The Depressive’s Diet

Lots of calories packed into small scraps of food, high fat content come here. Milkshakes are the one consolation of high-metabolism stress reaction and rejection stomach.

Lunch today at Moni Mahal with co-workers. Ate only Butter Chicken, pushed the veggies around on the plate. The tapioca did me in. If you can only take 10 bites before your stomach closes for the afternoon and the nausea sets in, you’d better make those 10 bites count. M is for multi-vitamins are for missing food.

When I was depressed about 10 years ago, my psychiatrist had me drink the following every morning:

• 1 slimfast shake – from powder


• 1/3 cup whole milk powder


• 1 raw egg


• 1 cup milk (or so)

When things were at their worst, that was often all I ate in a day (if I could manage to get that down), lo so many moons ago. Unsurprisingly, I ended up pretty fucking skinny, bottoming out at 103 pounds. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m 5’7” and would be described as medium-sized at 140. Which I have also weighed.

There are very few pictures of me in my skinniest body. When one does pop up out of my collection, or my mother’s, I’m horrified, but compelled to examine it for minutes before tucking it back in with the rest. I’m gaunt; it looks as if you could hook your finger under my collarbone. I remember I had to stop sleeping on my stomach because it put too much pressure on my hipbones.

And the fucked up thing about all that? The reason I’m even writing about this at all in such a public place?

People still told me how lucky I was to be thin. Still do. People who don’t know me, anyway. I’m currently about 5 pounds underweight and struggling to stay there, eating until I gag. And then a co-worker tells me how she wishes she could stay thin like me. Another at lunch feels smug because she’s only eaten one plate of buffet too, and another suddenly feels guilty and voracious and out-of-bounds. So many morals attached to little pieces of flesh and plant.

The other fucked up thing is that once you’re too skinny for a while you hit 110 or 118 or 125 and feel fat. I have to talk myself out of thinking “fat” at 120 pounds. It’s just a killing quick thought when I bend over to grab something off the floor and see the folds on my stomach, or when I sit down naked and the loose skin of my belly touches my thighs. Every single time I skeet-shoot that idea, taking quick aim and firing confidently. But like clay pigeons, there’s always another being cocked.

The depressive’s diet is concentrated food: meat, dairy, bran cereal, willpower to get the fuck better. I'll feed it to myself with my fingers.