Looking like a five- or six-year-old when you’re twelve causes big problems in middle school. When you add to that the fact that the most popular girl in class, Natasha, got a hold of classified information that you spent a week and a half on a children’s psychiatric unit in fifth grade, that’s raising the problem level even higher. If you started sixth grade with a tube coming out of your nose to feed you because there’s something wrong with your stomach, that right there is strike three. It’s game over if you know all the answers to the teacher’s questions and usurp Natasha’s position as the “smartest kid in class.”
The year before, I finished sixth grade early because the teasing and bullying got too brutal for me. I was way ahead academically (despite a developmental delay in other areas) and could have easily skipped a grade or two … Find Out What Happens Next
As a toddler, I spoke before I walked, but I walked right on time too. I hit all my milestones early. My mom had a Master’s degree in early childhood education. She consulted at multiple daycare centers and nursery schools. Some days she would bring me with her to work to show me off. I would ace all of the baby developmental screenings. The other teachers and educators would watch in awe. Back then there was no talk about me having an eating disorder.
In third grade, I began my descent into chronic illness. My skin, hair, and mouth became extremely dry. I started getting frequent pounding headaches.
From kindergarten to the first part of fifth grade, I attended a private Jewish day school, where every day began with a morning prayer service. The Orthodox Jewish Prayer service consists of multiple parts where you remain standing for prolonged periods of … Find Out What Happens Next
The whole genre of my healthcare had changed when I first woke up, swathed in warm blankets after my emergency surgery to have 2.5 inches of dead bowel removed. It wouldn’t be until almost a week later, after all of the testing was complete, that I would find out I had a disease called gastroparesis. The NG feeding tube formula they had been pumping me up with had congealed inside me forming a hardened mass called a bezoar. This in turn had caused a bowel obstruction. After four days of being ignored while I was supposedly being “treated” for an “eating disorder” in the children’s inpatient psychiatric unit, the obstruction had finally just ruptured causing my surgical emergency and the death of that 2.5 inches of bowel.
At ten years old I weighed 38 pounds. For the last two years, everyone had passed me off as a psych case. At … Find Out What Happens Next
