Another lovely visit with the parental figures.  I have stopped calling them mom and dad at this point. I think that is giving them far too much credit. They were just people who were cashing my SSI benefit checks every month and using them for their own needs. Let’s be real about it.... I don’t even know what motivates them to come see me in this place at all. All they do is make me feel like shit about myself. They don’t care about me or helping me get better. It’s all about telling me how I am so horrible and how they are so great. How my life wasn’t that bad...Ok, maybe from their end? For me, it was fucking miserable. Why didn’t they just let me die when they had the chance?

Well, Doc said I have to write something not related to the visit. I told her I didn’t want to but, yeah... I guess I have to because I need to process things or whatever...

The eating disorder and 8th grade- The rest of junior high was not the best, but it got better eventually. I became an aunt for the first time as my step sister graduated college, got married and had her first child. Her husband was awesome. He was so nice to me. He even taught me how to box. My stepsister was actually nice to me too all the sudden. It was like he was a pod person who made her change her personality and I was not complaining. So at least this stuff started getting better. I was still really sensitive about being chubby too. I wore overalls a lot and big shirts to mask it. Mom still would call me fat ass as her standard come back when I would get in trouble. I remember one day watching one of those afterschool specials. You know the ones that are meant to scare kids into not doing things that are soooooo terrible and bad for us? But for me, this ended up being my instruction manual on how to effectively develop and manage bulimia. It had that skinny bitch from Ally McBeal in it. She was a model who stayed skinny by binging and purging and living off popcorn when she actually really ate. Brilliant I thought! At first, I would pretend to wash my hands a lot or take baths to mask the sound of my vomiting. But then there was the matter of being called out on how much time I was spending in the bathroom in a house with three teenagers, two adults, a tween and a grade school kid. So, on to plan b. The girl in the movie had kept jars in her bedroom closet to puke in and then would dispose of them. So, this is what I ended up doing. I would sneak pickle jars and stash them in my closet. I would use them to purge and then sneak them into the bathroom with me to flush the contents. That worked a lot better. I could just make it part of my normal bathroom routine when I was getting ready for bed and no one was the wiser. The weight started to drop, and my hair grew out. I learned what a flat iron was and got contacts. I was starting to grow into my features and for the first time ever in my life, I felt like I might actually be attractive on some level. My step brothers’ friends started to flirt with me. Which super pissed him off. I was even asked to model for a local dress shop, although my parents totally were not cool with that. It felt nice to finally feel like I wasn’t just the weirdo nerd. I was still big time a nerd but now I was not getting picked for it as much. I had my first boyfriend and first kiss that year. I had met my best friends by then too. We were all in AP classes together from 7th and 8th grade so I had stuff in common with them. I had discovered I was actually a pretty good running by this point too. My sister was in CAP and ran the mile for that. Her times were at the top of her unit and I was neck and neck with her on my split times. She was still somewhat engaged in her studies when she was in junior high still but as she moved on to high school a lot would change for her. I finished up junior high with a core group of friends who I am still mostly in contact with still. Some more than others. But they were part of making life bearable for me and giving me a safe place to be myself. By the end of junior high my cousins moved back to Texas with their mom who had broken up with her side piece to get back with her husband. The house year ended up not being so bad and I had some hope that high school might not suck.

Next Chapter: Entry Thirteen