Compliment

It all started with a compliment. How strange that a kind word wormed and twisted its way into the preladen trauma pathways of my mind. It was supposed to be kind, maybe even encouraging. I understand that, I do. But this is not what happened.

I sat at the table looking at the glass of water in front of me. I was alone at the table. My husband had pretty much left me and rumors were swirling. Most were true. I tried to be unseen, as much as anyone can with stage makeup and revealing costumes would allow. This was not unusual as dancers were usually early at dinner shows to turn in music, last minute touch ups and table saving for dinner shows. I however had no one to sit with. The sicker I got the fewer people came around I lost most of my friends. The person I hoped would be there, never showed. He was with another. Not for the first time. Watching the water beading up and making its way down the glass I heard a voice behind me. “Kairo is that you?” I turned to look. It was the videographer that I had known for 10 years or more. “Hey, how are you?”, I said. “Oh my God you look amazing! How much weight have you lost?”. “Uh…I don’t really know, I am on the cancer diet,” I replied. He stammered and tried to cover his compliment by platitudes and placations that I did not hear. I stared at him with a half smile, just wanting him to go away. I was stunned. My stomach dropped. I started sweating. He kept stumbling over words of “encouragement.” I kept saying, “Its fine, don’t worry.” He finally walked back to the booth, leaving me to stare at the water making its own escape.

After weeks of vomiting and dehydration I had lost weight. I did not seem to notice as much as others had. But now, in the midst of divorce and illness I had been reassured of my worth by someone who I had only a marginal relationship with. I had not felt pretty or interesting or worthwhile in so long that I grabbed onto that compliment with everything I had. I was holding on to this little pinprick of hope with the tenacity of the shallow drowned. I had been replaced so many times by porn, and other women that I knew I was of no consequence. I did not want to get well. I wanted it to end. But here, I had found something I could be the best at, I could be the thinnest. I could get attention by being “beautiful”, and thin and wanted. Those words by someone I hardly knew were more valuable now than anything that had come before. I had a distraction, a goal and I knew this path because I had walked it before. It was like putting on an old shoe. It was comfortable, familiar. I would show them, I would be valuable.

At first it was easy because the medication made me sick. The treatments increased my pain level so I did not want to eat. The compliments kept coming. The tamoxifin kept coming and I took it with relish…not caring about the rouge cells, but that it made my appetite a background passing thought, and not a need. I was supposed to be taking vitamins and suppliments. I stopped because I thought they made me look bloated. I stopped some of the other meds because they made me swell up. I was dehydrated all the time and had many kidney infections. But I still would not give into being hungry. I was focused on what I “could and “could not” put in my body. I got good news about the tumor size, but it mattered so much less than feeling in control of myself. I would walk around the store sometimes for an hour or more just figuring out what I could eat, and walking away from all the things that would make me fat. My blood work became alarming, my vitamin D levels dropped into single digits. My iron levels were in the teens. I had i.v.’s to try and replenish. But the compliments kept coming. My clothing sizes dropped almost every other week. I was getting attention. I was being validated. I was less alone.

I began to work out to complete exhaustion even though it made me sick enough to pass out. I got used to it and kept doing it. Even in the shower. I became a master at planning out how much I needed to eat to keep from passing out. My stress levels were off the charts, but I was desperate to be noticed, to be loved, to be chosen. I was the absolute sickest I had ever been and the most unhappy I had ever been; but I was starting to love how I looked. I loved getting clothes in the Juniors department. I loved watching the size label go lower and lower. I loved having my collar bones start to be more pronounced. I loved being in my size zero jeans. It was an amazing feeling that fed on itself. Very few people were worried about how thin I was, I was just getting complimented, everywhere. I soon learned that the only way to be of value was to be thin. Perhaps then I would be truly loved and valued. Perhaps then, I would matter.

Eventually the treatments stopped, voluntarily in some cases. The meds stopped, again, some voluntarily because I just could not afford them. I began to get my head a little more together. I started eating again. I fought with feelings of guilt from being hungry. I still do. I hate being hungry. I fought these habits because I knew the therapist was right and I had to stand on my own. And I did. I hated going back to my regular size clothing. I hated it and still hate to see that size on the label. I get so anxious that everything I buy needs to be three sizes too big so I don’t freak out. I know to do this because this was not the first time I had eating problems. That old shoe fits well.

My habits came home to roost.

Diagnosed with several autoimmune conditions due to treatment and malnourishment from my childhood onward, I now have trouble eating at all. I am swollen all the time from meds and surgery after surgery. I am bigger than I ever have been and do everything I can not to look at old pictures and old clothes. I post no new pictures on facebook since I gained my weight back. No more compliments for me. I am still alone, in that no one wants to deal with me being sick. The years of abuse and neglect as a child have opened the way for trauma induced illness to take root. And it has. I hardly recognise myself anymore. I hate it. I hate how I look. I am desperate to feel like a woman again, instead of just a sick person. I am desperate for compliments, but receive none. And who can blame them? I am what I am. I look how I look and I know it is not good enough. For me, or anyone else.