Nothing Serious

"If it's nothing serious, why are you here?" The nurse leaned toward me in her chair and spoke carefully, the kindness in her eyes mixed with concern and maybe a little pity.

I felt ridiculous as I sat before her in the campus after-hours clinic with a cotton ball stuffed up my nose, my own eyes bloodshot and brimming with tears. When she had called me into her office from the waiting room, I hadn't had an explanation ready. So I had just started talking.

I told her how earlier that night I had been in the bathroom vomiting up strawberry shortcake. I hadn't wanted to eat it in the first place – like most fruit, strawberries always tasted disgusting coming back up – but it was my roommate Jane's birthday so I felt obliged to have a slice. The day before, Jane had come home from class while I was throwing up lunch and surprised me outside the bathroom. She hadn't confronted me, just asked if I was feeling okay. I had given her some excuse about bad shellfish, but to be honest, I had gotten a little thrill from almost getting caught.

I told the nurse the same thing I had been telling myself for months: That the whole reason I had been throwing up almost everything I ate was to make my life feel interesting. That it satisfied some immature desire to seem mysterious to friends who might vaguely suspect something was going on with me. I was putting my body through all this because in a warped way, having a tragic secret felt almost glamorous. So it wasn't like I actually had an eating disorder. People with eating disorders were mentally ill. I was just being dramatic. I could stop any time I wanted to.

But just to be safe, this time I had waited until Jane was in bed before I crept into the bathroom, turned on the shower to mask the sounds, and heaved over the toilet. Nothing came up. Frustrated, I heaved again. Suddenly I felt something go pop behind my face, right between my eyes. A drop of blood fell into the toilet bowl. It was followed by another drop. Then another. I stood up slowly and turned to look in the mirror. The face staring back at me was swollen and blotchy with terrified, bloodshot eyes and a red, sticky trail dribbling from one nostril. It was ugly. It was not the face of a person who was just playing at bulimia in order to feel glamorous.

"Anyway, I figure I probably just popped a blood vessel because of the pressure behind my face or something." I glanced up at the nurse, afraid of how she might be looking at me. "It's nothing serious."

She responded with the question that forced me to confront reality and, finally, start the process of recovery: "If it's nothing serious, why are you here?"

I realized that I knew the answer. "Because." I took a deep breath. "I think I have an eating disorder. I need help."