The Weight of Enough

Chapter 1

"So why are you here?"

I glanced with some surprise at the greying psychologist seated opposite me at the table. He, in return, looked bored. I'm sure he saw dozens of people like me every day... the depressed anorexics who were shipped off here to regain what weight and dignity they could in the optimistically bright painted psych ward. "Aren't you supposed to tell me that?" I asked, with a dull laugh.

"You probably feel like you're fat..." he prompted. Man, this guy wasn't gonna give up. Did he want my whole ridiculous life story in one go or was he just hoping for a synopsis? What did I even have to tell him? What was a valid excuse for why I was sitting here at 89 lbs and dropping instead of sitting in college classes or going to work like a normal person?

"Sure, yeah. I definitely feel fat." I replied. What else do you say? Would he just send me home if I admitted that I knew I was the weight I had been in middle school?

"Do you self harm?" He asked, writing something down on his yellow legal notepad. Probably 

"fraud. Needs to be sent home immediately. Waste of time."

"Um... no?" Great. Invalidated again. I suppose real anorexics showed up here with bandaged arms and tragic faces. I couldn't, because I was a dancer and leotards were unforgiving with showing scars. No one wanted a marked up girl on stage. Oh, maybe he'd care about that?

"I'm a ballet dancer. I just... you know... my teachers said a lot of stuff about my body." I offered.

Yup, that seemed to excite him.

"Ah, so you were a ballerina? Was there a lot of pressure on you in the dance world? Was this your chosen profession?" More scribbled notes on his legal pad. Had he even asked the clinical case worker about me? I'd already gone over most of this stuff with her.

"I do ballet, yeah. No, it's not really my job. I just do it on the side. I've done it for 12 years or so. I was at a really bad studio this time though. I've left. Didn't really want to stay." I rambled, not really sure what to say. How do you explain the years of torment and staring at yourself in a mirror... the disapproving slaps on body parts that couldn't be "tucked" enough... the humiliation of costume fitting day when the ladies evaluated if they needed to add or remove sizing hooks to your costume... it was so much and yet so little of my whole story at the same time.

There was a lady standing outside the door to this room, I could see her through the large glass window that occupied much of the wall with the door. I felt like a specimen in a tank, sitting in here waiting for various people to come pepper me with questions about my existence and assure me they were here to help and all that nonsense. She looked harried, like she had too many places to be and not enough time in the world to finish everything on her list. The psychologist looked up and saw her too.

"Ah, that's Bonnie, your dietician. I'll finish up here. We'll meet again in two days. Nice to meet you." He offered a dry and cold hand to shake my bony freezing one. What had we even decided? Why was I here?

"Bonnie" bustled into the room. I raised an eyebrow.... Sure this plump woman was my dietician. How in the world could she tell me what to eat if she clearly couldn't control what she herself ate? This was off to a great start already.

"Hi, Sydney?" She plopped into a chair near me, and referenced one of her multitudinous sticky notes that were unceremoniously dropping onto the table out of her binder. "Can you confirm your date of birth?"