Place Your Trust

I was thirteen when it first appeared. Vast and vacant, and right in the middle of my abdomen where my stomach should have been. Where my organs should have been, but weren’t. It ran from underneath my breasts all the way down to my hip bones. An emptiness that should have been impossible.

That day, which might have been a Wednesday, I was changing into my uniform before school. I put on my skirt, no problem. Tights, no problem. Bra, no problem. Then came the shirt. A crisp white Oxford shirt – the kind you have to button up. My fingers buttoned from the top down, but when they reached a certain point, my hand slipped through. The entirely of my left hand all the way up to my elbow went through my body. That was when I first noticed it.

I remember the utter shame I felt. A hole in my stomach! What would people think of me?

And so, I said nothing.

No one noticed when I stopped eating. At least not at first. I no longer felt hungry. The thought of my favorite foods just didn’t do it for me anymore. Looking back, it makes sense. Most of my organs were gone. Replaced by nothingness.

Eventually though, people noticed. I skipped breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No one ever saw me drink water. Somehow, though, the fat and muscle stuck to my body. From an outsider’s perspective, I had stopped consuming food but had not lost any weight.

One night, I overheard a conversation between my parents –

Mom: “She doesn’t eat a thing!”

Dad: “I’m sure she’s eating, Helen. Look at her! She’s as chubby as ever!”

Mom: “Maybe she’s bulimic. Amy told me about these girls who eat in secret because they’re so ashamed of their weight.”

Dad: “Bulimic is when you throw up.”

Mom: “We should take her to a doctor. She needs a doctor.”

Dad: “Fine.”

And then the next day, I did see a doctor. A doctor who was baffled at my weight, because “You don’t look underweight!”. But there it was, the number on the scale. Through his eyes, I was a fat girl who somehow had an underweight BMI. I guess you lose weight when you don’t have organs anymore.

Not knowing what else to do, I was put on a strict diet. In any other circumstance, I would have been calling out the doctor for putting a person who potentially had an eating disorder on a restrictive diet. However, given the situation, it was understandable. What else could he do, really? The most embarrassing thing for a doctor to do is to admit that they don’t know what is causing your problem.

Not only was I on a diet, but this diet was supervised. This meant that my parents had to watch me eat. I quickly learned that if you eat food while having a hole in your stomach, the food just falls from your throat and into the hole. While eating a dressing-less salad, pre-chewed lettuce filled the emptiness. Which is to say that it smeared itself all over the inside of my shirt.

I learned, then, that if I had to eat, to wrap bandages over my abdomen before putting on a shirt. That way, there was no risk of the food spilling out. I would dispose of it later.

Once the doctor realized that this diet had done exactly nothing for me, it was decided that I was just a “medical abnormality”, and that was that. I never went to a doctor again. My meals were no longer supervised.

A few years later, in high school, I foolishly joined the swim team. It was all fine at first, because the school swimsuit was a one-piece. I was safe. That is, until the team beach trip.

My friend Pelin insisted that I borrow her bikini for the beach volleyball game. All the boys would be there, after all. If you have ever been subject to peer pressure, you know that it’s extremely difficult to disagree with someone when you want to be liked.

“I’ll go change in the bathroom, okay?” I said, likely thinking that I was being smart.

I thought I was being clever. All I had to do was put on the bikini, and then cover up with a towel. If people (Pelin) wanted to go swimming, I could just keep the towel on until I tactfully entered the water.  Of course, things were never that simple with Pelin, and I probably should have anticipated that.

It was just me and Pelin, then, standing beside the water and waiting for the others to join. I was lucky in that we were the only ones there, but not so lucky for any of the circumstances that followed. Before I knew it, Pelin ripped the towel off my body for reasons that to this day I do not know of.

I was so shocked that I couldn’t even process what had happened. It felt blurry and hazy, like a dream. Pelin said nothing, and I thought that, maybe just maybe, she hadn’t noticed the gaping hole in my stomach. But of course, she had. Pelin noticed everything; that is the kind of person she is. I could feel her eyes on my body, and I almost worried that they would burn another hole in me with their acidity.

She was silent for a long time, and I was frozen to the spot. Then, she handed me back my towel.

“Go put on your regular swimsuit,” she stated, not daring to look at my face.

Pelin gave me that little bit of kindness in that moment, and then never again. After that, she never spoke to me. Not once throughout the beach trip, not once throughout my life. Utter silence, vacant and agonizing. My best friend, who I can only assume was scared of me, had abandoned me. I have never trusted anyone since.

But that’s a lie, really.

Of course I place my trust in people who don’t deserve it. Even now, aged twenty-nine, I believe people who tell me that they love me and would never abandon me. Even now, after they do all that they said they would never do, I still trust them. The world is cruel, and the expanse in my abdomen is present in everything I do. I cannot escape it. Or perhaps, I have never been separate from it. Perhaps it is not me and the emptiness as two separate entities; rather, perhaps, I am no different from it.