kit kat’s Reviews > Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia > Status Update

“In childhood, all of us go through a process of discovering how to self-regulate—to calm down, to stop the flood of tears, to release fears. It's a necessary process.”

“If you are bulimic, it is assumed that you come from a chaotic family. If you are an anoretic, it is assumed you come from a rigid and controlling family. As it happens, mine was both”

“I divided into two: the self in my head and the girl in the mirror. It was a strange, not unpleasant feeling of disorientation, dissociation. I began to return to the mirror often, to see if I could get that feeling back. If I sat very still and thought: Not me-not me-not me over and over, I could retrieve the feeling of being two girls, staring at each other through the glass of the mirror.”

“I was not seeking my image in the mirror out of vain pride. On the contrary, my vigilance was something else—both a need to see that I appeared, on the surface at least, acceptable, and a need for reassurance that I was still there”

“I remember wanting. And I remember being at once afraid and ashamed that I wanted. I felt like yearning was specific to me, and the guilt that it brought was mine alone.”

“I did not like to be touched, but it was a strange dislike. I did not like to be touched because I craved it too much. I wanted to be held very tight so I would not break. Even now, when people lean down to touch me, or hug me, or put a hand on my shoulder, I hold my breath. I turn my face. I want to cry.”

“It's as if a part of my brain had split off and was keeping an eye on me, making sure I knew how I looked at all times.”

“I have never been normal about my body. It has always seemed to me a strange and foreign entity. I don't know that there was ever a time when I was not conscious of it. As far back as I can think, I was aware of my corporeality, my physical imposition on space” so real