Empty

by Susan Burton

Other girls just had their bodies and put food into them and didn’t think. Or they did think but in a normal way. I could tell by the way they said it: “I am getting so fat.” They weren’t wrecked by food in the way I was; it didn’t define them.

There’s resistance to the idea that food can be addictive. Resistance by some psychiatrists and neuroscientists who argue that the addiction is to a behavior rather than a substance; resistance by laypeople who ask, “Well, if that’s the case, then why aren’t we all hooked on sugar?” There’s also an aesthetic resistance. There is nothing romantic about uncontrolled eating. Other addictions have literary traditions; this one is not known for producing great art. Other addictions whittle; this one makes you thick and plodding. Other addictions are demons, and to overcome them is to triumph; this one is completely pedestrian. Other addictions are not primarily associated with women. Other addictions make you act in a way that is shocking or comic. Nobody ever starts a story with, “I ate a whole cake and you won’t believe the crazy shit I did next.” Do other addictions make better stories? Their conclusions are clearer: Goodbye forever, alcohol, I will never drink you again. In an eating-disorder story, the protagonist still has to eat. It’s a less satisfying end—though also a more interesting one, precisely because of this challenge. There is no clean break. You relinquish the addiction but not the substance. You have to learn to live with it. Maybe you even learn to take pleasure in what you once believed could destroy you.