12 Bulimics in a Taco Bell

On Taco Bell, ED Queens and Finding Humor in Hell.

Rehab is a revolving revolver. At least for me this is true. My third or fifth or seventh stint because I like the roulette of a fist down my throat. Because I like a kitchen’s worth of food coming up in ten minutes. Because I like doing it in private. The ritual. The ceremony. The prayer. God can’t gate-keep all things holy. But please keep the communion wafers because good luck purging those.

In rehab, every other week, we have an outing. Meaning a group of us anorexics bulimics bingers we go out to a restaurant to eat. It’s purposefully prescribed panic attacks. Or what western medicine calls exposure therapy. Not for me though, not with this, I love eating out, I love food, I love irony.

The ED Queen who gets to pick the place depends on whoever’s birthday it is, whoever’s about to discharge, whoever needs punishment for struggling with some type of food.

Next week was Deirdre’s 25^th birthday. More binger than purger, more cutter than both, they asked for Taco Bell.

Taco Hell? Max, one of the ED Queens shouted. Everyone laughed. Including Deirdre but really, later, I heard them crying in the bathroom. I gave them a hug. I assured them Taco Bells are the only ones that should sound on Sundays. Deidra agreed.   

Courtney, a tall blonde thin white woman (the majority of eating disorder specialists, who by the way, have all had EDs themselves no matter what they tell you), kicked Max off the outing, dropped him a level, and cost him another month in rehab. Carceral care gets off on things like that.

But I won’t let you think ED’s are a thin white rich girl who thinks nothing taste as good as skinny feels disease. No. I won’t let you think that because only part of it true. The truth is that they’re the ones who get access to treatment. Who set the statistics. The diagnoses. They’re the ones who get researched. Even the ones who conduct it. Most people don’t realize you can have anorexia in a fat body. Or in any body that doesn’t look like Nicole Richie in 2002. This is one reason that keeps ED Queens from seeking any forms of support. “I’m not sick enough.” Yes, you are. I promise babe. You’re sick enough.  

The fact is less than 6% of ED Queens resemble “heroin chic” (although whoever came up with that term—I love you). The fact is most of you couldn’t identify us. (I always can, but I’m tenured at this). But honestly, I kind of love that for us. Us incurables roaming amongst you. Somehow spreading a dangerous disease as if we’re contagious. A purging plague. That’s what society thinks anyway. So don’t get too close. And certainly, don’t google us.

Okay, so it’s Wednesday at 11:30 and time for our outing. We load into a white van and pull up to one of those fast-food buildings where, in the same exact parking lot, they are building a brand new one, because the old one is just so fucking old—the grey plastic swivel seats wobble on loose screws, the toilet seats are tagged, and Jesus couldn’t rise off that sticky tile.

All twelve of us file in and crowd the counter. I order a pepsi and a chicken quesadilla with black beans and rice.

Let me let you in on a bulimist secret—purging a hard-shell taco is a no-no. You can cut your throat doing that. Especially eating quick, chewing less, the way bingers do. So, no crunchy taco, crunchy taco supreme, or nacho cheese doritos locos tacos supreme. Soft tacos are okay but make sure you drink enough soda. Or better yet a Baja Blast Freeze.

We all sit down. Take up three tables. Three tables of people who can’t eat like all of you. Imagine food quite literally being the death of you. Imagine on death row, when they hand you the last meal of your life you say ‘how many calories are in that’?. Or imagine quite literally throwing it up after.

Some sixteen-year-old calls over the loudspeaker, “Order 146”. Courtney and a couple other staff carry back and forth seven trays. Everyone in line gawks at us.

I’ve always found it funny, how we must look, a bunch of lunatics on a field trip. I’m used to it, growing up in my family anytime we left the house was like this. But especially as adults I wonder how we must look being babysat by a bunch of tall skinny floral-wearing blondes. I mean, I sort of have an idea of how captivating it must be—less than 200 years ago, the public literally paid money to see us in asylums. Honestly it all makes me want to be more insane. I love insanity. It’s so underrated. Also, I don’t know anything else and I’m tired of hating myself, at least that part. 

So insanity voyeurs in the Taco Bell line, can you pay me please? I give a good show I swear.

But I want to be clear: I’m not here to romanticize anything. Eating disorders normalizes the most disgusting things. Like eating a soggy French fry off the street or scooping up tuna tetrazzini vomit to flush down the toilet because it clogged the shower drain. Or not brushing your teeth for seven years. Who wants to brush their teeth ten times a day? I didn’t. It’s the truth. I got tired. Lazy. And I got used to it—the feeling on my teeth and tongue. Stopped washing my hands too, at least with soap, water alone did the trick. 

I’m not here to romanticize anything—but why then does the universal ED treatment narrative personify that devilish voice inside us as Ed. Eddie? Edwin? Edward? I don’t know, but knowing carceral care, it’s probably a cis straight white bro who we “Need to breakup with?” Breakup? Okay so I was clearly in a relationship then. Probably an abusive one I’ll admit, but I’ve been through plenty of those. I can tell you there’s romance at some point. And also, Ed? Straight? No way. Bulimics are always bisexual.

All twelve of us ED Queens unwrap our Taco Bell. I wait. I wait until everyone’s eating to make my joke. I’ve had it prepared for a week. I say it loudly so all the tables can hear it, so all the people in line can hear it, so the teenage taco bell workers can hear it:

Why use laxatives when you got Taco Bell.

Deirdre quite literally snorted out their food. We all did.

We got in a lot of trouble for that one. Like a lot. Especially me.

But I told you I give a good show.

And that god can’t gatekeep all things holy—like the ways we survive by finding humor in hell. 

Even in a Taco Hell.