Wasted / 67
face bloated. Your soul will be at ease. You'll get the bright idea to have a drink. You'll go into the kitchen, drink bad red wine until you're bombed and happy as a pig in clover, and walk up and down the hall juggling oranges, and then remember that wine has calories. You'll return to the bathroom, throw it up, and go to sleep. A problem? Yes, eating is definitely a problem. Got to stop eating. I have to answer the obvious question: How could my parents not notice? They noticed that something was wrong with me—my anger was completely out of control, I was getting more and more batty by the day—but bulimia, especially in someone so young, is not the first thing that comes to a parent's mind when their thirteen-yearold kid is running wild. I did it when they weren't home, when I was out, or when I had the bathroom door locked and the tub running. I was becoming increasingly aware that I was an exceptionally good liar. My eating disorder was for me, as it is for many of us, one of the only things that I could call my own, something that I could keep private. My father was extremely intrusive at the time. It was his way of dealing with his own fears of my physical maturity and what myriad troubles that might bring. To be fair, I was indeed acting a little strange, and my parents were wondering what the hell was going on. He grilled me with inappropriate questions. He went digging through my drawers, my garbage, read my notes, grounded me for truly minor infractions. He was scared that I was in serious trouble and scared of losing his little girl. I can understand this. But it backfired. The shrinks call it “emotional incest.” Personally I find the term to be a little excessive, a little shrill. My father, like many fathers, freaked out when I hit puberty, and he began suspecting vast licentiousness on my part. I think if he had just told me he was worried about me, it might have gone over better. As it was, he acted like a jilted lover. He became more overprotective, more anxious, more rageful. As most adolescents do, I rejected his involvement in my life. He took it too personally and did his damnedest to show me who was boss. We fed on each other's escalating mania to such a degree that I'm surprised we're both still alive, let alone friends. An environment that supports autonomy, quoth the shrinks, will foster a greater sense of self-esteem, of self-determination, of separateness from