As I watched To The Bone last night from Netflix, I couldn’t help but feel it was just yet another movie showing a poor example of eating disorders. Yes, there were moments where I was like YES THANK YOU! but overall, it was a poor description of treatment, how inpatient truly is like, doctors, etc are. It did show a small amount of the turmoil among the clients but it could have showed more about the constant battle of what goes on for an eating disordered patient. The every minute battle that is going on in the mind. I did like that they touched on binge eating disorder, bulimia, and anorexia but once again, was primarily focused on the anorexic.
The only part that seriously struck me was when the pregnant anorexic had finally hit 12 weeks into her pregnancy, she was “in the clear”. One of the next scenes shows her screaming from the bathroom and a bloody mess as she had miscarried. I was right at 12 weeks gestation when I lost my first pregnancy and I will never forget the fears that I had swarming in my head on a daily basis praying that I could just not fuck up this ONE thing on my body. When I saw my baby’s heartbeat, 10 fingers, 10 toes, full head, body, face…. on that sonogram at just under 10 weeks I just knew that he/she was going to be okay. I was going to be okay. For the first time in 5 years I had a true reason to not starve myself or make myself vomit until I tasted stomach acid after every fucking thing I ate. So when I lost that child just two weeks later, I was done. Not only did I go through the labor alone on my couch crying myself to sleep for 2 days over the weekend while the hospital “could do nothing for me”, I knew that was my last chance for a reason to live.
You see, what most do not know about that stage of my life is just how dark it was. Summer 2009 was the lowest part of my depression I had ever hit possibly in my life. I was suicidal. Not passively. I had a plan. I had a note written. I was done. I was ready. I literally could not handle the pain any more. The only thing that kept me from executing my plan at that point in time was the fact that I did not want my roommate to be the one to find me dead nor had the heart to allow my parents to have to pick up the last of my pieces. I would rather have seen myself suffer than known that my parents and others were going to have to suffer on my behalf.
As Summer crept into Fall, that is when I had gotten pregnant. While it was not at all planned, the moment I found out I was pregnant I stopped cutting, restricting heavily, and binging/purging. I had a few slips of purging here and there but still to this day, my last time to cut was about November 2009, so I believe it was when I got with Rodney. Between mid November and February 1st, I probably purged less than a dozen times which is a huge deal considering I was purging daily.
January 31, 2010 I started cramping severely and bleeding heavily. I knew what was happening. We had a decent ice storm but I was only 4 blocks from the hospital. I called Rodney and he met me there. While there, they check me where I am diagnosed to be a “threatened miscarriage” as my cervix was still closed. Supposedly they didn’t have an ultrasound machine so they couldn’t check, nor would take me up to L&D to get checked for a heartbeat. So I went home without fully knowing. That night, I went through full labor with contractions as my body was naturally trying to deliver or “expel” my baby which was not viable. Even though I knew what was happening, I still refused to use any medication or heating pads in case the baby was still okay.
The following day, February 1st which also was my 3rd sobriety birthday, I went into my doctor where he confirmed that my baby passed. My cervix had opened and the baby was delivering. To prevent me from needing surgery, he helped deliver the fetus where I had to come to terms with the fact that I was no longer going to be a mother.
The purpose that I had found to keep on living? It was just left behind at the doctors office. I was useless once again. I no longer found a point in going on. As I walked into my session with my therapist, she took one look at me and stated, “do NOT shut down on me”. She knew what was going to happen and at that point it was more than just one person concerned as to what the end result would be.
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