cw: eating disorders, addiction
Nothing could have prepared me for the emotional gut-punch watching episode 5 of Euphoria season 2. I would like to preface that I love both of my parents with all of my heart and I have grown substantially in the past few years, but as far as I have come I still have a long ways to go and I am aware of that. There’s a part of my ego that feels the need to preface this in order to defend myself since I am about to tear myself to shreds.
If you told me that I would relate to Rue of all characters in Euphoria the most when it first came out, I would not have believed you. I would have argued that Kat and I have more in common or made a list of all the ways Lexi and I are the same person, and while I do resonate with both of those characters greatly, it is nothing compared to the heart-wrenching reliability that Rue has. Watching Rue yell and scream at her mother is what made that connection unbearably clear in my mind.
I have done that.
I have woken up with my room in shreds knowing that I had done it in a rage. I have watched my mother cry knowing that my words are what provoked her tears. I have seen her heart break from what I have done. And despite all of that agonizing pain that I caused upon one of my greatest role models, it was never enough to persuade me to stop.
Eating disorders have that all-consuming power (no pun intended) to infiltrate every crevice of the mind and poison it. They ruin the rational processing and they taint the ability to feel empathy. The only thing that matters is food and the lack of it and your body and the mass of it and your face and the flaws with it. No one matters, not even you.
I distinctively remember a trip I took with my mom to New Orleans and the overpowering pull my eating disorder had on me. I had won a contest with the Phoenix Suns and had gotten to travel with them to Louisiana. I took my mom with me on the trip and what was supposed to be an amazing experience was clouded by my own selfish intentions.
On our one free night, my mom and I walked around the city trying to find a place to eat. It ended with us sitting in a crowded restaurant that my mom picked. I was crying inconsolably and my mom just sat across from me. She had wanted to enjoy the delicious food and culture of the city and I couldn’t appreciate any bite without thinking of what it consisted of.
This was in the early stages of my ed, or at least the early stages of it being noticeable. My mom didn’t know why I was so obsessed with food and exercise and I didn’t know how to tell her I hated myself.
There were so many moments like that, where we would be talking, specifically about food, and then I would get upset and lash out and scream and cry and I can only imagine how little it made my mom feel. To watch her only daughter fall into pieces all at once while expelling cruelties.
That trip to New Orleans is one of those memories that has stuck in my mind ever since I stepped off the plane back in Phoneix. Not for the reasons that it should’ve but because all my mom wanted to do was eat a beignet and I prevented that.