portions of my upcoming project “every situation is a no win situation.”
A letter from James
“Sophie,
The instant empowering satisfaction of control in eating disorders is what makes this perpetual cycle extremely difficult to over-come. Our perceptions of ourselves, especially for those affected by this illness, becomes a game of comparisons. The daily comparisons of body types and perceptions of the individual’s own self image shatters and deteriorates more and more. This individual was Sophie Samul. Seeing her from week to week and noticing a change in her body and dress was extremely difficult. As Sophie began to loose more weight her clothes became more revealing. I can remember starring into her eyes and feeling no life behind them. I noticed her collarbones and shoulders were getting thinner and thinner to the point where her actual body did not match her natural frame. At the beginning of her weight-loss a lot of us saw it as an approach to becoming healthier due to fact that she was using Weight Watchers as a way to moderate her eating habits. Weight Watchers soon became her only obsession. Her weight-loss goals became more drastic and this is when I became more worried about her well-being. Sophie no longer was using Weight Watchers for means of moderation, but means of a spiraling eating disorder. Weight Watchers became part of her game. Her main goal was to attain less points for the day. It was extremely difficult to invite her to restaurants or even dining halls. If she couldn’t measure what was inside of the food she was eating, she would not eat at all. I personally advised her to get help from nutritionists etc, and she did, but to no avail. I think she only went to a few meetings and brushed it off like it was no big deal. For me, there was no way of helping her; it was as if she was being exorcised. I would hear constant complaints about how hungry she was but how she couldn’t eat because she was saving her points for the weekend or for later that night. Sophie’s sickness started affecting her physically. I recall two experiences where her body would start convulsing, almost as if it was shutting down completely. Aileen bathed her after one of these occasions and that day all I wanted was to be by her side because I did not know what would happen. In her state, Sophie wrote a grocery list because she had not eaten anything all day. I got us pho and we laid in bed all day until we both passed out from exhaustion; hers being physical and mine being mental. Summer rolled by and it became even worse. I had gone home for the summer but went to Philadelphia and New York to visit her on several occasions. To have had time away from her and seeing her again was shatteringly painful. To see a friend whom I love and care so much for, just completely bones… leading a life of vices and lies at the time made me want to cut all ties with our friendship. Intellectual conversation with Sophie became hard to come by due to the petty complaints and shallow comments that shut down anything else to really talk about besides gossip, gossip girl, the guy she was sleeping with, clothes, or the crazy experience she had the night before. To me, now, Sophie no longer is this person. She seems to have over-come this battle in a way that has made her flourish. She has a voice, one that i love hearing when we engage in conversation. She has more passion, dedication, and drive than ever before; almost as if she discovered new bones inside of her within the darkness that she was in. Beauty grows after forest fires. After the forest has turned to ash, flowers begin to grow and that same land becomes more beautiful than ever. Sophie Samul embodies this, and I love and respect everything that she is and will be.
YOU ARE AWESOME, I AM CRYING”
A letter from me
“Hi James,
It seems strange to me to be apologizing to you and to everyone I have hurt, but I know it is so important and so necessary. In the letters I have gotten back so far, your words are the most descriptive and poignant, and mean the most to me. I am now aware that my eating disorder turned me into a selfish person who I now barely recognize, and have a hard time even seeing and understanding in a way that makes any sense to me. I was so obsessed with myself, but my self-perception was so fragmented that it became impossible for me to bear interactions with myself, let alone any of the people who mattered most to me. I want you to know that I never meant to be a negative force in anyone’s life, and at the time legitimately thought that my “problem,” didn’t affect anyone else but myself. I can tell myself as much as I want that my eating disorder had nothing to do with other people and everything to do with myself, and that my friends never knew I didn’t love them, and that my ability to be a good friend never wavered, but I can see now to do so would be to completely dilute myself. I don’t know if I can express in words to you how moving, upsetting, hurtful, constructive, or completely and utterly necessary it has been for me to hear the words of all of the people I love who were forced to interact with me when I was at my sickest. I know that I joke with you and wonder why you would ever tolerate me and be my friend, but I mean it. Though it is honestly impossible for me to ever fully understand how it must have been to be around me, hearing about it from you is an enormous wake up call. I don’t know how to adequately thank you for not giving up on me. I am of the mind that every experience you have is defined by your previous experiences, and quite frankly, I do not know how and if I would have been able to reach the place I am now without you in my life. So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. I am learning to love myself, and though I am not all of the way there yet, I know that with the friendship of you, other old friends, and the new gems I come across every day now that I am able to go outside, meet people, and face the world again, I will be able to get there. I am not fully balanced, but I am honest for the first time in a long time. Like I said to you a couple of weeks ago: maybe we do need other people to make it possible for us to understand how to love ourselves, maybe there are different soul mates for different times in our lives, and maybe that doesn’t make me a weak person, just an honest one. So thank you for being my soul mate, and know that I will always have more words and more time and more love for you whenever you need me. I love you.
Love,
Sophie”
