u/haydencoffing

Episode 117, “You gonna eat that?”

Act one cuts a mile deep. Here’s some thoughts.

I’ve struggled with anorexia for more than half of my life. When my eating disorder came out of the closet at 13 I was told not to tell anyone, especially my friends and their parents. Annie cheney’s experience of wanting to disappear and feeling ineffective is so relatable. The musical interludes, and personal relationships and self self disclosure is so honest and raw it feels like watching someone naked. the eerie way that those of us from treatment talk to each other once we’re out, the internal torment, the weird foods, the way that food becomes everything in your life is such a vivid depiction of anorexia. “Seeing her makes me think that Change is impossible and we’re stuck with who we are” is something I feel often.

Then the family’s reaction, how everyone in her family takes something from Annie’s illness, how it’s really a reaction and reflection of each person’s role and disposition in the family. Dad sees her sickness as a burden, an excess, a selfish and privileged preoccupation. Mom’s denial, wish casting and selective memory of the events sanitizes the bloodless violence of being a sick person. Her brother’s terse and bothered reaction to an illness that makes him confused.

Annie is saying here i am. Here I am. Look at me and hear me. This is my story. She tries to leave with a lot of pills, and her mother can’t even remember this insanely traumatic and painful event. Her mother focuses on the melodrama of it all instead of seeing her daughter, and the immense pain she’s in.

The interview with her father is so poignant for me. Annie is trying to kill herself, and her father is saying how it will make him look bad. How it will reflect on him, and how it makes him feel about how ungrateful her suffering is.

Her brother is probably the most perceptive. Her illness shattered the illusion of the perfect family. It made each member look at her in a different way and consider her more as a person.

I recall the quote “I can’t get out of the mistakes”. I thought of this phrase a lot during recovery when trying to change bad habits. Ultimately for Annie and her friend from treatment life goes on. We might not be all better but we are changed. She might not have been seen by her parents in all the ways she wanted to but it seems like she ultimately got something out of the experience.

Thanks for reading my ramble. Let me know your thoughts on the story!

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Name your price. I have been wanting one for years.