Pretty Girls Don't Eat

by Winnie Salamon

  ‘Sounds like a good idea to me.’ Melody nodded. ‘It’s important to maintain your own individual identity in a relationship.’

  I was too busy stressing about the fish and chips I was shoving into my mouth to think of anything decent to add.

  Dieting 101: avoid trigger foods. Trigger foods are high calorie, low nutrition meals and snacks that encourage overeating and weight gain. I forgot how much I loved fish and chips. The salty, crispy batter, the oil on my tongue. It was one thing to smell them, but eating them …

  I felt out of control.

  ‘It’s good to see you eating,’ Melody said. ‘We’ve been a bit worried about you.’

  I was so engrossed in eating, I’d forgotten to hide how much I was enjoying myself.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well …’ Melody chose her words carefully. ‘You’ve been looking kind of gaunt lately.’

  ‘And you’re so tired,’ George chimed in.

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘Yes you are,’ Melody insisted. ‘We’ve been worried for a while now. We need to know that you’re not doing anything stupid.’

  ‘I’m not an idiot,’ I said defensively.

  ‘No one’s saying that.’ Melody tried to calm me down. ‘We care about you and we’re worried, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, you don’t need to be. In fact, it’s the opposite. I’m just looking after myself, that’s all. And being super healthy. If you really cared, you wouldn’t have organised fish and chips tonight.’

  I knew I shouldn’t have said that, but the words just came out before I could think about what I was saying.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Melody. ‘Winter, seriously, eating fish and chips on a Friday night with your friends is normal. It’s healthy. It’s fun.’

  ‘It’s not healthy,’ I stated. My heart was racing and my stomach felt full of butterflies. What was happening to me? ‘I’m sick of everyone always trying to make me eat junk!’

  Melody shot George a look.

  ‘We’re worried that you might be developing an eating disorder,’ Melody said.

  ‘Is that what you’ve been saying about me?’

  ‘I told you not to say anything tonight,’ George hissed at Melody.

  ‘What are we supposed to do?’ Melody was getting really angry. ‘Just sit back and watch her starve to death?’

  ‘You’re not a doctor.’ I looked at Melody, furious. ‘And you probably never will be now that you’re joining that modelling agency.’

  I stood up. All I wanted was to get out of there. I had a bellyful of fat and I could already feel myself expanding. Breathe in, breathe out, I told myself. My heart was beginning to race.

  George leapt up from his chair. ‘What the hell?’

  ‘I just want to go home,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’ George looked frantic. ‘We haven’t even watched the movie yet. Winter, don’t go.’

  ‘Please stay,’ Melody pleaded, her eyes filled with tears. ‘We can talk.’

  With that, I stood up, put my shoes back on, and left. I wanted to throw up I was so angry. They’d been talking about me. Rather than support my success, they were telling me I was crazy and sick. Stuff that, I thought. Stuff them, stuff this. Actually, stuff everything. Bloody hypocrites, the pair of them.

  I walked home as fast as I could, thinking non-stop about all the calories I’d consumed and how my friends were a bunch of weight loss saboteurs. I could feel the oil, the fat, the grease, oozing through my pores like sweat. I was disgusting. Fat. Hideous. Gross.

  As soon as I got home I had a cold shower, scrubbing myself with a loofah, trying to stimulate the fat cells to shrivel and die and leave me alone. Of course, I also took a bunch of laxatives. I waited impatiently for my stomach to cramp, to feel empty and light. Why weren’t they kicking in? I took some more.

  I anticipated the painful stomach cramps like they were something to look forward to. I deserved them. In that moment all I cared about was getting rid of all horrible, fatty food. I barely gave a second thought to my friends and the fact that I’d walked out on them when all they’d tried to do was make sure I was okay.

  So there I was on a Friday night, lying in bed after ditching my friends, waiting in anticipation for the diarrhoea to kick in.

  All because I wanted to be a size 8.

  Chapter 32: Don’t Try This at Home

  When I woke up in hospital I mostly felt shame. And a little bit of fear. But yeah, shame, most definitely shame. It was really, really embarrassing.

  Back in Year 5 there was this kid, Michael Scott. He was in my class but we weren’t really friends or anything. He was okay. Just one of those boys who collected footy cards and spent lunchtimes running around playing sport. Then one day our teacher, Zoe, stood in front of the class and said she had some sad news about Michael.

  ‘Michael has leukaemia,’ Zoe announced. ‘Does anyone know what that means?’

  I did. I had watched My Sister’s Keeper with Mum and Spencer just a month before.

  ‘It means he has cancer,’ I replied.

  Some of the girls cried, especially Katie who’d been in love with Michael since Prep.

  ‘Is he going to die?’ Lenny had asked. He wasn’t being mean. He just wanted to know.

  ‘No,’ Zoe answered. ‘But he is very sick and won’t be at school for a while.’

  We had a big class discussion about chemotherapy and cancer and what it means and how your hair falls out and how scary this whole experience must be for Michael and his family. Then we spent the morning making a card and everyone in the class wrote a get well note for Michael, telling him that we were thinking of him and how brave he must be. His best friend Sam delivered the messages after school that day.

  ‘We played Minecraft in his hospital bed,’ Sam told the class. ‘He’s acting really cool. I think he’s going to be okay.’

  ‘Hardly any kids die of leukaemia these days,’ is what Mum told me when I got home from school. ‘Cancer treatment is so much better than it used to be. He’ll be okay, I promise.’

  It seemed like Mum was right. Michael had chemo and even came back to school. He played football and acted normal. He didn’t say much about the hospital and if anyone asked he went kind of quiet and just mumbled a response in as few words as possible. He was nothing like Lilly, this loudmouth kid who was really gross and brought her tonsils to school in a jar after she had them removed. Michael wasn’t proud of what he’d been through. I don’t know if he was ashamed, exactly, but he didn’t like anyone to make a big deal out of it. The last thing he wanted was to be seen as the sick kid.

  Michael was still alive at the end of Year 6. He’d had big chunks of time off here and there but I guess we’d all forgotten that death was even a possibility. We just got used to him coming in and out. We were self-absorbed, I guess, all caught up in the drama of heading off to high school.

  I didn’t think too much about Michael. I mean, in my mind cancer kids were those skinny hairless kids who get paraded around on bad current affairs shows with tear-inducing music in the background. I didn’t know anyone like that. Michael always wore a hat until his hair grew back. He never went on about his cancer. It was easy to act like it had never happened.

  We went to different high schools and I didn’t think about him much until, one afternoon in Year 7, Mum came and interrupted me while I was watching old Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes. I was annoyed with her. Spike and Buffy were about to kiss for the first time.

  ‘I have some very sad news.’ Mum looked all bleary-eyed. ‘I just found out that that boy from primary school, Michael … He died two days ago.’

  ‘No,’ I gasped. ‘That can’t be right. He recovered.’

  ‘Sometimes things just don’t work out,’ Mum said.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  So when I woke up in the hospital Michael was the first person I thought about. He’s the only kid I’d ever known to be properly
sick. And it wasn’t his fault. Not at all. But this. Me ending up in a hospital bed after passing out from severe dehydration. That was my fault. There was no getting around it. If I hadn’t been taking all those laxatives I never would have ended up in this situation.

  I felt like an asshole.

  ‘Laxative abuse,’ stated Nurse Amy, ‘can result in kidney and liver damage. You were admitted because you fainted from dehydration, a condition that can lead to death. Irritable bowel, a lazy colon, infections and even heart damage have all been associated with misusing laxatives. How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Stupid.’

  Nurse Amy was sassy and no nonsense. I guess she was about Mum’s age and she had bright red hair and rockabilly eyeliner. She was probably going out dancing after work.

  ‘You’re not the first young woman to be admitted to this hospital for mistreating their body in the quest for thinness. But you know, laxatives aren’t even very good for that. All they really do is get rid of water. They don’t even make you lose weight.’

  ‘Am I going to be okay? I mean, do I have kidney damage or anything?’

  ‘We still have to wait for some test results, but my feeling is you are going to be fine. But it’s not like you can go home and forget all this ever happened. Eating disorder recovery is never easy.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I have an eating disorder. I don’t even weigh myself !’

  ‘When you go through a packet of laxatives every couple of days that is classified as an eating disorder. You’re in hospital, Winter. This is serious. How long have you been taking laxatives and dieting?’

  ‘Not that long. A few months, I guess.’

  ‘You know it’s very hard to ignore messages that tell us the skinnier the better. But a few kilos are not worth killing yourself for.’

  A few kilos …

  With that, Nurse Amy checked my blood pressure and said it was a bit low. ‘You’re probably still feeling a little light-headed. But it shouldn’t take long before you start feeling better. I’ll go and find you something to eat.’

  And that’s when my parents walked in.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ Mum demanded. ‘I don’t understand. Why would you do this to yourself?’

  Dad looked teary and uncomfortable. ‘How are you feeling, honey?’ he asked kindly.

  ‘How do you think she’s feeling?’ Mum piped up. ‘Like shit, I expect.’

  ‘I’m fine, just a bit tired.’

  In my head I was thinking about how I was going to maintain my current size through diet and exercise alone. I was going to have to be diligent, that was for sure.

  ‘The doctor said you can come home tomorrow. She’s going to come and see you soon. Jesus, Winter. You could have done some serious damage.’

  ‘Is there anything you’d like us to get you?’ Dad asked. I knew it was a big deal for him to be here, leaving work early and all. ‘Maybe some magazines?’

  ‘But you know you don’t have to be skinny like those models, right?’ Mum interrupted.

  ‘Mum!’

  Just then Nurse Amy came in with a tray of hospital food. Chicken soup and pasta followed by chocolate mousse for dessert. I made a point of eating it without making a fuss, just to show that I wasn’t as messed up about food as they all thought. Besides, I was really, really hungry. It felt good to eat.

  Chapter 33: Not Pretty Enough

  I was out in two days, unlike Hannah the coma girl, who I discovered was in the same hospital as me. Only she wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘It’s not looking good,’ Melody announced. ‘If she hasn’t woken up by now there’s a good chance she has brain damage.’

  ‘Shit,’ I replied, feeling stupid and sad for poor Hannah, who wasn’t as lucky as I was.

  Melody, George and I were hanging out in my bedroom. After I passed out I made Mum tell my friends and Mabel I’d simply fainted due to low blood pressure. I also made her lie and say that I wasn’t allowed visitors in the hospital. And Oliver? Well, he thought I was at home in bed with the flu.

  ‘So what really happened?’ Melody asked. ‘Nobody spends two days in hospital because their blood pressure was a little bit low.’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ I said, thinking I would make up a convincing story about blood sugar issues. But then I looked at George and Melody, the way they were watching me in anticipation, their brown eyes filled with concern. And I told them everything.

  I could feel them staring at me as I spoke.

  ‘Oh, Winter,’ Melody said, ‘I feel terrible.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We knew something wasn’t right,’ George said. ‘We should have done something.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, I didn’t want you to know. I got pretty good at covering things up. There’s nothing you could have done. Look how pissed off I got during movie night.’

  ‘You’re not going to keep taking them, are you?’ Melody asked. ‘Please don’t. Everything is going so great for you. Lisa loved her jumpsuit, Oliver made you that tape …’

  ‘Does Oliver know?’ George asked.

  ‘No way! I’m so embarrassed.’

  We sat in silence.

  ‘I keep forgetting to ask,’ I said, deliberately changing the subject. ‘How did you go at the modelling agency?’

  ‘Oh God.’ Melody sighed dramatically. ‘I went to see that Jane woman and she said I need to get professional pictures done. And that I need to lose five kilos.’

  ‘Can you believe it?’ George sounded flabbergasted. ‘How messed up is that? She’s already skinny!’

  Again, I’m not proud about this, but a part of me felt relieved. If even beautiful, perfect Melody isn’t good enough in the eyes of modelling agents, then who is?

  ‘What did you say?’ I asked.

  ‘I said I’m not interested. I want to be a doctor, not a model. And the last thing I need is to go on some crazy diet that makes me obsessive and unable to concentrate. No offence.’

  ‘Totally,’ I agreed. ‘That’s bullshit.’

  Chapter 34: Guess What?

  My Kid’s in Hospital ’cos of

  a Bout of Laxative Abuse

  The other thing that happened when I got out of hospital was that my parents now had a new topic to fight about. Me. Or rather, who stuffed me up more – my aging, body-obsessed hipster mother or my absent, workaholic dad? It was an argument nobody would ever win.

  ‘How long has this been going on?’ Dad was asking Mum, accusingly, as I listened in to the fight they were having in the kitchen, thinking I was asleep.

  ‘I don’t know. She’s been doing all that healthy eating. I thought she was just looking after herself.’

  ‘You would think that!’ Dad sounded pretty angry.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means that you are always going on about your weight and now our daughter is suffering.’

  ‘How would you even know that? You’re never here.’

  ‘Don’t you dare.’ Dad was definitely mad now. ‘I work so we can have all of this.’

  ‘Bullshit. That’s what you tell yourself to justify the fact that you are a workaholic who would rather be in the office than here with us.’

  It was the same old blame game but this time, I understood. It’s not something you’d brag about to your friends and colleagues. ‘Hey, guess what? My kid’s in hospital ’cos of a bout of laxative abuse. Gave herself the shits real good’.

  So of course, Mum and Dad did what any middle-class parent would do in their situation. They shipped me off to see a shrink, whom they referred to as an ‘eating disorder specialist’.

  I liked Rosie right away. She was in her fifties, with shoulder-length silver hair and red lipstick. She wasn’t fat or skinny and wore big, statement necklaces and flowy smock dresses that looked bohemian and comfortable. She spoke softly and clearly and seemed the kind of person who managed to remain sensible and measured at all times. I liked her office. She burned essential oils and used l
amps to light up the room.

  Rosie already knew the basics about why I’d come to see her, but she wanted me to tell her in my own words. So I told her about my dieting and laxatives and she acted all sympathetic and kind. It wasn’t until I said, ‘I don’t think it’s that big a deal. I mean, Mum said most girls go through a phase where they throw up or starve themselves or whatever. She says it’s a normal part of growing up as a woman,’ that Rosie visibly recoiled and looked kind of horrified. But only for a second. Her professional therapist face soon returned, as she regained her composure.

  ‘She may be trying to offer comfort,’ Rosie firmly stated, ‘and it’s lovely that you are trying to understand where your mum is coming from. But Winter, it is not normal or healthy to take laxatives or throw up to try and lose weight. Your mum is not my patient and I don’t know her, but it sounds to me like she has her own issues with food and weight and she has, probably unintentionally, modelled an unhealthy attitude towards food.’

  ‘She’s really skinny,’ I replied.

  ‘Why is that so important to you? Do you think being skinny is the path to happiness?’

  ‘Well,’ I considered. ‘No. Yes. Maybe. I mean, I have a boyfriend now and a job and I sold an outfit to my first client. I know I’m not skinny–’

  ‘Winter,’ Rosie interrupted me. ‘I think it’s very important that I stop you there. Those things you just described happened in spite of your eating disorder, not because of it.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I have an eating disorder …’

  ‘You have an unhealthy relationship with food that landed you in hospital.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Call it whatever you want, but I can tell you this. Success and your happiness come from inside. They are not weight related.’

  ‘I suppose,’ I mumbled, not entirely sure that I believed her.

  ‘Recovery is never an easy process,’ Rosie continued. ‘Especially when it comes to body image and food issues. We are bombarded every day with images of how the female body is supposed to look and many of these images are unrealistic or downright fake. It’s a sad fact that most of us need to fight against ridiculous standards of beauty in order to feel positive about ourselves. A lot of women find it helpful to avoid mainstream media as much as they can, especially in the early stages.’