run

Week Two, Day 2

Friday, July 20th, 2023 

Content warning: Depictions of eating disorders, hospital stay, general should’ve-known-better. 

So, the human body cannot survive longer than three days without water. This is something that is known. It is also something that, for a long time, I considered to be ridiculous if for no other reason than I was falling victim to this thing that happens in humans where they think they’re the exception to the rule. You know what I mean, right? That feeling when you think a universally known rule doesn’t apply to you? And therefore, by extension, are untouchable or invincible? And before you tell me you’ve never done anything like this, I want you to think back to a time you were watching a disaster movie, and something happened. There were a lot of casualties, and there was a voice in your head, somewhere way in the back, that said, “Yeah, but I’d probably be fine,” or “Nah, I’d survive that.” I know you have. Don’t lie to me. We’re building trust here.
Ok, so remember yesterday when I was like I’m going to go slow and not rush into this and take my time and not overdo? Well, about ten minutes after I typed that, I also googled exactly how many miles are in a 5K because, can you believe it, I didn’t know. Shocking, I know. This has been so well researched and planned up until now. And to be fair, I now understand why most people say anyone can do this. It’s 3.1 miles. I sincerely thought we were talking about a minimum of 5 miles here, but no, it’s 3.1. Which then got me thinking that I can do more. I can go farther, push harder. 

Why not a 10k? 

Why not a half marathon?!?! 

And then, I came down from the peak of Mount Crazy™️, and I reminded myself that I AM NOT TRYING TO DO ANYTHING INSANE HERE. 

Slow down, crazy, slow the fuck down. 

I don’t know what it is about my brain that makes me push like this. 

Ok, that’s a bold-faced lie. I know exactly what it is about my brain that makes me push like this. It stems from a deeply rooted, near-debilitating need to make myself seem perfect and, in that perfection, get your approval. I’m big on approval. It’s probably one of the reasons why I’m writing this. So many people, thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, even, could and have trained for something like this without any fanfare, but I have to document it. So that someone might read it and say, “Good for you, Ally, I’m proud of you,” which are the four sexiest words anyone could ever fucking say to me. I’m proud of you. Ugh, look at how they roll off the tongue full of positive implications and utter contentedness. 

I push myself, and I put myself on display so that people might like me. 

Is it sick? 

Absolutely. 

Common?

I think more common than the dark thoughts in my brain would like me to believe.

Am I working on it? 

One thousand percent, but still, as a writer, they say, write what you know. This is what I know. 

I push myself to my limits – see my stubbornness from earlier – to my literal breaking point, and I am making a promise to you and to myself that I am not going to do that. Or rather, I am going to try not to do that. And yet, there is still that voice in the back of my head that tells me, it’s fine, Ally, other people need to eat 2000-2500 calories a day, not you. Or, it’s all good, Ally, you had water last week. 

I’ve been thinking about the summer Colby and I got married a lot lately. There were a few weddings that summer and I was a bridesmaid for one of them. Now, I should say, I have been fat for most of my life, but there was a period right after college where I lost a decent amount of weight, around 100 pounds, give or take, and was what my friends, society, and likely anyone who looked at me would call “thin.” The initial losing of the weight was actually achieved in a healthy way, well, healthy-ish, but the maintenance of the loss proved to be some of the most fucked up years of my life. To this day, I am still recovering from and very much in the throes of it all. But that summer, the summer we got married, I was still very thin. And I say thin because I was just that; thin. I was fitting into clothing in the single digits, which was something I had never known. It was exhilarating but also incredibly nerve-wracking because what would it mean if I no longer fit into a size eight anymore? Could I handle being a size 10? 12? Gasp, a 14?! 

It was an immense amount of pressure that I, and I alone, was putting on myself. Which, maybe that’s not totally fair. There were expectations from the world at large, right? If you’ve never lost a significant amount of weight, you probably don’t know the way the world shifts around you. The way that people suddenly see you. It was like losing the weight also lifted this veil that had made me simultaneously invisible and also a blight on society. Men noticed me, people held doors open for me, and there were a few, truly only a few, but I felt their gaze the most, who were always hungry to see if I’d gained the weight back. It was all incredibly confusing. And there was also the fact that I was doing such harm to myself. Abject, horrific harm, and all I was receiving was positive feedback. 

It was a mind fuck. 

It felt like a game that I could lose, and by lose, I mean I could get fat again, and that could not happen because then what would all of the starving and binging and purging have been for? I couldn’t let it all be for nothing, right? 

The dress I wore as a bridesmaid was this incredible silver chrome strapless gown situation. She was stunning, and she was bought on sale. She was a size 8, but she was a tight size 8, you know? I should have gotten a size up, but a) if I did that, it would be back up in the double digits, and GOD FORBID right, and b) because it was on sale, this was all that was left. Only 4’s 6’s and this lone 8 were left on the rack. We got it to zip. Could I breathe? Who cared. I looked like the Tin Woodman’s Snatched Wife™️, and I would make it work. And besides, the dress was a size 8. A beautifully single digited size 8. Anywhere outside Bloomingdales and the dress would have been a size 6, but she was parading around as a size 8, something that happens a lot when a designer’s name is attached to the tag, which is super fun. But again, I would make it work. 

About a month before my friend’s wedding, I took the dress out. I can’t tell you why I did this. I didn’t look like I had gained weight necessarily, but something, some dark, omniscient voice in the back of my mind, slithered forward and told me to try this dress on. So I did. 

And it wouldn’t zip closed. 

There was about one inch worth of length on this zipper that my body kept from being able to meet. 

I panicked. 

This was the only dress they had. 

There were only smaller sizes, so I couldn’t get those. 

And my friend loved this dress. 

And I loved the dress. I loved the look of it and the way that it made me look like the Tin Woodsman’s Snatched Wife™️ when I could get it to close.

• this was going to be a footnote, but I have too much respect and love for my friend to have this in a spot where you might not see it:  I need to say, this friend is one of my best friends to this very day. If I had called her and told her what was going on, that the dress didn’t fit, that I wasn’t comfortable in it, she would 👏 not 👏 have 👏 cared 👏. Seriously. She would have told me that it was fine, and then, honestly, she would have taken me shopping and likely bought me a new dress with her own money. What happened is in no way a reflection of her. It is in NO WAY her fault. What happened in the summer of 2016 was because of my own actions and was 100000000000000000000% about my own brain and insecurities and fear and trauma responses. If you are reading this, I love you. Thank you for being my friend. I am more sorry than you know that I couldn’t tell you at the time. I love you. 

I tore the dress off and looked at the seam of the zipper, trying to suss out if it could maybe be let out? But the corseted bodice of it left no room for tailoring. Fucking designers not wanting you to be able to fuck with their fucking designs. Colby suggested I could take it somewhere and have them cut a strip from the bottom to use as a panel in the back, an idea that, at the time, I was convinced wouldn’t work because it would shorten the length of the dress, but now I’m like, that would have been fine. But no. There was nothing to be done. 

Besides, if media curated for women has taught us anything, it’s that you don’t alter the dress; you alter yourself to fit the dress, right? 

So I did. 

I had been using BeachBody for a few years – again, with the people pleasing, I people pleased my way right into a fitness cult. I am SURE I’ll talk more about that later, and also, maybe not because, yikes, it’s a cult. I did love the Shakeolory, though – but I had never ordered any of their workout DVDs. I only used the programs on the portal, but certain things weren’t available there. Like Shawn T’s T 25, a 25-minute workout designed to get you to drop weight like mad. 

And it did. 

Because I did 2-3 of these workouts a day. 

Seven days a week.

On about 300 calories a day or less. 

And what little food I did force down, I forced right back up later. 

This went on for the better part of four weeks.

I felt the weight melting off of me, and I would try the dress on daily. Every millimeter of progress that zipper made was mana from heaven fueling me on my journey to fit into this fucking garment. I was so sure that no one knew what was going on. Why, you ask? Because my life has been a long and in-depth meditation in masking most things about me. Am I having a bad day? You’ll likely never know. Did I just get terrible news? Not your news to be burdened with. Am I one thousand percent starving myself? Not your problem, so why should you hear about it? 

The lengths I will go to get you to like me, because people don’t like people who are all problems all the time, right? So I mask, and I conceal, and I make it wholly my problem. And I will say, in the past few years, I have been better about opening up. It’s been a wonderful discovery of understanding that I don’t need to be happy and perfect all of the time for people to like me and that the people in my life are some of the best humans on the planet who not only meet me where I’m at but champion me where I’m at. And also, there will be some people who just don’t like me, and that is ok too. But 2016 Ally? Not hearing any of this or giving it any kind of credence. 

Everything came to a head about two weeks before my friend’s wedding and about a month and a half before my own. I had just worked a shift as a brand ambassador in the housewares department at Bloomingdales, and I felt fine. I even stopped at Anthropologie – because, you know, I fit into their stuff now – to pick up a top I’d seen online. And I was fine. But then, on the train home, I started to feel off. Not wrong, necessarily, just off. Like there was this dial inside of me that had turned just a hair, and I felt like I was buzzing, or maybe vibrating, but not in a way that felt great. I pushed it away and told myself that I would eat three almonds at home. Because that was what I did when I started to feel really faint, I would eat three almonds. 

So I get home and take our dog Pete out for a walk. I make it to the top of the steps at the end of our street, and the world goes black. Literally. My vision goes dark, like some sort of fade-out in an old-timey film. I don’t know how I don’t fall backward down the steps, but when my vision returns, spotty and blurred, I am on my knees, hands on the pavement before me. I’ve dropped the leash, which is terrifying as the often busy road that is Riverside Drive is only feet away from where I’ve fallen, but Pete, who is many things, but a cuddler is not one of them, is right next to me, his nose and inch away from mine, and worry in his eyes. I reach for my phone and call Colby, and I say something that has rarely, if ever, come out of my mouth. 

“Something is wrong. I don’t know if I’m ok.” 

Colby races home and finds me on the couch. I don’t know how I got home. I know that I got home because he found me there, but I have no memory of it. I was freezing and shaking, and everything hurt. My body felt like acid had been poured over and inside of it, and my vision kept coming in and out. I was too disorientated at the time to be afraid, but thinking back on that day now, it terrifies me. 

Colby got me to the hospital, where they rushed me through triage after I collapsed out of the chair in the waiting room. They found I had a fever of 102.4°. They asked me when the last time I had eaten was. I told them I’d had three almonds about an hour ago through chattering teeth. They asked again when the last time I had really eaten was, and I couldn’t remember. I don’t normally eat lunch, and I’d skipped breakfast. I know I had made dinner the night before, but I had only pushed the food around on the plate. My mind went back to the day before that, but I couldn’t remember anything outside of the almonds. How about water, they asked, and I shrugged. It had been days. 

And then this beautiful nurse whose name I do not remember took my face in her hands and brought her face so close to mine. 

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, her voice soft and gentle. 

“Dress,” was all I could get out. 

“There’s a dress she has to wear for a wedding,” Colby said, struggling to maintain his composure because he was scared and rightfully frustrated. Not because I was hurt, but because I was hurting myself and because of my fucking stubbornness, he couldn’t do anything to stop or help me. 

When I had said earlier that I was sure no one had seen what I was doing? Yeah, of course Colby had seen. We were living together by then, so to think that he hadn’t noticed shows just how detached I was at this time. When I think of that beautiful and kind man unable to stop my steam engine mentality as I ground myself into the literal earth, it makes me want to go back in time and throttle myself because even with all of his best intentions,  there was nothing anyone could do or say to save me from myself. And for that, Colby, I am so unbelievably sorry, and I love you, and I’m sorry. I love you, I love you, I love you. 

“You’re starving yourself for a dress?” the nurse asked. 

I tried to nod but was shaking so badly I don’t know what she saw, all the while unable to meet her eyes as this violent wave of tremors crashed over me, and that feeling of acid working its way through my veins made me cry out in pain. 

I remember saying, “I’m dying, oh my god, I’m dying,” 

And then this nurse, this fucking angel, took my face so firmly in her hands, and she said, “You are not going to die. Not today.” 

And then I blacked out. 

The combination of stress and exhaustion, malnourishment and dehydration, and whatever drug they had pumped into me to calm me down took over, and it was a few hours before I opened my eyes. 

But I did open my eyes. 

My hand throbbed from the IV they had inserted there. My veins were so small from the lack of fluid in me that they had to use the needle they usually reserve for newborns. I followed the line up to where a bag full of clear liquid hung, a small drip at the bottom of the bag working its way slowly through the plastic tubing. 

Colby was there because he was, is, and will continue to be the best human I have ever known, and he had my mom on the phone just so they could both keep me company. 

I was so unbelievably embarrassed. 

To this day, some of that embarrassment still exists inside of me. 

Embarrassed because I had been found out. 

Embarrassed because, on some level, I thought I could have held out for longer? Like my body literally breaking down would be something that I could control or put off until after the festivities. 

Embarrassed because I was so unbelievably and primordially hungry, but too stubborn to eat the package of saltines that had been left for me next to a cup of room temp water. 

Another hour later and Colby needed to run home to check on Pete. The hospital is literally down the street from our apartment, so he would only be away for about thirty minutes or so. He didn’t want to leave me, but I needed a break from everyone staring at me and asking if I was ok, and I knew he was anxious to check on our pup, who we left in an incredible and chaotic hurry. So he went. And then I was alone. 

And then the nurse came back. 

“There you are,” she said with a smile. “We were losing you for a minute there.” 

I nodded quickly and tried to swallow, but my mouth and throat were so dry I choked a little with the action. 

“Do you think you can drink?”

I shrugged. 

“Well, come on, let’s try a little bit.” 

She sat me up and brought the cup to my lips. The water felt cool and foreign and welcomed and hard and wonderful and awful at the same time. I felt like I had lost. That by taking this drink, I had given up, and they had won, though who “they” is, I can’t say with clarity, and I started to cry. Heaving, breathless sobs that I tried desperately to quell, but the harder I tried to push them down, the harder I cried. 

“I’m sorry,” I said, and the nurse rubbed her hand on my back. 

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” she said, and then panic set in as I tried to remember who I might have offended in my disorientated state. 

Did I say something to someone? Scream something incoherent and awful through the pain? Did I curse at another nurse, maybe, or a doctor? At Colby? Oh god, did I hit someone or lash out physically? I couldn’t remember and felt my body tense until she patted my arm. 

“You need to apologize to yourself for putting yourself through that.” 

Woo-woo though the statement may have been, I started crying again. 

Apologize to myself? 

Forgive myself? 

For what? 

For being too weak to adjust to this diet¹ I had put myself on? 

For having the audacity to fluctuate so that the dress wouldn’t fit? 

“I know you probably can’t right now,” she continued, “but you will kill yourself if you keep doing this. You will literally kill yourself. Do you want that?”

And honestly, y’all, in that moment? I wasn’t sure I had an answer. Or at least not the right one. Because being thin, in a lot of ways, feels more important than my life sometimes. And that is a terrifying thing to admit, but it is the truth. 

The nurse seemed to understand, and she patted my arm again. 

“It’s going to be ok. You are going to be ok.”

And listen, she was right. I am ok. I mean, I’m as ok as anyone with a crippling amount of anxiety and PTSD and an eating disorder can be, but on the whole, I am ok. I am working on all of this intimately in therapy; shout out to my therapist Amy who is the first professional I have felt comfortable actually talking about all of this stuff with, and I am slowly but surely making progress every day. 

But do you want to know the absurd thing of it all? At the end of the day, when the fluids finally worked their way through my system, and I paid the obscene copay for my stint there, I fit into the dress. Another in a long line of positive reinforcements for really toxic behavior. 

We talk about hitting bottom a lot in life, like, oh yeah, this is me at bottom, and in many ways, I think that time I spent in the hospital was my bottom. I mean, dear Christ, I hope it was my bottom because I don’t know what is lower than that. I don’t know what lies beneath that. And I don’t think that I want to find out. But I’m telling you this because I need you to understand what I am capable of. What it is possible for me to put my body through, and how I will commit to it until my body literally takes me down. 

So. 

Yeah. 

That was a lot, and it was especially a lot right toward the front of this thing, but I need you to know what I mean when I say I will push myself if I’m not careful. When I say that I’ll look into doing a 10k or a freaking half marathon after five days of running, it’s because I will. I will push to do that. Could I train for a 10K this go around? Honestly, probably yes. Will I break myself to get to that? I want to say no, but truthfully, I’m unclear. What I do know is that I will remind myself of this time, of this rock fucking bottom, and I will hold myself accountable when I say that I’m trying really hard to be capable of doing better things to and for myself. To not live a life trying to impress you or push myself to the breaking point, and to know that at the end of the day, there is always a different dress out there, and to stop trying to starve myself so I fit inside of this mold that has been thrust upon me. 

I am just going to take this one day, one step at a time. One singular mile at a time.  

That’s all we ever can do. 

And if I feel myself veering, I am going to try to course correct. 

Oh, and I’m going to eat something. Rather, I am going to try to eat something. Like I’ve said, eating disorders are fun. 

Ok. 

Thirty-one minutes on the clock. 

Nice and easy. 

Here we go. 

POST-RUN MORTEM 

Running Time: 31 minutes 

Distance Achieved: 2.09 miles

Tunage: Finished out Hamilton then bopped around through Heathers

That’s all I got for today. I’m going to go drink some more water and eat something with substance and then pet my dog, who is not a cuddler, but who will stay for you when you almost kill yourself. What a good boy. 

1. See death march. ↩︎