Altered Image - 1st Installment

While the twins and their older sister, Jamie, play in the backyard, their antics visible to me from the kitchen window over the sink, their happy noises clearly audible to this babysitter's mindful ear, I spoon flour into a bowl, measure baking powder and salt over the flour, and quickly stir in the milk and oil needed to make a batch of homemade biscuits.

In the fifteen minutes the pan of biscuits take to bake to golden layers of steamy perfection, I line up a jar of jam and a tub of butter on the counter by the sink where I have full view of my young charges from my inside vantage point. I fill a tall glass with water once, drink it, and fill it again, adding it to my line-up. When the timer beeps, I remove twelve perfect pillows of oven-fresh goodness and place them near their edible accessories.

I told myself, earlier, as my hands deftly rolled the quick dough into a flattened half-inch circle and cut four-inch rounds for the baking sheet, that these biscuits were for everyone. I often prepared meals and snacks as part of my live-in sitter duties for this kind and generous family. But now, as I pick up the first one and split it, my eyes jumping from my hands to the girls outside, I know at a gut level they have all been destined for a more singular fate.

Biscuits one, two, and even three, I thoroughly enjoy, oozing as they are with melted butter and sweet strawberry preserves. I chew them well, savoring their lightness and pleased with my mastering of their preparation. Mom taught me well; I was an apt pupil when it came to things kitchen and food. By the fourth biscuit, however, flavor has vanished, replaced by the now addictive need for texture, swallowing, and a full mouth. My mind overcomes my taste buds and orders me forward, urging me to stop counting and just gorge.

By the end of this session, with only an empty baking sheet as a witness to my feeding frenzy, I am a bit frantic. The careful strategies of my original subconscious plans are shot to hell. I neglected to drink water in between biscuits. I did not fully chew each and every biscuit. I wolfed them down, quite literally resembling every ravenous dog I had ever owned as it engaged the supper feeding dish, only I was not ravenous or hungry. I have devolved into my most base human collection of impulses and compulsions. On the inside, the suppressed and depressed girl is crying, huddled in a corner, bleeding out her shame and disappointment, wanting to take it all back, needing relief.

Pulling my hair back from my face with my left hand, my eyes again moving between my private hell and the scene of domestic life on the swing set and lawn beyond the kitchen window, I shove my right index finger down my throat. I feel my epiglottis, its pliable stub familiar from previous visits, and push hard, knowing my gag reflex is tough to stimulate and even tougher to maintain for a successful clearance. Several attempts come and go before the gorge rises thickly from my belly and emerges via my esophagus and into my mouth. I taste the jam, still a red swirl in the vague tubular mass I can now see moving past my lips. My face is red; my forehead beaded in sweat; and, my eyes are watering with the effort it is taking to vomit as I continually convulse in the throes of an ongoing gag.

I realize something is wrong. Unlike moist apples and Captain Crunch with milk, this dry bready mass has stopped moving. My throat is blocked. I find that I can't breathe. I can't force my stomach's contents to either fully clear out or fully return from whence it came. The sad irony of the situation does not escape me as my thoughts run freely. I think I may die here, and this does not bother me nearly as much as one might think, but the thought that the kids may come in and find me thus, with a grotesque mass of barely-chewed food snaking its way from my open maw to the drain below, horrifies me.

I redouble my actions, exerting pressure by pushing my mid-chest hard against the edge of the sink, a pseudo-Heimlich maneuver of sorts. Eventually, I clear the obstruction and free my breathing. I rinse my hands, rubbing them over and over and over. I am crying and feeling very fortunate and very stupid. And, even amidst the realization of what I managed to dodge, I bemoan the fact that I am both a failed bulimic and an unsuccessful anorexic. It is the summer of 1988. I am a new high school graduate. I have been battling food and self-images problems for over nine years now.

I will quit throwing up after gorging. Soon, I will also cease to gorge in the form of entire boxes of Wheat Thins and cream cheese, chased with chocolate milk or juice, sometimes followed by a huge bowl of cereal. I will also turn down a full-ride scholarship to UC Santa Cruz and move by the end of the summer to Colorado, unaware that my future awaits me there.

I will not cease to perpetuate this cycle of control and lack-of-control. I will not cease to hate myself for my weakness.

And, I will not cease to become more self-aware. I will fight this demon . . . unceasingly.

(To be continued . . . )