Who Wants To Die First?

"Geez! The shop’s deader than your parents, Doug."

~Sol Butcher

11:25 am

Morning!

I'm just after Morning Group. Another good one, t’was the third one in a row where I called out Auschwitz-the-Lifer for sneaking outside for a morning run. It has really been starting to piss me off - if she can go off the hop-sital unit for a fucking run, why can't I go outside for a smoke?

The answer, of course, is that she can't go out for a run. She just does, anyway.

Remember when I wondered which Anorexic Lifer was gonna die first, Auschwitz or Buchenwald? Well, the answer has been made painfully clear over the past few days.

It’s Auschwitz.

Even though she has been here two weeks longer than Buchenwald, and seemed to be in far better condition when she first came in, the true nature of her disease has really come out since the addition of Buchenwald-the-Lifer to our motley little crew.

Though they each came into hop-sital in the same skeletal, emaciated state, and both had critically low heart rates; though neither were able to respond properly to stimuli without severely delayed reaction times, or speak properly because their brains were so starved; though each girl was covered in puffy lanugo peach fuzz, and shivering like abandoned orphans, there was and is one vital difference between Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and it is this:

Buchenwald knows that she is sick. Auschwitz thinks that she is not.

We’ve seen it in Auschwitz from the beginning, that she is absolutely certain that she does not have a problem, despite being under 80 pounds. But since the arrival of Buchenwald, another walking skeleton, her eating disorder has completely taken over, and even the most remote trace of interest in recovery has been wiped from Auschwitz’s palate. Whereas she was once all happiness and light and ‘I love you guys and recovery!’, she is now sneaking out of the hospital every morning to go for a run - despite having a fractured ankle, most likely from osteoporosis, due to starvation. She stays up until we - even I - have gone to sleep, then spends another hour exercising on her bed, in the dark. The nurses now have to be in the shower with her, to stop her from exercising in there, and when she gets called out for exercising while sitting in Group, she apologizes, but doesn't actually stop.

It’s absolutely incredible to watch her, literally being eaten alive by her Eating Disorder, right in front of our eyes.

Thank God she is now certified, which means that she no longer has the choice whether she wants to be here or not. She so crazy, she HAS to be here!

But not me. I so crazy, I choose to be here. Ha ha!

Ooooh, Lunch.

12:45 pm

It is a professional day for the staff here in hop-sital, which means that our day looks like a Saturday - just one Group in the morning, and then we're stuck with ourselves for the rest of the day. Ugh.

It kinda sucks, it's a lot of time to fill, and with the yummy Topimax still swimming around in my system, I am currently more interested in sleeping than writing. Plus, not having anything going on today means I don't really have anything to write about, anyway.

So, um...err...hmmmm.

How bout those Yankees?

Just kidding. How bout some gossip? Let's Check In on everyone but me, shall we?

FuBu! Ah, FuBu, you are as cantankerous and miserable as I am. The only thing about FuBu is that she is so doped up all the time, I cannot understand a goddamn word that comes out of her mouth. Maybe I'll change her name here, to something a little more fitting, like Mumbles the Mumbling Mumbler - you know, avoid copyright stuff with FuBu the company, etc. And that really is more fitting. And more hilarious. Anyway, sometimes she drives me spare by watching every single one of us and calling us all out for every tiny rule infraction, but then when she needs extra time to finish her tea, suddenly she's dyslexic and can't tell time.

I do feel badly for FuBu (Mumbles) sometimes, though - as a former laxative abuser, I think she suffers more than the rest of us with digesting and processing her food. Actually, I've heard her in the can, I KNOW she suffers more than the rest of us with digesting and processing her food. I thought my gas and bloating from refeeding was painful? Well FuBu's poor body was so dependent on laxatives that it is now completely unable to process food into waste on it's own. She has to get regular enemas just so she can shit, and each ensuing bathroom episode is a lengthy, painful, incredibly vulgar process. Personally, I don't know how she hasn't exploded yet.

No, I'm serious. I don't know how nothing has ruptured or imploded or exploded or whatever. It's absolutely astounding, and worst of all, it could be permanent.

The human body can only bounce back from so much, after all.

Onto the next girl! Day Program. I love Day Program. Soft spoken and sweet, whenever I look at her I think, Why would someone so awesome, and with so many talents, hate herself enough to have an eating disorder? Day Program's got a pretty face that doesn't even need makeup, with old fashioned Christine Daae brown curls that tumble romantically around her face, and that make me sick with jealousy. She also has a petite, athletic body, with a nice round arse and big boobs for such a tiny little thing - and all that's just her looks. She's also wickedly smart - well spoken, well read, and can sit down at a piano and just make shit up as she goes. She is also a concert flutist, and is currently sitting on her bed, writing a review for a book. She's incredible, everything that I once hoped I could be, before I fucked it all up, everything I hope I haven't burned away through too many years of drug abuse and excessive self destruction. Sometimes I just want to grab her and slap her, and scream at her, "Stop it! Wake up! Can't you see how fucking special you are? You're incredible! Stop wasting everything you have."

Though I reckon that's prolly how her mum feels, too.

Day Program came to us from...you guessed it, Day Program! She started there but couldn't keep her weight up, and so was hop-sitalized. She's not like the Lifers, in that she hasn't passed into a state of emaciation, and is more like me - she could still pass for a Normie, just an exceptionally thin one.

Day Program is way too gifted to be stuck in that hop-sital bed. I pray to God that she fucking snaps out of it. That girl could be anything she wanted to be.

There, now you're caught up on the cast of characters. Well, there is, of course,  the other two girls, Auschwitz and Buchenwald. But I think I may have mentioned them before?

Then there's little old me, tucked away in the corner of the dorm room, watching Sons of Butcher like it was the new OxyContin and gossiping online about my fellow inmates.

And...um...ah.

I think I'll have that nap now.

3:15 pm

Oh, shat.

We’re just after Afternoon Snack. I had grapes and a Rice Krispie square, then another Rice Krispie square, a Nutrigrain bar, and some trail mix. Ooooops. I had an Extra at lunch too, a yogurt with raisins and smarties, and one at Morning Snack, another Rice Krispie square! What the fuck is happening to me today? The only meal that I haven’t had an Extra at was Breakfast!

Except I don’t feel too full. I feel fine, definitely full and a little worried about the type of food that's in me, but not so uncomfortable that I want to purge. Though I can also admit that I have not exactly been hungry yet by the next feeding time. So what the fuck should I do?

Maybe we should talk about something that I already have done. I’m not sure how I feel about that, either.

I was sitting across from Auschwitz-the-Lifer for Afternoon Snack. I noticed that Chrispina, the NA, had filled her Dixie cup right to the brim with almonds, which had happened to me once, too - normally, they are only supposed to fill the cup to halfway. Or at least, I think that’s what they’re supposed to do, because usually that’s how full they are - and they never under feed us here, do they.

Anyway, Auschwitz had eaten maybe five almonds, when I saw her look around the table, then silently shake the contents of the Dixie cup into her free hand.

Bongo! thought I gleefully. I know where this is going.

I had done the exact same thing two weeks ago, back when I was still worried about restricting my food.

I looked up and pretended to be busy watching Mumbles at the counter as she poured the kettle, since I was next in line to make my tea (only one anorexic up at a time!). But I was entirely focused on Auschwitz-the-Lifer, directly across the table from me. And just as I suspected, she left a few nuts in the Dixie cup, then silently slid her fist full of almonds down the side of her body, and into her pocket.

I waited, surreptitiously watching the others. No one else at the table had noticed.

Hmmmm, I smirked to myself. What to do...

Mumbles would have already spoken up - prolly before the thought had even fully formed in Auschwitz's mind, the clever whoor. Mumbles knows what you're gonna do before even you do. But I had to take into account the fact that I had done the same thing as Auschwitz, just two weeks prior. My Dixie cup had been given to me, just overflowing with almonds, and I couldn't crunch the nuts fast enough with my broken molars. So I dumped the remaining half-cup of almonds into my palm, and then dropped them into the pocket of my hoody.

No one caught me that day, and when I saw Grave (wretched cow) the following day, I asked her to take almonds off my menu, because of my teeth.

But most importantly, at the time that I dumped my own almonds, I must point out that I WAS NOT BELOW 80 POUNDS.

Auschwitz-the-Lifer is, and what's more? She has been here for two and a half weeks, and hasn't gained a pound. On Thursday, she missed the weight requirement for the second week in a row (though of course, she is not eligible for a pass out of the hop-sital on Sundays, because she is certified. We'd never see her again).

But - and it's a small, bony, emaciated but(t) - what was I going to do about this? Tell on Auschwitz-the-Lifer? Or keep mum, cuz nothing in the world was going to save this girl's life now, anyway? Why should I get involved? Why bother? The Eating Disorder owned this girl outright, and she was going to follow it blindly as it led her straight into her own grave. My telling the nurses about the almonds stashed in her shorts wasn't going to change that.

I hummed and haaed as I finished my snack. By the end of our alloted time, I knew that I had to do the right thing.

Maybe by telling, I could stir the pot a bit, and make things interesting around here for a little while! Like a whole 30 seconds. That felt pretty right.

So I told the nurses, and watched the show. They frisked her, she cried, they made her eat the almonds from her pocket. Now, five minutes later, I'm bored out of my tree again, and Auschwitz-the-Lifer is nowhere to be found.

I'm willing to wager any money that she is in the hop-sital fucking stairwell, doing laps up and down the stairs to burn off all the calories from those goddamn almonds.

I'm starting to go fucking crazy in here.