Blackout! Blackout! Blackout!
I’m not embarrassed or insecure of almost anything. I’ve just never really spent a lot of time dwelling on the “negative” things about myself. I wish I could attribute it to some sort of beautiful and inspirational self-love journey that leads people to overcome their insecurities, but in reality I’ve just never really thought of myself in any way other than positive. It’s just how I’ve always been. There is one thing, though, that I’m not ashamed to admit but bashful to expose, and that’s my eating disorder.
I’ve had ARFID my whole life, and while I’ve managed well enough to not suffer dooming amounts of malnutrition, it is a struggle in my life. I’ve always been really embarrassed to eat around other people, especially new people. My diet, or lack there of, is cause for both concern and laughter. It’s burdening and childish. The ways in which I eat or don’t eat have to be taken into consideration for every outing. I’ve skipped birthday dinners and hidden meals in pockets and napkins. I’ve pretended to have already eaten and then inadvertently starved myself. Not because I don’t want to eat, but because I don’t want the people I’m with to have to conform to my issues. I’ve always had a special meal for me at the family outing or the menus checked for me before a lunch to make sure they have chicken tenders. It’s embarrassing to be cared for in such an exasperating way. Reservations changed because I won’t eat anything there, orders set back because it wasn’t to the specifications I requested, meals half eaten because it was too much for one person but we couldn’t split it. It’s a burdening thing to put onto other people.
All this to say, my ARFID makes it so that I’m overly uncomfortable trying new foods and drinks. This has always included alcohol. It can be chalked up to the goody two shoes way of life I’ve led since adolescence, but really it’s because I’ve always been too scared to try it- the same way I’ve always been too scared to try raspberry juice or sweet tea or matcha. So, growing up, I never had alcohol.
I’ve had a lot of alcohol lately.
I had my birthday fun when I turned 21 last November, and didn’t really touch alcohol again. I didn’t like the taste of anything I had tried when I drank around the world at Epcot. I felt like I’d been spared from a life of wasting money and memories on drinking. My life moved on the same, not going out a lot, never drinking, perfectly content. Until about mid-May, when my friends and I decided it was finally time to introduces ourselves to the local outdoor bar where everyone in The Company goes twice a week- something that we only did because another friend was visiting, so it was a special occasion. I agreed to a couple drinks, and we all had a complete blast. A time was had. We went back the next week, and the next week, and then suddenly we added the second day to our weekly routine. After about a month, we cut an occasional third day in at the mini club the same 150 people that we already saw biweekly go to. It came to be that my friends and I all feed off of each other’s energy, and just one of us wanting to go out is enough to get the majority of us out, no matter who worked until 11pm that day or starts at 7am the next day.
During the course of this so-called party girl era, I found the drinks I could tolerate enough into thinking I’m enjoying them- i.e. the Fruit Punch Beatbox- and the drinks that hate me no matter how much I try to be nice to them- i.e. anything involving Tito’s. It takes me one Beatbox to be the fun kind of drunk, and anything more to be a hot mess. Usually, I seem to make a fun, albeit annoying, story where I make loads of new friends or do something stupid but I get a pass for being adorable. Except for one particular Wednesday.
A couple weeks back, I was having a less-than-beautiful Wednesday. I’d been talking to this boy, and we got into a fight of sorts, and I wanted to stay home. I didn’t want to go out, but my friends were in my bedroom getting ready to leave, and the beatbox somehow entered my grasp. I kept drinking, and drinking, and drinking, and the next thing I remembered was waking up in my bed on Thursday morning.
I did a lot that night, not a single something that I remember, and it would be so much funnier if it happened to anyone else but me. Hearing my friends recount the horrors that I caused just, like, sucked. I felt terrible the next day, especially when I had to get up and run the spring roll cart at work like it was the navy for eight hours straight. I’m still completely mortified. I refuse to divulge into my actions on a public forum, it was that bad (and I discuss everything on this public forum).
This first time experiencing blackout drunkness was a lovely life lesson, though. It taught me that, I really don’t ever want to black out again. I can’t fathom the enjoyment others feel from it. I woke up the next morning with an entire 6 hours of my life gone from my memory, and it was the worst 6 hours of my life, at least that’s what I gathered from the stories told about me, to me. It’s terrifying to me, to not remember that night. The idea of not remembering a night is terrifying to me. I’ve had my fair share of memories that I recall after the fact, which is always funny then, but not like that. I’ve laid off drinking a lot since then, and my hankering to be out three times a week has been completely squashed. I feel as apathetic towards going out as I did before this summer came around. I keep turning down my friends’ invites and have no interest in changing that. I’ve only felt comfortable drinking around one specific person, and not as regularly as I did before. I just don’t want to.
This summer, a time was had, as fair-weather as it may have been. I had fun, and now I’m done. Retired party girl, if you will, even if the party girl era only last about three months. At least I can’t ever say I wasn’t fun at this age.
𑣲love, Willi
