I’m so terrified of the dentist, I hardly even feel the fear anymore. It’s automatic.

Okay. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

I guess it was about four years ago. I had just graduated from college, and was living with my parents in Massachusetts until I figured out where I wanted to go next. At the point of this story, I didn’t have a job, and my father had agreed to carry me on his health/dental insurance for X number of months, or until I was employed; whichever came first. During that interim, I had my first dentist appointment in three years.

Might I remind you that while I was in college, I spent more time vomiting than flossing? One of the telltale signs of bulimia is the erosion of tooth enamel, caused by regurgitated stomach enzymes, which leaves teeth vulnerable to … well … everything. Especially if you don’t always floss after you purge, and instead opt to go out with your friends “feeling skinny,” or go to sleep alone feeling worthless.

So, after those three years, I visited my dentist with dread. My teeth were (and still are, thanks,) quite pretty, white, and straight, and I brushed regularly, so I told myself it wouldn’t be that bad.

The X-Rays revealed thirteen cavities, my friends. Thirteen. After a whole life of clean scorecards and high dental praise.

At the time, my dentist, a man with whom I’d performed in local plays when I was a teenager, laughed it off, and told me that’s what comes of getting drunk and passing out at college parties. I knew better, and was a little disappointed that he didn’t.

While driving home from the DSS, I contemplated how I was going to tell my parents, whose insurance would be covering my numerous returns to the dentist for fillings. They deserved an explanation, and while I could previously hide my illness, I could never boldly lie to them.

I had to get home quickly, to get ready for a fancy concert we attended every year. Of course. Of course, it wouldn’t just be me and my family having a heart-to-heart in front of the fireplace. Of course, it had to be a huge event for which we were getting all dolled up. Otherwise, how could it fit into my very own Lifetime movie? Who do you think I am?

My dad wasn’t home, as he was meeting us at the concert after work, so I just had to contend with my mother. Goddamn.

I told her straight out that I had all those fucking cavities because I was bulimic. We were in the kitchen. She turned stone-faced and told me to get ready to go.

After we had both dressed up, she confronted me upstairs. She was so angry. She said she thought I had "gotten over it" in high school. She yelled at me, and told me that she saw my actions as a “slap in the face” for the values and self-respect that had been instilled by my upbringing. And in a way, she was, and is, right.

There are certainly things about my childhood and my upbringing that have influenced my eating disorder and how I’ve dealt with it, but I don’t blame anyone for this. The eating disorder would not have developed without my own warped reasoning, and if my reasoning had been different, whatever the influences were would just have manifested in some other way. I want you to know that I have never blamed anyone. My mother might have dealt with it with more sensitivity, but it was a foreign subject for her, and I have long been aware of who my mother is and how she handles things. I knew she’d take it personally, and that it’s too complicated to be anybody’s fault.

She yelled, and then stormed into the master bedroom to fasten a brooch and pretty up before we got in the car to meet the rest of my family. She slammed her bedroom door, and I jumped. The reflection of my startled body caught my eye in the full-length mirror in the upstairs hall. I used to spend private hours in front of that mirror, scrutinizing myself from all angles, years before, when I was convinced that every morsel I consumed would go straight to my ass.

In the mirror that night, after my mother’s dramatic exit, I saw a pudgy woman with fun hair and a pretty dress, a pink sundress her friend had made especially for her, which had caused people to do quadruple-takes and tell her how beautiful she looked on the first night she wore it. But this particular night, after the fucking dentist appointment, my reflection was standing hunch-shouldered and crying with hands tentatively clasped in front of her stomach, looking weak and ugly and too young and too fat.

Mom and I got in the car and went to the concert, where we pretended nothing had happened. I rode home with my father, and told him then. He was much more understanding, as I had the presence of mind to compare my addiction to bulimia to his alcoholism. (He's been sober for over a decade.) He listened, and didn’t accuse me or ask questions. It was peaceful and relieving.

To be honest, I haven’t spoken about it to my family very much since that night. I did a bit, back during that hand-wringing period that I subjected you poor folks to a little over a year ago, but we didn’t discuss it much. They just offered their support, and told me they wanted me to be happy.

And I really am out of that hand-wringing, angsty period. I don’t feel the despair or anger I used to feel. But I’m not out of this, yet.

Otherwise, I wouldn’t be so nervous about tomorrow’s scheduled appointment. If I was “all better,” I wouldn’t be so nervous the decay was continuing. I’m canceling yet again, because I have something else to do tomorrow night after the scheduled appointment, and I cannot handle hearing about a few more cavities and then going to face my friends. Even though I know they love me. Even though I know they’ll be able to tell if I’m upset, if I choose not to hide it, and they'll want to help. (I’d probably hide it.) I just don’t want to deal with the games I’ll have to play with myself.

Since I’m such a metaphor whore, my teeth have become symbols. Until I’m fully out of this, my stupid dental issues are indicative of the fact that I am rotting from the inside, out. I dare you to deny that.

I’ve led you to believe that I’m all better, and I’m sorry for that hypocrisy. But, at the same time, everything I’ve said outright has been true. I’m so much happier with myself than I’ve ever been. I like my brain, and the way my head works, and all that. I’d hang out with me. I like my philosophy and my independence and my kindness and my imagination.

I don’t like lying, though, and nothing leads more directly to self-loathing than hypocrisy. I try like hell not to lie. The smallest deceptions, other than superficial white lies for the sakes of others' feelings, make me horribly uneasy.

I can’t think of a single thing I believe in more than Truth. Only Truth is black and white, in that if it’s anything other than itself, it dies. You can’t even say that about Love. Love has too many faces, and too easily leads us to lie to ourselves for its sake. Only by being True to one’s self can one Love purely. Maybe that’s why they call it True Love. (Maybe this is getting self-righteous and heavy-handed.)

One thing I feel really crappy about is that I totally lied at my grad school interview, and indicated that I was recovered and had moved on. While I have moved on in many ways, and really feel that I’m ready for grad school, the lie makes me feel like shit; not only because of the nature of lying, but also because … hello … I’m going to be training to be a therapist. Let’s all have a good laugh at that.

I still think I'd be good at it, and that it's a necessary field. Even if my head could use a bit more shrinking, I'm stubborn, and think I should do my own shrinking myself, because I'm at that point. More hypocrisy! Yay!

I still have so much to deal with, and I’m terrified that I’ll just assimilate and adopt even more destructive coping mechanisms. I come from a family of alcoholics. There are weeks where I go through more whiskey than Tom Waits in the 70s, and more red wine than the Vatican at Easter. (It isn't a problem yet, but I should watch myself.) My smoking has increased exponentially over the past year. Everything I've heard or read about junkies, I relate to in some way because of my eating disorder, and it scares the crap out of me.

These things worry me, but I know my tendency for extremes, and I’m preemptively exhausted at the prospect of mastering that strange creature known as “moderation.” Moderation frightens me, perhaps superficially, because I fear that by foregoing the fun of extremes, I’d be betraying a really great part of my personality. I know how stupid that sounds.

As for the binging and purging, while it has dissipated greatly, it still happens, and for the same reasons. I’m afraid that it’s dissipated not because I’ve faced everything I’ve needed to face, but because I’ve distanced myself from the disorder itself, because I'm so fucking sick of it.

I generally don’t look in the mirror or give more attention to my appearance than I have to. I haven’t weighed myself for ages. For the most part, I’m glad for that, because it really isn’t that important, and the distance has given me some much-needed perspective. At the same time, though, I barely know what I look like; so much so that when I see photographs of myself, I’m usually shocked, whether I like the picture or not. I know I could look better, younger, thinner, if I applied some consistend effort. There’s so much self-talk that goes on in my head, and I’m tired of listening to it.

It can be argued that I’m being too hard on myself. But, hell, who isn’t? Come on. Usually, the only people who aren’t their own worst critics are assholes. I don’t want to be an asshole.

I’ve always been very self-aware, and have, somehow, always known exactly why I’ve done everything I’ve ever done, whether it was healthy or self-destructive. I just don’t know why I still do the self-destructive things, now that I have so much more confidence in and respect for the aspects of myself that I’ve always liked.

As for Love? Jesus. I’ve never been in a serious relationship, and my dearth of romantic experience frankly confuses the hell out of me, because I think I deserve some lovin'. At the same time, I'm frightened because I can't imagine it happening. I can't imagine someone thinking I'm wonderful in that way. When people with romantic intent have told me I'm great or whatever, I have a weird reaction. It's not that I don't trust them; it's not that I think they're lying, I just think they're mistaken.

When you people talk of your familiar bowls of corn flakes shared with your lover over breakfast, you might as well be talking about pearls covered in fourteen-karat truffle oil, it sounds so exotic to me. As much as I respect myself and my independence, I love your love stories, and I soak them up, because I guess I’m parched.

Okay, I’m going to say it, I’m rather fucking delightful, and I think I’d be great at Love. But all I’ve indulged in, for the most part, have been puddles of romance, some of which hinted at depth, but all of which I saw for what they were. To simplify: I have consistently and knowingly put myself in relationship situations in which I am given low priority, and I have no idea why I’ve done this when I’m such a gigantically vocal pirate for “life experience.” It has to stop.

So, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for any hypocrisy this “purge” (ha) has revealed. At this point, I’m putting it out there because I simply don’t know what to do. I really am okay, and don't worry, I'll reschedule that fucking dentist's appointment for some afternoon that I don't have anything else to deal with.

I just have to think about stuff, and recognize patterns as they’re happening. I don’t have anything to pray to, and if I don’t look to myself, I’ll just be sitting around, slack-jawed, and reaching for my wine.

Fuck that.

Really, though, I’m okay. I’m just thinking.

I gotta go to bed. It’s late, and as Scarlett O’Hara said, “Tomorrow is another day.”

I think she also said, “As God is my witness, I’ll never go hungry again.” Funny in a bunch of ways.

Frankly, I don’t give a damn.

(Okay, yeah I do.)

~ Last Five Entries ~

Arm-in-Arm Down Burgundy - 09.05.05

Motivated! - 08.25.05

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

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