Phone Fight!

I had a phone fight with my mom this afternoon and ended up hanging up on her. This has only happened one other time in my life (also in the throes of my eating disorder, go figure), although when she was drinking she frequently hung up on my sister and dad when they would call so I figure I've still got a ways to go before I catch up with her immaturity-wise.

Basically the backstory is this -- I'm looking into modeling agencies. I don't expect anything to come out of it at all, and won't be crushed if nothing does, but it's something to do. I've always wanted to model professionally, I've had a lot of amateur and pre-professional experience, and people are CONSTANTLY telling me that I either look like a model, should be a model, or that they saw a model in an ad that looks just like me. I'm not saying this to toot my own horn, but I get it a lot. I also figure that I'm already fucked with my anorexia, so why not enjoy one of the very few perks while I still can?

I told my mom about this today (leaving out the last bit about being fucked, of course), and she flipped a shit. Obviously, she doesn't think it's good for my eating disorder and she thinks modeling is stupid. All right, mom, tell that to every ad agency behind every product you've ever bought. Exposure is exposure, I said, and tons of actresses start out as models, and -- here's the kicker -- "you have NO IDEA of the place I am in my recovery. I'm doing so well." Even I had to grimace at that one. I also tried telling her that models come in all shapes and sizes, and that the media depicts the modeling industry as being this soulless entity, when in reality that's not true at all. I have friends who are/were models and they've never been told to lose weight. No avail. She continued railing at me, saying, "I'm going to be SO disappointed if you do this," (which immediately made it imperative that I go to the next realistic open call) and "just remember I was against this from the beginning."

Yeah, mom. Just like you were against me being an actress. And moving 3000 miles away to go to school. I will certainly remember that when I get my first big paycheck.

Finally, I stopped arguing and said (in a NON-sarcastic way), "you're entitled to your opinion."

"Yes, I am," she said. "Yes, I very much am," and went off for another two and a half minutes, during which I heard nothing but debated whether I wanted to hang up the phone while she was talking or after. I figured that if I hung up in the middle of her rant, she might just think it the result of a bad connection, and I wanted to make my motives clear. So when I remained silent and didn't interrupt throughout her speech, she said, "all right. Let's talk about something else."

Yeah fuck no. No way this conversation is ever getting back to a happy place after how you just screamed at me. I know this woman. She doesn't just change a subject. Everything she says to me will be tinted with acid for the next month. That's why I determined to hang up in the first place; had I thought there was a chance of salvaging our dialogue, I would have stayed and gotten it back on track. Instead I said, "No, you know what, I'm gonna go. Bye." And pushed the end button (not before I got to hear her say "don't hang --").

Shit. Shit shit shit. I had hoped previously that there might be some festering doubt in her mind regarding my recovery, and this little tiny (I mean TINY) fleck of self-preserving desperation in me thought, "maybe she and dad will step in and try to help me, save me," but after that shit I just pulled? I'll never hear the end of how I can't be trusted and am incapable of reaching out for my own safety. And how they need to KNOW my weight from now on and KNOW just how well my dietitian and therapist think I'm doing (believe me, I barely escaped without a HIPPA "release of medical information" form when I started seeing my team here. And that was when I looked and behaved totally f-i-n-e fine).

I just keep digging myself deeper and deeper into AJ's Hole o' Lies. Fuck me. I just want to call her back and say,

"I'm sorry it's just that you're right at least kind of I don't think the modeling industry condones or encourages eating disorders but the reason I want to model now is because even though I don't see it in the mirror I have a borderline emaciated BMI and I'm not confident trying to model at higher weights so I have to do this now also I might die so I should probably get in an ad campaign or two before that. Also the only reason I can eat like a human being in front of you is because I have to go through two weeks of slow calorie increases before I visit so that I don't die of heart failure. And please don't try to put me in treatment as it'll only make things worse because I don't want to recover right now."

But there are a few snags in how that might play out.