chocolates are kinder than people

a teenager summarizes to her doctor what she thinks the reason behind her bulimia is.

Yeah hi dr. Raubian, 

This is Liliana Levin, responding to your kind-of-irritating request to write about my problems. If this gets to long, you asked for this.

Is there a word for when you want something desperately but at the same time despise it? Like cats, for instance, they're cute and all but they meow annoyingly and shed all over your clothes. Or like computers, they're great for homework and pornography and the likes, but they buffer and lag and suddenly you want to brutally stab someone to death. Everything sucks, basically. And according to Sandrine (the apparent expert on my life), I have that kind of relationship with food. I don't know why Sandrine cares. I try to keep our relationship strictly professional. I don't know if you've noticed when we visit, but I really don't like her, and I try to leave her alone as much as possible. But you know, Sandrine's got that 'Don't talk that way to your mother', 'I know everything' kinda vibe, so carrying my in her insides for 9 months, coddling me to death for 9 years then ignoring me for 4 clearly means something. I definitely would not need therapy if she was not so... so Sandrineish. I know I present here somewhat of a paradox here, what I mean is she tries too hard. 

When I was about 10 she gave it a shot with being that good advice-giving mother. She literally talked non stop about periods and friendship and I was having none of that. Like, around then my friends were in this play written by this really obnoxious girl who I hated, so I obviously didn't want to be a part of it. The rehearsals were in during freetime, so I was like the only year 5 girl on the playground. I didn't really care for my friends that much, but even I had to admit it was lonely. I could have asked for a role. But it was such a mediocre play, and everybody was wetting their pants over it.

 I asked Sandrine what to do and she was like,

"Well, if you want to be with your friends, go for it! :)"

Like, what the hell? Thank you! Thank you so much! You definitely helped me make my decision!

In the end I just stole all the scripts and threw them in the recycling. No one ever found out it was me, but when they discovered what happened they acted like it was some kind of genocide. I laughed. 

Anyway, point is, Sandrine is s**t at giving good advice, it's a joke why she even tries. My sister, Amalia turned out sort of normal. Well, she's currently an erotic model (which Sandrine is cool with but when I wear short shorts all hell breaks loose) and she's dating car salesman who's 11 years older than her and has been married twice. Amalia and Sandrine get on really well. They talk about anything, vaginas and boyfriends and it's not awkward at all for them. 

When dad was alive I was probably more close to him (he was a miserable git but then again so am I). He's gone, Sandrine might as well be gone, Amalia is busy with her honorable life and Edgar, my smart arse brother, lives in Hong Kong. I really don't have anyone, you know, anyone who I can talk to. 

Food is a nice comfort, I discovered shortly after dad died. Like, no, food is incredible. Trifle is literally the best, I mean, there's cake, pudding, I don't think you could ask for more. My second favourite are croissants, which are uber-great when you add chocolate chips in. When I think about, there is no healthy food I really like that much. 

This presents a problem. Well, I knew from a young age I was never going to be 'fat', Sandrine says we biologically can't. Edgar has to eat this protein powder thing or he'd automatically lose like 10 lbs. So I'm not really worried about being one of those fat-sad girls or anything.

I don't want to die. I've got it planned out, I'm going to die when I'm 102, surrounded by great-grandchildren, which I will get somehow whilst being a misanthrope. No heart, liver or brain problems will plague my life. Obesity leads to all kind of s**t, heart disease, high-blood pressure or diabetes and whatever. I am terrified of getting diabetes. I'm extremely needlephobic, I would probably die if I had to stab insulin into my blood stream every half-hour or whatever. And only being able to eat at certain times would kill me emotionally. And since I 'can't get fat' how am I supposed to know what the risk is?

But I really love food. I love it so much. But after 28 hobnobs I'm finally full and realize what I've just done... all that sugar and fat, turning my stomach into this bloated, fizzing mess. Why did I have to do that? Vomiting is literally a win-win situation. Look, I get to eat whatever I want and then just puke it out and start all over again! I mean the whole vomiting part freaked me out a little at the beginning, but by now it's almost relaxing, the pain of regurgitating is like a punishment for me - anything that I fucked up throughout the day I can get it out then and everything's ok. 

Then Sandrine finds out and acts like she's the savior in a teen soap opera, it had been going on for over two years by then, b***h.

"Just stop doing it."

Wow. Well done, you've cured me!

Back to the hospital it is. Well, I've only been to the hospital once before, and that wasn't even my fault. I didn't pee for like 4 days and it turned out my kidneys were stunted because I was too small (I was 11 and 73 lbs, that isn't bad) so that put me on these (really bad-tasting) hormone tablets to keep my kidneys in line and that was that. 

That's when you came in and said I needed to go on this eating plan (which Sandrine did not enforce at all), and developed another sound plan - 

"I'm going to let you decide for yourself how to take care of this problem," 

So of course another 5 months went by of me doing the exact same thing and Sandrine pretending I was getting better. I heard her talking about 'my recovery' to her gossip-circle, so I suppose this was big news to her clique. 

I thought if she found out I would feel better. In fact, I tried to let her see sometimes. At dinner, I would try and eat my meal in under 5 minutes to get some kind of reaction but nothing. That was the same when I wouldn't eat for a day - 

"Have you had lunch yet?"

"No, I'm saving for dinner."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Yes!"

"Ok then..."

I don't understand how a woman can be so blind. Where's our mother-daughter connection that she likes to brag about?

But even when I went too far and threw up on the dining room rug it was as if I was permanently deranged drug addict or something. 

You said I need to know Sandrine better if I'm to get better, but I can't see that happening. Sandrine and I are like night and day, we don't understand each other and I don't know if we ever will. I'm so lonely. I blame everything wrong with my life on Sandrine, I know that's wrong, but it's the only conclusion my mind jumps to. I don't thing therapy or meal plans are in order, I think if I just had someone, someone to talk too about how I really feel (you don't count, you charge £30 per hour) I wouldn't have to put myself through this. 

Author's Note

I wasn't really sure what genre to place this in so say so if you think it should be in a another