A Typical Day in Hell
It is 4:30 in the morning. My body is hunched over the toilet, a position it is quite familiar with. I have been eating and throwing up for about eight hours straight. I taste the salty tang of the blood that is gushing out of my nose and throat. Just exactly where it is coming from, I am not quite sure. But I don’t care. I care about nothing other than getting the last of those god damned cookies out of this body. When will the bleeding slow down so I can get this over with? If I wait too long it will be too late. Fuck it. I’ll just handle the blood. I have to get this filth out of my body.
My hand automatically reaches for the toothbrush. I don’t need to think about what I am about to do. I don’t want too. I have done it enough times now that my body knows just what to do. My mind can be somewhere else. And it is.
I watch my hand grab the end of the tooth brush. I watch the handle being shoved into the back of my throat. I watch my body as it jerks and heaves, getting ready for what is about to come. Blood is now pouring down my nose and out of my mouth even worse than before. I don’t care. I want to get it out. Get it out. Get it out and it will feel better. With one last stroke of the toothbrush I watch myself retch with such force that a mixture of vomit, blood, and toilet water are sprayed back into my face and my mouth and my hair. I don’t care. I am in bliss. I am high. I feel nothing. I see nothing. I hear nothing. I am nothing. I think of nothing other than the intense sensation of badness being catapulted out of my body. Of the pressure in my gut being relieved. Of violent heaving and how good it feels to let it all out. What a rush. I am high. I am indifferent. My heart is racing and my face is covered with vomit and blood and toilet water. I don’t care. I am high. I am indifferent. I am dying.
I lay my head on the side of the bathtub. The toilet and floor are splattered with the same cocktail of blood, water, and vomit that adorns my face. I remember the mess in my living room and I smile. That’s all I can do. Smile. I am beyond crying. I can’t cry. I haven’t been able to cry for a number of months now. I think about what a mess I am and I think about what a mess I have made of my life. I laugh. I am sitting on my bathroom floor, covered in blood, water, and vomit and I laugh. It feels good. Since I can’t cry, I will laugh.
I am exhausted. I have nothing left. No energy. No emotion. No concern. I see nothing. I feel nothing. I am nothing. Now I can stop. Now I can go to bed.
When I open my eyes it feels late. It must be sometime in the afternoon. I glance at my alarm clock and my hunch is confirmed; 1:26 PM. For a slight moment, I wonder why I have such a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. And then I remember last night. I remember the insanity of it all. I remember driving around from store to store so that no one would wonder about all of the junk food I was buying. I remember going 90 on the freeway with Ice cream in one hand and a spoon in the other, steering with my knee. I remember pulling off on the side of a dark lonely road to vomit. I remember the excitement, the exhilaration, the loneliness, and the Panic.
I feel like shit. My mouth and my throat are raw from throwing up. My head is pounding and my body aches from the constant retching. I am still tired. I feel as though I could sleep for another ten hours. But I know it would only make me feel worse to sleep the rest of the day away. Slowly, mechanically, I make my way to the bathroom.
Although I already know of the mess that awaits me, seeing it in the daylight still provides me with somewhat of a shock. It always does. I automatically reach for my bottle of 409 and begin spraying every surface in sight. I am numb. There is something surreal about this “cleaning up the morning after” ritual. It is almost as if I am cleaning up the remains of someone else. Someone I hate. Someone who confuses and manipulates me and everyone else she comes in contact with. Someone I never want to see again. As I wad up a few sheets of paper towel, I begin creating a “game plan” in my mind. My plan consists of strategies to avoid having to face this person again. I decide that I will eat dinner at my mom’s house from now on. I will keep no food in my house. I will stick to a meal plan that I won’t feel guilty about. I will think of other stress-relieving things to do besides binge and purge. Suddenly I feel a new sense of hope.
In the back of my mind, however, I know this strategizing is simply part of my sick game. I do it every morning after a binge. I tell myself that my ideas will work. I tell myself that “this time I am really going to stick to it.” I tell myself that it can be done. Later, usually that same day, I prove myself wrong. This is the cycle. The game. The self mutilation that I loath, yet can’t seem to live without.
