We had a terrible septic system in our house when I was a kid, it was always backing up and spewing all over the basement. It was an even worse nightmare later, when I became a hard-core binge-purge bulimic at fifteen... really a mess, and hard to explain to my dad... just who was shoving all that food down the drain?! Gee, Dad, I don't know, it's weird! I soon developed another strategy, and began vomiting into milk cartons in my bedroom closet. Back then, milk came in wax-coated cardboard cartons...

I filled them up, closed tight, wrapped them in garbage bags, crammed them back in my closet, and prayed the smell wouldn't leach out into my room... When no one was home, I had to sneak the retched mess into the trash cans outside, being careful to lift the other garbage out first, and bury the vomit underneath. Sometimes the vomit sat in my closet too long, and it started to bubble up and expand, from the gasses of decomposition. I'll bet the garbage man loved our house. Back then, the garbage man dumped your trash into the truck by hand...

It was a real pain in the butt, dealing with so much vomit. And so much hiding. So much shame. And the anxiety... worrying about getting caught. Every time my parents spoke together in hushed tones, in another room, I just knew they were discussing me... I strained to hear their conversation... I had so much to hide. Back then, parents didn't know the word bulimia, and even if they had, they didn't know what to look for, what to listen for...

When I was seventeen, I was packing to go away to college. I put off dealing with a large load of vomit-filled milk-cartons in my closet, until it was moving day, and I had no way of getting it out to the trash cans without being found out. I loaded it into the wooden toy box my parents gave me when I was a baby... I loaded it full of rotting vomit. I laid clothes over top of the mess, to hide it. Just a toy box full of clothes, that's all, nothing to see here... I didn't even help load it into the car, for whatever reason, I left that to my dad to struggle with. Did I want to be found out? It sure would seem that way, wouldn't it? This was a big toy box, about three ft long by two ft deep, full of stinking vomit...

As I was gathering up the last of the things I wanted to take from my bedroom, my mom came in and said, can you come outside for a minute? I went out, and there was toy box, there was the vomit, uncovered and sloshed about inside... My dad was nowhere in sight. He split. Mom said, what's going on? What is this? She said, the toy box was so heavy, we couldn't figure out why it was so heavy... I said, I don't know, I don't know how to explain... I said, it's okay, I'm okay now, I was sick for a while, but I'm okay now... I don't do that any more... I was confused for a while, but I don't do that any more.... I lied and I lied and I lied. I asked my mom, what did Dad say? She said, you father just doesn't understand. He just said, I don' t understand... and shook his head... I was so embarrassed. And mortified to have disappointed and confused my dad...

I don't recall how the vomit was dealt with. I don't know if she let me throw it in the trash... I just can't remember... But they drove me to college that day, and moved me into my dorm room, They met my new roommates and everyone was hunky dory. They said good-bye, and I must've said whatever they needed to hear, that I was okay now, that I wasn't sick any more... It's coming back to me now that I'm writing about it, I remember saying that I ate too many tomatoes out of the garden, and I kept doing that... and was afraid of clogging the septic... so I tried to get rid of it in my room... Whatever I said, it must've been... wow... so far-fetched and so... weird... but they accepted it. Because they had no reference for this thing. They didn't know where to file it. So they just let it go and assumed I had spontaneously cured myself of this... non-thing...

Neither of my parents ever asked me about that incident again. I remained binge-purge bulimic every day of my life from that day forward, for thirty years. I raised 4 children, married twice, divorced once... I drank too, I drank too much and too often... I frequently embarrassed myself, and later, my children. Through the years, there were many, many, MANY remarks made about how much I ate and stayed so THIIIIINNNN, how does she DO it? How DOES she do it? Oh I have a high metabolism... Oh you know, running after 4 kids keeps you thin...

The irony hasn't escaped me. I was literally carrying my eating disorder with me to college. Inside my childhood toy box. It's too perfect.

i don't blame my parents for not understanding or intervening. I wish they had, now in hindsight. But back then, I just wanted to be left alone.

I felt like writing tonight. I felt like revisiting one of the ugliest, most mortifying moments of my life. because I'm better now, and strong enough to look back and deal.with.it.

I told mom about my eating disorder and my alcohol addiction last year. She didn't say anything about knowing... or not knowing. She's supportive, but doesn't want to know any more than what I've told her. I think it's painful for her to think about, and so she ... doesn't.