Memoirs of an Outstanding* Teen

Chapter 18: I'm Scared

They did notice that I was losing weight. At first the comments were all positive, "Nelu, you're getting so sexy." "You must just stay like that. You look good that way." To me that just meant, "Don't you dare increase that calorie intake by even a fraction."

At some point, right before the comments died down into mere silence, I got a, "You're getting too skinny now. Almost like one of those an------ girls."

When we got our reports at the end of the year, I was second on the top ten list and not first. Was it the hunger making me slack off a little? I had gotten pretty used to the hunger at that point. It was a familiar pain, and provided I wasn't required to give immediate answers on a listening comprehension, I could manage well with my school work. Could it really be? Either way, I felt slightly better on the next day after stepping on the scale and seeing even more grams off.

That December, my family decided to go to the coast for the Christmas weekend. Now, at this point, I had memorized the calorie values for most of the foods I ate daily, but if we were to travel, I was going to have to eat new foods whose numbers I did not know. And I wouldn't be able to take my scale along.

On the 5-hour car ride there, I wasn't thinking about how much fun I would finally get to have on the beach. I was worried about how to make sure I don't go over my calorie limit. Eventually, I just resolved to eat as little as possible.

I remember that Christmas day in terms of food. I had two slices of bread for breakfast, with sugar-free tea, then I had one piece of gum which I chewed on for the rest of the day. In the evening, they got chicken burgers for dinner. I removed the chicken patty from mine, gave it to my sister, and ate the bread only with some water. I don't remember much else about that Christmas.

The morning after we got back home, my dad work me up early in the morning, right before he left for work. He sat me down and said something along the lines of, "You're losing weight. We should go to the doctor because you might be sick." I panicked. I don't remember what I answered him, because all I could think of was, "He's going to make me eat more and gain all the weight back." I went back to my room and stepped on the scale. I weighed 49 kilograms. I had lost over two kilograms in that Christmas weekend.

I didn't want him to force me to eat. I had to show him that I was fine, that my weight was fine, that there was nothing wrong with me. No need to go to the doctor. The doctor was going to ask me about what I ate, and when I told him he was going to tell me to eat more. And when I came back home, they would all force me to eat more.

I didn't want to eat more. I had worked so hard. I pushed so far. I didn't want to lose it all. I had to show him that I was fine at least.

The last time he had seen my weight was all the way in Grade 7, long before the weight gain started, and I weighed 50 kg at that point. "Alright, what if I just sacrifice today, eat a little more, so tomorrow I can show him on the scale that I'm just as I was before."

I went to the filling station, got myself a burger and stopped at the park to eat it. It tasted like so much weight gain. "You're going to get so fat for this!" That was the very last meat burger I ate in my life.

As I walked the rest of the way back home, all I could feel was guilt. So much guilt for risking what I suffered so much to attain.

At home, I got on a computer and Googled "healthy weight." I found out that my BMI was 18.21, and the healthy weight range is 18-25.

See, I'm not even underweight! I'm perfectly fine. I'm not even like those an------ girls like someone said. No need to ruin everything. I'm perfectly fine. I'm just going to tell him this.

I went on to read a little more about the other symptoms of EDs and one of them was amenorrhea for three months or more. I hadn't had my period since September...