Cassandra Grodd: my bulimia recovery and relapse
I am positioned at the end of my bed, staring at yesterday's socks and a vision board I made with a piece of cardboard from The Warehouse Stationary. An open notebook sits to my left. At the top of the page are the words "Unguided Meditation Notes" written in terrible handwriting – the closest translation to this being "my idea of hell".
There is something about sitting in complete silence and going within that has never come overly accessible to me, even as a self-help junkie that has tried it all, from energy healing, womb cleansing, and oracle cards to psychics for some reason sitting alone and waiting for the 10-minute gong to sound just seems all too much.
"Begin" I press the timer. Then, closing my eyes, I shift my weight on the floor as my to-do list immediately surfaces, washing, writing this article, and content I need to film. "Cut it out," I say to myself "think nothing." Eventually, a dull pain starts to centre in my lower stomach, and I instinctively move my hand over it; in the middle of some form of forced and natural silence, a voice speaks to me.
"I'm sorry."
The words landed like raindrops on a roof late at night. It was coming from deep within, from some crevasse of my physical being that had never been allowed to speak and was now standing on stage. Yesterday's choices rolled over me in a tidal wave of grief – a burger, two pizza slices, and Nutella from the jar. My body was apologizing to me for having enjoyed those foods, eaten them, and subsequently gained 700 grams this morning. I weigh myself in the same way you brush your teeth each morning – it's a non-negotiable.
If my body was apologizing to me, that meant one thing, it believed it was in trouble.
"I made myself sick," I hesitate before I push send on Facebook messenger to one of my nearest and dearest. My fingers swiftly follow. "We don't need to have a conversation about it… I promised myself I'd tell someone about it if I ever did it again." If there is one thing I know after struggling with Bulimia for the last decade, its power is in its secrecy. The fewer people know, the more I do it. I'm a Spy Kid, constantly updating my machinery and equipment, scaling the walls, and breaking into my hidden layer. My eating disorder is to my mind what the Incredibles are to Disney – adaptable, successful, and never destroyed.
Most people tell stories of heartbreak regarding romance, like a boy that never texted them back or their boyfriend of three years caught liking girls' photos. Yet, my heart has shattered right in front of me, in the look in the eyes of the people I love more than anything confronting me about the fact they know that I torture myself.
Such as my flatmate in London sitting me down and saying, "I heard you throwing up from my bedroom," or my best friend Lauren looking at me anxiously the following day after I had drank too much and had been sick the night before "that wasn't intentional, was it?". I'll never forget how grey the concrete was as my mum drove us to the gym. "I know you run the shower, so I don't hear you. Dad knows too".
Imagine living your life knowing that by destroying yourself, you have destroyed every fantastic human being you have had the privilege of being loved by.
I wish I could tell you why. But, after two years of weekly therapy, reading more self-help books than I have had hot dinners, listening to podcasts on tap until Oprah Winfrey's words are being etched on the inside of my skull, and daily meditations, I still cannot give you a reason. Of course, it can be connected to a cocktail of inner child wounds, trauma, perfectionism, and the need to control something; maybe it's for the boys that touched me without my permission as a young teenager, perhaps it's for the moments where I didn't get the thing I most wanted like the lead in the school production or perhaps it's just because for some reason I was born with two voices inside me.
It's exhausting. It's exhausting to have a twin you never asked for and to work to quieten that voice 24/7. Sometimes I get to the end of the day and drag myself up my stairs, hardly able to function or speak to the girls I live with, "what's up?" one of them may call "busy day," I reply as I shut my door falling into a tornado of thoughts.
Every day I wake up in a room with a monster in the corner. For a long time, I truly believed that healing meant eventually, the monster wasn't going to be there, but as a solid member of the road to recovery, I can now tell you healing doesn't mean an empty room. Instead, it means that each day when you wake up and see the monster, you have the tools to say to it that you know it is there but that it is not allowed to touch anything. It is not allowed to call the shots or drive the car. Recovery is about negotiation, agreeing, and radical acceptance of yourself.
We have conversations, my monster and I. Sometimes it screams at me; sometimes, it is asleep; sometimes, it is quiet; sometimes, it starts to pick apart something like my skin or hair. I'll tell you the worst part about my monster: it isn't a monster at all. She's a friend. She's my best friend, and as hard as this is for me to admit, there is a part of me that never wants to let her go.
The thing about self-harm is that you forget that it doesn't hurt. Well, of course, it can be physically painful. My throat has ached so severely in the past that I've had to go to the emergency room at 3 am, and I also permanently struggle with gastritis after burning my stomach lining off. However, in that moment of being triggered and purging over a toilet bowl, I feel nothing but peace. It is one of the only times I feel completely at ease like I have solved the problem.
Recovery is learning that there are other ways to solve things.
My therapist peers at me through well-groomed eyebrows "and how come you felt ok to eat a cookie yesterday, but you couldn't eat one today?" "Well…" my brain feels naked as if someone is holding it accountable to its shit. "Well, yesterday I was getting my period, so it was justified like I had a reason I wanted it; today, there isn't a reason I could have it. It's just a bad day," He sighed and held my gaze with laser focus, "but today is a good day for a cookie."
Relapsing feels like I have just woken up in a dream, and I am scuba diving. I can see the instructor beckoning me to go deeper. My goggles are fogging up, and I drop lower and lower. My oxygen gage is flickering and slowly decreasing, and I lose my ability to breathe. It feels like waking up on a surfboard in a barrel without knowing how to surf. It feels like mid-flight in the pilot's helicopter seat with no training. It feels like standing at the altar with someone you never wanted to marry right after saying I do.
It feels powerless.
I am slowly learning more about the bars my mind keeps me behind. Like that, this jail is self-imposed, and I can walk free at any time. I've realised that there is a genuine relationship between my body and my mind, they are not the same thing, and they haven't been on the same page for a long time.
My body is always speaking to me. It's saying that it feels like a treat, or that it has the energy to move, or that it's tired and wants to sleep, and the more I override that with my thoughts and force myself to do something, the more my body rebels. When I do the maths, my body has done everything I've ever asked of it. It has run, lifted heavier weights, it has lost weight rapidly before functions, it has eaten the food I've given it, has performed, has made love, and I have done nothing but abuse this nonstop service. Forcing it to over-exercise, purge, binge, and starve.
It is a warm day.
My face is glowing under the light, and each step sounds like a festival as my car keys hit my drink bottle. The café is bustling as usual, sunbeams streaming in and hitting the counter. Each person there feels like they are their main character, one boy has headphones in, furiously typing out a university assignment, two mums gossip while rocking their newborns back and forth, and an older lady in a pencil skirt is asking for her coffee to be remade with different milk and a couple on their third date laugh nervously. "What will it be today, Cass?" I look up and smile. "A long black… and a cookie," she instantly responds with a smile and a nod "oooh, a good choice, they are fresh today!" she selects the biggest one, third from the top, and places it on a white plate with a napkin.
Taking the first bite felt like when my mum would pile fresh laundry from the dryer on top of me as a child. Chocolate melts down my chin, and I chew each bite more longingly than the last. My empty plate greets me with a wave, and my monster waves back, but for the first time, I don't notice a thing. My heart isn't racing, nor are my palms getting clammy; there is no guilt washing over me or anxiety. Instead, the crumbs dance around the table like a nutcracker, they are singing for me, and I giggle at them.
I put my hands on my lower stomach, "I'm sorry," I say to my body. "I'm sorry this has taken so long."
There is nothing but silence and café chatter. It is almost as if I am silently sitting beside my bed and waiting for the gong.
Finally, I hear her reply from a piece of my broken heart that has just glued itself back together.
"I forgive you," She replies.
"I will always forgive you."
Words — Cassandra Grodd
