Paula D. Atkinson
11/25/2008


You Have Such A Pretty Face


                      She has “the lookâ€� as she scans my face and body. Sheâ
€™s not scene me since I was 6 years old. And the process begins; each time
I blink I want to just keep my eyes shut fall mysteriously into a coma. Iâ
€™ve stopped breathing. My jaw is clenched and my fingernails are digging
into my palm as I make tight fists. My ears start ringing. I start what is my
customary internal dialogue in such circumstances: ‘please don’t say it,
please don’t say it, please-oh-please don’t say it, please God donâ
€™t let her say it…’
She rubs the back of her cold, gray hand against my bloated hot pink cheek
and begins to open her mouth as if to speak. I want to scream ‘NO!’
and ‘FUCK OFF!’ and run away, run forever. Every cell in my body is
wailing like a fire alarm.
“Oh Paula, you have such a pretty face.�
She fucking said it.
“Uh…yeah….I get that a lot,� I mumble. I smile. I always smile. I
turn away from her as fast as I can as my face gets even redder and hotter.
I won’t let her or anyone see me cry. Am I disappointed? Angry? Maybe.
Fat girls really don’t have feelings anyway.
At least I can breathe now. She fucking said it. Now if only I could wear a
button that reads “AUNT LOIS ALREADY SAID I HAVE SUCH A
PRETTY FACE� so as not to relive this moment. I have at least another
hour of coming face-to-face with many other great-aunts and uncles. My
mother said it would mean a lot to her if I came with her to Minnesota to a
family reunion. It’s quite the revelry. At the very least, they know how to
eat in the mid –West. I can respect any culture that considers two Jell-O
packets mixed with canned mandarin oranges and a tub of Cool Whip a salad.
My  mom Carol is already the biggest perma-victim in the universe. She has a
PhD in passive aggression. There’s no way I could have opted out. I’m
the only child. So now all the relatives in this shit hole of a town in a shit hole
of a state get to see that Carol has a fat 13-year-old daughter with such a
pretty face.
I am glad to be missing some school. Eighth grade is supposed to be fun, weâ
€™re the oldest kids at the Junior High. But I am so nervous about next
year. Is it even possible to enjoy one’s freshman year of high school?
Even the normal skinny girls must be a little anxious. They say that everyone
is made to run laps in P.E. in high school. I do not run. Fat girls don’t run.
Just considering the P.E. component alone gives me panic attacks. School itsel,
the studying and homework has always been a breeze. I learn fast, catch on
quick to what’s expected of me. I’m addicted to pleasing everyone
within a one mile radius and I’m a compulsive teacher’s pet. If you pay
attention, most of us fat girls are.
Besides wanting to swallow my tongue when I contemplate physical education
class, I’m constantly exhausted by having to be everyone’s fat happy
friend in Junior High. How am I going to fend off the chubby comments when
there are at least double the amount of kids around to please? No one has
any clue how demanding it is. Every minute of every single day I’m on a
crusade. I am battling everyone’s initial impulse to notice and point out my
body’s considerable size. I must incessantly make everyone forget that
I’m fat. That alone is my number 1 mission, my only motivation for
absolutely everything I do. I have to delight them all. I must make them
revere me, attach significant importance to me. I cannot rock even the tiniest
of boats. I can’t let them detect how painfully unacceptable I actually
am. It’s hard labor. It’s unremitting. Behind my smile and my uncanny
ability to befriend every single student at East Avenue Junior High School,
inside I’m begging them to disregard the obvious complete intolerability
of my fat existence. It’s not for their benefit. I have come to trust, over
my 13 years on the planet, that my corpulence makes me unworthy of most
things normal people take for granted. Especially and most prominently
companionship. Which is why I don’t really have friends as much as I have
many, many girls who I keep entertained in order to prevent them from
leaving me. I certainly refuse to be fat AND alone. They don’t know who
I really am. But I don’t either anymore. Fat girls really don’t have
feelings anyway.
Now I’m back to school. While I was in Minnesota with my estrange
tactless family members, Spring developed into Summer here in the quiet
Bay Area suburb of Livermore. It happens fast around here, it’s really
desert on this side of the hills from San Francisco. Mid-April and we’ve
stopped wearing socks a month ago. We will put every long sleeved shirt and
full length pant away until next November.
Most 13-year-olds begin thinking about getting out of school for summer
break, buying cute new summer clothes, vacation plans. All I think about is
that I can’t wear my trusty jean jacket for much longer without people
commenting. “Aren’t you hot in that jacket?�, “Don’t you
wanna take that thing off?� “It’s over 100 degrees out here!�
Panic swells like incense smoke from the pit of my stomach to my throat when
I contemplate removing it in public. I wear my jean jacket every single day.
It’s light blue denim, the hems are frayed and the elbows almost
translucent from deterioration. I have it on each day, all day, because it hides
the middle of my body. My legs aren’t bad. I can pull off shorts. My legs
below the knee could be anyone’s, I’m relieved to admit. This is good
for a gal who lives where it’s over 100 degrees for 2 out of the 12
months in a year. But from about 4 inches above my knees to my shoulders is
no man’s land. Appalling. Odious and distasteful and better off left
unseen. I especially despise my back, which validates the beloved jean jacket.
I often have fantastic day dreams of carving off the rolls of fat on each side
of my back body from my shoulders to my waist. The sweat collects in these
vile pockets of skin, like many mini-armpits flowering my bulk.  And the
worst, my most horrific defect, is where my lower back suddenly explodes
into my dimpled, jelly-filled balloon of an ass. That transitional piece disgusts
me, makes me physically ill to think about. So I wear the jacket, as I aspire
towards the illusion of one smooth flat plain from my scapula to just below my
butt. I doubt I am fooling anybody, but at least I’m giving them no
evidence to the contrary.
I wonder what normal-sized people think about. What would float through my
consciousness if not shameful thoughts, torturous self-inflicted criticism and
constant berating? I have no idea where my energy would go, who I might
become. For reasons beyond my explanation I know I won’t be like this
forever. I have extremely important things to do in my life. And fat girls donâ
€™t get to do anything except please and pretend not to be hungry.

After being fat and miserable for 16 years, I really did believe that if I lost
all the weight I would have no problems. It seems so silly from this side of it,
but I truly assumed that if I looked like everyone else on the street, if I
could buy clothes at The Gap, if I could saunter up to an all-you-can-eat
buffet without any humiliation; nothing would ever go wrong in my life again. I
thought the fat covering my body was the root of every difficulty I had ever
come up against. What I discovered was that the pounds and pounds of
adipose tissue on my body was a symptom of other problems and beliefs and
deficiencies. And though it was hard to admit, the shame didn’t go away.

What I failed to realize was how much I needed that abhorrent fat. I was
completely unprepared for the rollercoaster ride I unknowingly stepped onto
when I lost 100 pounds my junior year of high school. Being an only child of a
bi-polar mother and an emotionally absent alcoholic father, I had no idea how
to take care of myself. All I knew was that when I ate, the tornado of
anxiety in my chest and the static in my head stopped. Eating was how I cared
for the scared little girl that didn’t understand why the grown-ups
around me wouldn’t get close to me, wouldn’t hold me and dry my
tears, why they all seemed so distant and lost in their own busy minds. Eating
soothed me.
So when I decided to, finally, lose the weight, I had none of the tools one
would need to simply install moderation and balance into my dysfunctional
relationship. I never even considered simple healthy eating as an option. I
knew the only way I could slow down my voracious appetite for comfort was
to stop eating altogether. I had no word for it, but I knew on some level that
I was an addict and that my addiction to food had to switch to an addiction to
the glory of starvation. I chose anorexia. I was determined and I’ve been
known to get whatever I put my mind to. It worked. It worked fast. And
when the weight began to slide off, the accolades and attention I received
made me starve more. I cut out more and more foods, I began to exercise
and then exercise more.
It was all too much for me. Suddenly all the popular kids were willing to hang
out with me. After I won the title of Homecoming Queen, it was like an
automatic admission into the cool kid crowd. Not that I didn’t still love all
my drama dorks and gay boys and band nerd friends, but isn’t that what
I worked so hard to lose the weight for? Carol didn’t like my new
friends. She didn’t like my newfound popularity and the attention I was
getting. I did. I got a car and I was hanging with my new friends and out of
the house as much as possible. I liked feeling like a part of something cool.
Mostly, the less time I was around mom and dad the more I could get away
with not eating.
Not telling the truth was nothing new to me. I rarely was anywhere near
honest. I had always lied about what I was feeling, how I was doing, what was
really going on inside of me. It’s what we do in my family. But I began my
career as a professional liar when I stopped eating. “How did you lose the
weight Paula?� I’d smile and modestly explain my commitment to the
good ole’ equation of a healthy diet and moderate exercise. I always
failed to mention the starving and puking, the compulsive exercising and the
unvarying mental obsession. And then I would have to lie about not being
hungry, having already eaten dinner, being a vegetarian, being allergic to
wheat products, etc. It took a great deal of story-telling and forethought.

When I graduated high school and went away to college I was so excited to
be left alone, finally, and to be able to really focus on getting as thin as
possible. That is all that mattered to me. Nothing else. How ironic that I got
thin so I would be more accepted by more people, and now I wanted to be
just left alone. The disease of anorexia had completely taken over my mind
and my life. I knew that. But I also knew that it was a small price to pay
compared to being the fat girl again. Never. Again.
We are driving down “The 5� as we call it in California. It’s a boring
long and ugly stretch of road that connects Northern and Southern California.
This is the longest I’ve spent alone with my parents in years.
They are driving me, in our family van, down to San Diego to enter a
treatment center today. We are not talking about it. That’s not what we
do in our family.
I am 21 years old. The last three to four years are a blur. I’m sitting in
the back seat alone, nervous, obsessing, drinking my daily gallon of Crystal
Light. Loaded silence. My body is so thin I can’t sit or lay down on any
surface without it feeling like I’m being stabbed. My bones feel like they
are puncturing through my thin skin. I’m cold, my teeth chatter
constantly. It’s August in California and I’m wearing four layers of
clothing. In the last year it’s gotten really bad and I can’t stop. I canâ
€™t make it stop. I never had control, whether I was binging or starving, it
was always more powerful than I was. I haven’t eaten a bite of solid food
in over a year. I simply must run for at least 2 hours every morning and then
I can barely walk for the rest of the day. My body is eating away at my own
muscle tissue in order to survive. I almost fell asleep driving through San
Francisco the other day. My brain chemistry is so distorted and the doctor
says it’s due to lack of nutrients. I have crying spells and panic attacks.
The doctor said my body is beginning to shut down. On some level, I know I
am dying. But I can’t make myself eat.
In the past year I’ve had to cut myself off completely from most
everyone in order to continue with my behavior. I can’t be bothered by
people who may care enough to intervene. Also, the panic attacks come
without warning and I don’t want anyone to see me like that. I can’t
let on that there’s a problem. When the anxiety hits me I feel like Iâ
€™m dying. My world gets dark and my head spins so fast and I cannot
imagine ever, ever getting out of it. I can’t let anyone know I’m not
OK.
Yesterday I told my best friend and roommate that I was going to
treatment. Neil and I have a great arrangement. We’ve been best
friends since 6th grade. We both are completely frightened of people, of
intimacy, and of having to be authentic. Therefore we are a refuge for each
other, never discussing the obvious, loving each other deeply because weâ
€™ve silently agreed that we will never challenge the other; much like my
family and his. Yesterday I told Neil I was going away to get better,
assuming I’d have to explain that I’d been suffering from anorexia
for the past 5 years. I didn’t even finish my sentence and Neil fell to my
feet and sobbed. I’ve never seen Neil show any emotion. I only hear how
much he loves me when he’s extremely high or drunk. His outpour shocked
me. And relieved me. He really cared. I didn’t even think he ever noticed.
That’s how delusional I was. As I deteriorated in front of his eyes, as I
slid farther and farther down the scale to a deadly 80 pounds, I assumed it
wasn’t that conspicuous.
I’m scared to go to treatment and relieved to go. Petrified of going and
petrified of not going. I always thought I could handle it. I thought I’d fix
it when it got really out of control. I got myself into this mess and I thought I
had to get myself out. I didn’t know how to ask for help and I didn’t
know asking for help was an option. That’s not what we do in my family. I
don’t want to live like this anymore. But I only know two ways of being me:
ashamed, lonely fat and fake or ashamed, lonely skinny and possessed. There
has got to be more options than those. month ago. We will put every long
sleeved shirt and full length pant away until next November.
Most 13-year-olds begin thinking about getting out of school for summer
break, buying cute new summer clothes, vacation plans. All I think about is
that I can’t wear my trusty jean jacket for much longer without people
commenting. “Aren’t you hot in that jacket?�, “Don’t you
wanna take that thing off?� “It’s over 100 degrees out here!�
Panic swells like incense smoke from the pit of my stomach to my throat when
I contemplate removing it in public. I wear my jean jacket every single day.
It’s light blue denim, the hems are frayed and the elbows almost
translucent from deterioration. I have it on each day, all day, because it hides
the middle of my body. My legs aren’t bad. I can pull off shorts. My legs
below the knee could be anyone’s, I’m relieved to admit. This is good
for a gal who lives where it’s over 100 degrees for 2 out of the 12
months in a year. But from about 4 inches above my knees to my shoulders is
no man’s land. Appalling. Odious and distasteful and better off left
unseen. I especially despise my back, which validates the beloved jean jacket.
I often have fantastic day dreams of carving off the rolls of fat on each side
of my back body from my shoulders to my waist. The sweat collects in these
vile pockets of skin, like many mini-armpits flowering my bulk.  And the
worst, my most horrific defect, is where my lower back suddenly explodes
into my dimpled, jelly-filled balloon of an ass. That transitional piece disgusts
me, makes me physically ill to think about. So I wear the jacket, as I aspire
towards the illusion of one smooth flat plain from my scapula to just below my
butt. I doubt I am fooling anybody, but at least I’m giving them no
evidence to the contrary.
I wonder what normal-sized people think about. What would float through my
consciousness if not shameful thoughts, torturous self-inflicted criticism and
constant berating? I have no idea where my energy would go, who I might
become. For reasons beyond my explanation I know I won’t be like this
forever. I have extremely important things to do in my life. And fat girls donâ
€™t get to do anything except please and pretend not to be hungry.

After being fat and miserable for 16 years, I really did believe that if I lost
all the weight I would have no problems. It seems so silly from this side of it,
but I truly assumed that if I looked like everyone else on the street, if I
could buy clothes at The Gap, if I could saunter up to an all-you-can-eat
buffet without any humiliation; nothing would ever go wrong in my life again. I
thought the fat covering my body was the root of every difficulty I had ever
come up against. What I discovered was that the pounds and pounds of
adipose tissue on my body was a symptom of other problems and beliefs and
deficiencies. And though it was hard to admit, the shame didn’t go away.

What I failed to realize was how much I needed that abhorrent fat. I was
completely unprepared for the rollercoaster ride I unknowingly stepped onto
when I lost 100 pounds my junior year of high school. Being an only child of a
bi-polar mother and an emotionally absent alcoholic father, I had no idea how
to take care of myself. All I knew was that when I ate, the tornado of
anxiety in my chest and the static in my head stopped. Eating was how I cared
for the scared little girl that didn’t understand why the grown-ups
around me wouldn’t get close to me, wouldn’t hold me and dry my
tears, why they all seemed so distant and lost in their own busy minds. Eating
soothed me.
So when I decided to, finally, lose the weight, I had none of the tools one
would need to simply install moderation and balance into my dysfunctional
relationship. I never even considered simple healthy eating as an option. I
knew the only way I could slow down my voracious appetite for comfort was
to stop eating altogether. I had no word for it, but I knew on some level that
I was an addict and that my addiction to food had to switch to an addiction to
the glory of starvation. I chose anorexia. I was determined and I’ve been
known to get whatever I put my mind to. It worked. It worked fast. And
when the weight began to slide off, the accolades and attention I received
made me starve more. I cut out more and more foods, I began to exercise
and then exercise more.
It was all too much for me. Suddenly all the popular kids were willing to hang
out with me. After I won the title of Homecoming Queen, it was like an
automatic admission into the cool kid crowd. Not that I didn’t still love all
my drama dorks and gay boys and band nerd friends, but isn’t that what
I worked so hard to lose the weight for? Carol didn’t like my new
friends. She didn’t like my newfound popularity and the attention I was
getting. I did. I got a car and I was hanging with my new friends and out of
the house as much as possible. I liked feeling like a part of something cool.
Mostly, the less time I was around mom and dad the more I could get away
with not eating.
Not telling the truth was nothing new to me. I rarely was anywhere near
honest. I had always lied about what I was feeling, how I was doing, what was
really going on inside of me. It’s what we do in my family. But I began my
career as a professional liar when I stopped eating. “How did you lose the
weight Paula?� I’d smile and modestly explain my commitment to the
good ole’ equation of a healthy diet and moderate exercise. I always
failed to mention the starving and puking, the compulsive exercising and the
unvarying mental obsession. And then I would have to lie about not being
hungry, having already eaten dinner, being a vegetarian, being allergic to
wheat products, etc. It took a great deal of story-telling and forethought.

When I graduated high school and went away to college I was so excited to
be left alone, finally, and to be able to really focus on getting as thin as
possible. That is all that mattered to me. Nothing else. How ironic that I got
thin so I would be more accepted by more people, and now I wanted to be
just left alone. The disease of anorexia had completely taken over my mind
and my life. I knew that. But I also knew that it was a small price to pay
compared to being the fat girl again. Never. Again.
We are driving down “The 5� as we call it in California. It’s a boring
long and ugly stretch of road that connects Northern and Southern California.
This is the longest I’ve spent alone with my parents in years.
They are driving me, in our family van, down to San Diego to enter a
treatment center today. We are not talking about it. That’s not what we
do in our family.
I am 21 years old. The last three to four years are a blur. I’m sitting in
the back seat alone, nervous, obsessing, drinking my daily gallon of Crystal
Light. Loaded silence. My body is so thin I can’t sit or lay down on any
surface without it feeling like I’m being stabbed. My bones feel like they
are puncturing through my thin skin. I’m cold, my teeth chatter
constantly. It’s August in California and I’m wearing four layers of
clothing. In the last year it’s gotten really bad and I can’t stop. I canâ
€™t make it stop. I never had control, whether I was binging or starving, it
was always more powerful than I was. I haven’t eaten a bite of solid food
in over a year. I simply must run for at least 2 hours every morning and then
I can barely walk for the rest of the day. My body is eating away at my own
muscle tissue in order to survive. I almost fell asleep driving through San
Francisco the other day. My brain chemistry is so distorted and the doctor
says it’s due to lack of nutrients. I have crying spells and panic attacks.
The doctor said my body is beginning to shut down. On some level, I know I
am dying. But I can’t make myself eat.
In the past year I’ve had to cut myself off completely from most
everyone in order to continue with my behavior. I can’t be bothered by
people who may care enough to intervene. Also, the panic attacks come
without warning and I don’t want anyone to see me like that. I can’t
let on that there’s a problem. When the anxiety hits me I feel like Iâ
€™m dying. My world gets dark and my head spins so fast and I cannot
imagine ever, ever getting out of it. I can’t let anyone know I’m not
OK.
Yesterday I told my best friend and roommate that I was going to
treatment. Neil and I have a great arrangement. We’ve been best
friends since 6th grade. We both are completely frightened of people, of
intimacy, and of having to be authentic. Therefore we are a refuge for each
other, never discussing the obvious, loving each other deeply because weâ
€™ve silently agreed that we will never challenge the other; much like my
family and his. Yesterday I told Neil I was going away to get better,
assuming I’d have to explain that I’d been suffering from anorexia
for the past 5 years. I didn’t even finish my sentence and Neil fell to my
feet and sobbed. I’ve never seen Neil show any emotion. I only hear how
much he loves me when he’s extremely high or drunk. His outpour shocked
me. And relieved me. He really cared. I didn’t even think he ever noticed.
That’s how delusional I was. As I deteriorated in front of his eyes, as I
slid farther and farther down the scale to a deadly 80 pounds, I assumed it
wasn’t that conspicuous.
I’m scared to go to treatment and relieved to go. Petrified of going and
petrified of not going. I always thought I could handle it. I thought I’d fix
it when it got really out of control. I got myself into this mess and I thought I
had to get myself out. I didn’t know how to ask for help and I didn’t
know asking for help was an option. That’s not what we do in my family. I
don’t want to live like this anymore. But I only know two ways of being me:
ashamed, lonely fat and fake or ashamed, lonely skinny and possessed. There
has got to be more options than those.





ood. I have not considered what I might do if an unfamiliar envelope from
Florida landed in my mailbox. Yet fear, when it is present, sneaks its way in
whatever way it can. The unrest of the people around me, the energy of the
city, the headlines I try not to read, they have gotten to me. I am not
separate. I cannot be. And although Osama bin Laden does not cross my mind
on a regular basis, I have come to realize that I cannot escape the fear.
Here I was trying to convince myself that I was doing what was best for me.
However, as I  look at it now, maybe a little bit of anxiety at the threat of
terrorism and anthrax is not such a bad idea. At least that fear is real, is
valid. And as far as fear goes, I’d like to be able to share it with my
fellows. Maybe it doesn’t serve me to stay so separate. And maybe it
doesn’t serve the Universe to try to be so strong.
No Place Like The HOMEPAGE