had just moved to Chappaqua from New Jersey in third grade. Standing side by side, people could tell she was the athlete and I was simply not. Basketball, tennis, and soccer filled up her time. She naturally excelled at all sports, while I tried and failed at most. When she was not partaking in sports, she would find time for my friends and I to hang out. We would dance around, listen to Katy Perry, and run up and down the carpeted stairs of her condo. Summer allowed us to be ourselves, and we expressed our gratitude by making the most of it. Tennis camp, swimming in my pool, and biking around brought us the most joy. Sam Q, our Australian tennis instructor, took up most of our conversations because he was a real man, unlike all the boys we were surrounded by. School was no different. We claimed the swings almost every recess, and we managed to get in almost a playdate once a week.

~

My body was ugly, and my face did not compensate, but isn’t that how most ninth-grade girls feel? I secretly loathed my friends for their natural elegance. As quarantine started to wrap up and we returned to the classrooms, I did not have the body I hoped I would by the end of my six-month vacation. It was not due to a lack of effort  I ran two miles a day and tortured myself with minimal food and maximal ab workouts. Nothing would do me justice. I did not feel like the beautiful girl everyone made my younger self out to be. 

~

My sixth-grade best friend, Lyla, had no filter, and I was not spared just because of our friendship. Elementary friendships like Erin mostly faded out, and Hailey, Lyla, and I became a solid trio. Hailey, whom I was admittedly closer with, let me in on a little secret during one of our sleepovers. 

“Somebody said something about you.”

“What did they say?” I pleaded.

“I can’t say.”

But it was not hard to get it out of her. 

“Lyla called you fat.”

I played it off. Even as one of my best friends, I didn’t want Hailey to see me care. So I let all the confusion and betrayal fester inside of me. 

The next night I knocked on my mom’s bedroom door. She was watching TV, but quickly turned it off when she saw the trickle of tears running down my red face. I cried for hours, and then she let me sleep in the bed with her. For all I cared, Lyla was out of my life. 

My friends and I shunned her, forcing her into a friendship limbo. I wasn’t mad, but I no longer trusted her. 

    ~

My psychiatrist kept writing while I rambled on about my discontent with life. It was our first time meeting during the beginning of my sophomore year. Hopes were high, as I was told medication would solve all my problems. I was just craving feelings. Feeling anything. I exaggerated and told embellished stories to get the medications I wanted. All I sought was to stray away from medications that would make me fat as a side effect. 

After my mom picked up the first bottles from the pharmacy, I rifled through them until I landed on the Adderall. Believe me when I say I did my research before meeting with Dr. Polcyn. It was the side effects of Adderall that piqued my interest, most specifically the weight loss. Even years later, Lyla’s words still lingered through my mind and greatly swayed my actions.

~

As a senior looking back at photos from sophomore year, I could come to understand the concern of my loved ones for my state of being. I was 20 lbs underweight and my tight clothes looked loose on my body. Hailey, who is still my best friend, had her fair share of anorexia her sophomore year as well. So perhaps that is why she is the only person I talk about this with; she has experienced that state of mind. Usually, we don’t have deep conversations about it, but rather we call our old selves “sickly” and “flat” to make the pill go down easier. If we can joke about it, we can ease the blow. 

~

Hailey and I concocted a plan. We were to have our first kisses that night at “Hank’s infamous party”. We were about to be sixteen and still hadn’t kissed anyone. How pathetic. Dress like a slut, act like one, and soon we’d start to fit the part. 

We accomplished our goal by managing to make out with two random strangers. Truly fulfilling. This meant we were, in fact, not repulsive to men. This must have been because of our rapid change in shape and size. We went from jumping to put our jeans on to having them loose on our body boney thighs. That was the only logical explanation for how we managed to pull that night off. 

If my being skinny got attention from guys, then I should keep pursuing my downward spiral of falling deeper into the grasp of Adderall. That was what I told myself. I personally prescribed myself double the dose to feed into the high of hunger. 

I allowed myself to be used by others to feel wanted, even if just for my body. Validation was very powerful in my life. But there is no feeling good about oneself in these situations. I loved myself conditionally.

~

Going into my junior year, I started talking to this boy. Who he was is not important, but more so what he did for me. To have a guy genuinely interested in talking to me took me back a little. But as he asked me out after we watched the dance company’s fall performance, my mind started to shift. This boy was coming an hour and a half to see me, a girl who was a year younger than him. All those times spent with previous boys never made me feel wanted as I did with him. In his love for me grew, a love for myself. But I thought I needed him to feel beautiful. I depended on him, and the thought of losing him scared me. Selfishly, I loved how he made me feel more than I loved him. 

A year later, things wrapped up between us as I began to realize how scary my dependence on him was. A messy ending is an understatement. He and I loved each other in a way that thrived off toxicity. He wanted me to focus my love solely on him and not prioritize friendships, and so I asked him nothing more than to give me attention all of the time. We both depended on each other in different ways; I needed his constant reassurance, and he fought for my commitment to him and only him. Most of our fights consisted of me begging him to care more and to exert more effort into the relationship, while he would get mad about my past and things I could not control. But the most important thing is how over it could possibly be. 

I am never going to be okay with how my body looks, or how I am perceived by others. It’s not realistic. I don’t think I will ever recover from anorexia, for it is always a thought protruding through my brain, but sometimes sucking it up is actually what’s best for me. If I didn’t get over myself and realize how little importance my looks have on other people’s lives, I would probably be hospitalized right now.