Once upon a time

a silly me was a junior in high school. In my school, sophomores, juniors and seniors were all allowed to go to the prom at the end of the school year. Freshmen were allowed upon invitation from an upperclassmen. 

I was wearing a great dress. A vintage dress. Coral or apricot. It used to be my mother's. It's pretty fabulous. That's beside the point of this story. The point is to extend the dangers of not eating, and the consequences. 

I wanted to look great. My parents were out of town. I didn't really know how I was getting back from prom, especially since the trains weren't running all that late that night. No one knew how much I was eating that day. No one could make sure I was eating. The thing is, I wasn't even having problems with this whole eating thing. I kind of contained my "relapses" to special events. Prom was one of the few of those. 

I think I had half a bag of salad that day. My high school also allowed us to drink three glasses of wine or beer at this prom (for free, well, after you had paid the 35 dollar entrance of course). Need I say more? I'm small. I'm a girl. After the first glass of wine (which weren't one drink sized, because they liked to fill the glasses to the top) I was getting tipsy. By the second? I was slurring. I couldn't walk straight - heck I was wearing heels. What would you expect?

At some point, the headmaster talked to me. At some point, some other teachers talked to me. At some point, some teacher I don't even know threw me into a bathroom stall. I came out, she asked if I were going to be sick again and I said: "No." not knowing that she thought I had puked (which, for the record, I hadn't). 

A couple of days later it turns out that I was one of a few people who got in trouble for "clogging the hotel's bathrooms" and I was about to get suspended or expelled for a day or two. My headmaster was not the best one. The teachers at the dance talked some sense into him, especially given most of our's academic records. Really, it could have been their fault for providing us with free liquor anyway. 

Although there were many factors that could have caused me to get that drunk (the fact that they let 16-year-old girls drink three glasses of wine in less than an hour, which actually were much more of the size of six drinks of wine), I should have eaten that day. It would have saved me some embarrassing moments, and some shameful ones too. Being sent into the principal's office is, for someone like me, the worst thing in the world. 

About a year ago, I read about drunkorexia. Basically, it's when someone doesn't eat because they want to save the calories for alcoholic drinks. Great? No. It's terrible. Although this is not what I was doing - I wanted to look good by not eating - it's related. 

Don't drink and not eat. Eat and drink. Or eat and don't drink.