The urge to throw up is always there. The same way the depression is always there. But my struggles do not equal weakness. I’m pretty strong and will remain strong. I’m smart enough to get help when I start to lose myself to my emotions.
But there’s no ending. Food is not a habit that I could ever kick. If I was addicted to heroin, I could go to rehab. Maybe wean off it with methadone or Jesus Christ. But it’s food. I can’t stop eating food. I need it to survive. I guess you can make the same argument for heroin, but still: I’ll never be able to stop eating cold turkey (yum), which means that I’ll never not struggle with my weight, and I’ll never not grapple with the notion that I could just go throw up after I eat. Food’s just going to keep on being delicious. As long as I have emotions, it’ll be my first instinct to change them with banana pudding or macaroni and cheese. (And as long as there is Twitter, I will have emotions yo.) I’m struggling to find the healthy balance between food, feelings, and actual hunger while people on social-media sites continue to make fun of me. Meh. Fuck ’em. I’m prettier than they are anyway.
12
Twelve Sixty-six
Hello?
—Becky
WHEN I GRADUATED from my six months of dialectical behavioral therapy, I was twenty-one years old and completely unemployable. I started seeing a therapist once a week, but besides that, there was nothing else to fill my time. I’d been in about five different psych classes prior to and during my depression. So I was hella expert at therapy! (I use the term expert loosely!) I couldn’t go back to City College because my grades had taken a nosedive during my depression. My GPA was so low that I wasn’t allowed to register for any classes unless I had a meeting with the dean to explain what happened. Convincing the dean that I was worthy of a second chance was the only way I was going to be allowed to continue my education at my dream school (it had taken me a year and a half at Borough of Manhattan Community College to earn a place at City). I ended up telling him that I had become sick with a brain disease. I meant to say “depression” but it came out “brain disease.” I immediately regretted it, because I felt as if I were misleading him into thinking I had a tumor or brain cancer. But I was more comfortable with him assuming either of those things than I was with saying, “Um . . . I don’t know. I just got sad for a while.” The dean seemed to know what I meant anyway. He asked if I was okay now. I told him that I was and that I was excited finally to get back to working on becoming a college graduate. He signed the paperwork I needed to re-enroll. Relieved, I left his office and went to register for class. When I got to the registrar’s office, I was made aware of the fact that I had lost my financial aid. I couldn’t use my mother’s low income anymore to qualify, and the bill for my classes was . . . I don’t remember. It was years ago. I just know it was more than what I had, which was nothing. The woman helping me could see the terror on my face. She took pity on me and advised me to wait until I was twenty-four to go back to school. She said that then I could use my own tax statement to apply for financial aid. At the age of twenty-four, I’d be considered an adult financially. I asked if I should consider a student loan, and she said, “No. I advise you to get a job and wait.” For three years? Adulthood felt forever away. After all the work I’d done in therapy to grow as an adult, it felt like I was right back to being a nine-year-old kid again. Pissed off and ready to be grown.
I searched for a job for weeks. Months. But since I had very little work experience, no offers came my way. To be fair, I was completely unqualified for most jobs that didn’t involve flipping burgers. All I had under my work-experience belt was an unsuccessful one-day stint selling knives during my freshman year of college. Not just any knives! Cutco knives! The World’s Finest Cutlery (according to Cutco). You may know them as the knife set not sold in stores (for some reason) that features a pair of scissors sharp enough to cut a penny in half. My first sales call was to Crystal’s mother, and I had a panic attack while trying to cut the penny and couldn’t stop crying. I knew this wouldn’t count as job experience at places like Forever 21, and it didn’t, but I had also tutored an eight-year-old girl named Kaitey for about two years. She could barely read when I first started working with her, but her mom just tweeted me that Kaitey recently graduated in the top of her class from nursing school! Am I a wonderful person for teaching a child to read? Obviously! I’m basically Jesus. But does that make me employable? Apparently not.
I asked my therapist what she thought I should do. Therapists never really tell you what you should do. They ask you what you think you should do. If they know the correct answer, they hold it close to their vests as if they were in a poker match in a way that lets you know, “I’m here to listen, but you will be fucking up your life on your own, kiddo.” My therapist told me that I was smart and that she knew I’d make the right decision for myself and to be patient and not think of myself as a loser. To be fair, I was twenty-one years old, lived at home in a crowded two-bedroom apartment, couldn’t afford to go to school, and couldn’t get a job. Plus, I had a six-month gap in my life spent learning to not solve my problems by sticking my fingers down my throat, an educational and workplace hiatus not easy to explain to prospective employers. Was she sure I wasn’t a loser? She said she was, and she suggested I get a job as a hostess or waitress. She asked if I had computer skills and suggested I try telemarketing. I knew that jobs hosting and waiting was a market cornered by actors and models, but telemarketing felt like something I could probably do. I was great over the phone. I had a pleasant speaking voice that didn’t at all match what I look like in person. I thought a job over the phone would probably be ideal until I remembered my failure to sell anything to people without crying.
Listen, I could lie to you and say that I happened upon phone sex by accident while looking for telemarketing jobs, but who would that fool? We’re friends now! You know me! As soon as my therapist suggested “telemarketing,” I heard “phone sex.” Must be my brain disease.