Patient Numero Double Zero
My head is filled with numbers and there is little room left for anything else. Some of these numbers exist on spreadsheets; some exist on scraps of paper strewn about my apartment; some exist solely in my cerebrum. Most of these numbers are worrisome. Some of these numbers aren’t yet worrisome but, given my calculations, could become so.
There is the ever-increasing number of people in my county who have a deadly, communicable disease; the number of days that have transpired since my unemployment claim was updated; the number of dollars I could get for some under-read book I own on eBay; the numbers I dial repeatedly in order to sit through Iliad-length pre-recorded messages until my call is unceremoniously disconnected (“We are currently receiving more calls than we can answer and are unable to assist you at this time. Please try again later”). And then, there is the most vexing number of all — the number of pounds I have gained since I stopped habitually going to the gym.
Those other numbers I cannot control, but this number I theoretically can, which makes this particular number all the more unnerving. Or at least I could control it, given normal circumstances, but we are no longer living under normal circumstances. My brain, which has been quite malleable and forgiving when it comes to other subjects, up to and including the death of my social life and unpaid second profession, inability to travel and lack of job prospects, won’t concede these “unprecedented times” as they relate to their effects on my physical form. And so this number vexes me. My vexation with this number is rivaled only by the vexation I feel knowing I still allow it to vex me.
When I say that I have gained weight, I mean to say that, in the past nine months, my BMI has increased from “underweight” to “healthy” which, given my history with this particular number, is unacceptable. By admitting this I feel, of course, like a vain, stupid bitch. I have already tired of talking about the subject and I have only just begun talking about it. I don’t even particularly like being thin. It makes me more vulnerable, it makes my extremities cold, it makes my tits small. And culturally, thankfully, the tide is turning against it. The messages, while patronizing, are everywhere: Body positivity! Fuck the patriarchy! Pizza is bae! I am not pretending as though my vexation comes from a place of pragmatism. My personhood is not predicated on my thinness. I am a member of the Screen Actors Guild, yes, but I do not book. It is beyond image.
If you’ve never had an eating disorder and someone who has had one tells you disordered eating is, more than anything, about control, believe them. (Side note: If you’ve never been raped and someone who has been raped tells you the act of rape is, more than anything, about power, believe them. People who have actually experienced these things might have more of a functional knowledge of them than you.)
And now, some context: When they went low, I weighed less. Faced with adversity, my go-to solution was to always alter my physical form in order to materially express to those closest to me how miserable I was internally. Stuck in an abusive relationship? Maybe becoming addicted to laxatives will help! It didn’t, of course, but at least I felt as though I were doing something. The more ribs showed, the more agency I had.
I remember what I was wearing when I met my future ex-husband’s grandmother for the first time — one of those garish snap-buttoned cowboy shirts that was ubiquitous in the early ‘00s (Blame Madonna), size double zero jeans, my brittle, thinning hair in plats. I was living with said ex-husband in a Sydney, Australia studio apartment small enough that you could touch the oven while sitting on the toilet, spending my nights alone sobbing on a park bench listening to Fiona Apple’s “When the Pawn…” after storming out in the middle of an argument. I was trapped in a country I did not want to be in, living a life I did not want to live but was too weak to fix.
“There’s not a lot of her, is there?” his nana remarked. Her validation of the perversity of my appearance made my pride swell. A choir of anorexic angels started singing; Karen Carpenter cheerfully provided the back beat to their joyful noise. The secret was working. Not only did it work then, it continued to work for years afterward. My weight would ebb and flow. When happy, the number would be irrelevant, when miserable, it would become the bane of my existence. The last time I let it get to me, I was desperately, clinically depressed, hence the aforementioned habitual gym sessions and the impotent hope that they would increase my depleted serotonin levels. I’ve since gone on SSRIs; I am, generally speaking, vastly less miserable, a blessing which theoretically should have controlled the situation. Emphasis on theoretically.
I wouldn’t say I’ve always struggled with my weight more than I’ve resented it, oftentimes into submission depending on the dismalness of my mental state. But hey, you’ve got to be mad at something, right? This is all well and good when there are a finite amount of things to be mad at, childish things like college exams and your parents’ inability to parent. But now the number of things in which it is not only possible to be mad at, but valid to be mad at, has reached critical mass. Why, then, am I still mad at myself? The answer, as always, is control, or the lack thereof. Because it helps me feel helpless.
I do, in fact, feel helpless. I don’t know if I will see my grandparents again before they die. I do know, however, that Jon’s Supermarket sells cheese cubes in the deli section at a very reasonable price point. I also know that, given the current parameters of existence, if I possess the ability to taste, I am lucky. It would be downright rude, then, to not exercise (ahem) said ability. So what’s the fucking problem? Why can I not turn off the voice in my head telling me physical normalcy is acceptable?
While I cannot, for the foreseeable future, patronize the gym, I own an exercise bike and a rowing machine, both of which I acquired for free. Sometimes I will force myself on them, pedal and pull, but the idea of a stranger at the corner store seeing my sickness doesn’t have the same impact as someone I see on a daily basis so I often abstain. When everyone is miserable, what does it matter how much you, personally, appear as such? And what does it matter if no one you love can see it, as no one you love can see you?
The thrill is gone but the desire for emptiness remains. I can’t control it. But the normal methods of control no longer work anymore.
So fuck it. Throw another number on the pile.