The Sin of Self-Realization

I found my mentor in the junior high library. She was brand new, all shiny and untouched after a library helper wrapped her in glossy contact paper. I handed the blank check-out card to the librarian while averting my eyes to prevent her from knowing my secret obsession. She stamped the date next to my name on the top line, handed me the book with a smile, and I tucked it away with butterflies in my stomach, anticipating the 45-minute bus ride home to sink down into my seat and into the pages of The Best Little Girl in the World.

Francesca lived in New York City, was an only child, 14 years old like me, and an aspiring ballerina. I lived on a ranch, far from any city, was one of the dozens of children, some of them my age, and my sole aspiration was to dance onstage in the city that never sleeps. I wanted Francesca’s life. And if I wasn’t going to be moving to the Big Apple any time soon, I could at least create and control a secret dancer’s life of my own with Francesca’s help.

Life on the ranch was communal and scheduled. My parents were foster parents, and one set of parents raising anywhere from nine to eleven children while working a sizable cattle operation required a solid routine. No parent was in a position to cater to an individual child’s unique ambitions. In addition, my family wasn’t the only one on the ranch. There were three to four others just like mine. We functioned as a whole, in our own secluded community. Children engaged in extracurricular activities by taking advantage of the public school’s offerings and the late bus. There were no ballet classes, so I taught myself. My studio was my large living and dining room. My ballet masters and mistresses were from the most prestigious companies in the world, specially requested from the shelves of my junior high and book-mobile libraries. My accompanist was my classically trained pianist mother. Occasionally a brother or two served as pas-de-deux stand-ins as I’d order them to brace and be ready with open arms for me to leap in to, or instruct on the finer art of not digging fingers into ribcage for more elegant lifts. They never complained that I was heavy. But if they made the slightest grimace for the difficulty of sustaining me, then my determination to keep myself light reinforced.

I was ravenous for Francesca’s world. I made it mine. It was private and my delicious escape from the physical world that I didn’t fit in to. I hadn’t signed up for my microcosm. My parents were called by God when I was nine years old to move with me and my two younger brothers from the city to a ranch to be foster parents. Digging fence post holes and feeding livestock before boarding the school bus to travel long-distance with a growing addition of family members was not my element. I much preferred walking to school on paved sidewalks, friends down the street, gymnastics and swim lessons at the YWCA, riding my bike to the park, and sleepovers with my cousins. I longed for a world in which my own desires counted, where I could exercise some amount of control. The only place I could do that was in my own ballet world, over my own body.

Breakfast on the ranch occurred promptly and early every school morning. The sleepy hoard of us lined up at the kitchen bar, shuffled down the line, plate, cup, fork, french toast, maple syrup, juice, then hunched on to a bench at the long dining room table. I employed my new rules; no longer did I garnish my french toast. I took two slices for appearances. One toast got cut into tiny pieces and chewed slowly to nothing as Francesca advised. The second toast went in my mouth but remained stored chipmunk-like. Chores before school were suddenly a gift to the breakfast time facade. I dumped my plate and fork into the dishwasher, whisked away through the back door, and spewed stored breakfast contents into the weeds on my way to the barn to feed the animals. School lunch was either time spent in the library, or an apple when my two friends would accuse me of never eating.

I did run into trouble one morning though when my body was finally showing the results of my efforts and my dad refused to allow me to go to school unless I sat down and ate my breakfast and drank a glass of orange juice while he monitored. Crying and refusing as I did, my dad won and this particular incidence signaled to my parents a rebellion on my part that required immediate intervention. They alerted our church pastors, who were also the managers of the ranch we lived on. The pastor’s wife was a nurse before she moved to the ranch, so she took on my spiritual and physical healing. I had reached a point where my one doctor’s visit threatened to put me in the hospital if I didn’t start gaining weight. To someone in my mental state with specific goals for controlling my own person, the threat was a win. I was also winning at Physical Education class because I no longer had to participate. The sports were too rigorous for my heart to keep up with. I despised P.E. I was a dancer, not a runner.

In spite of my disciplined efforts to alter my world, they were perilous. My parents and pastor’s wife brought my physical body out of the danger zone with a carefully supervised weight-gain program. I despised this reversal of my hard work and the fact that someone else was forcing control over my body and shattering my private world. God was also waiting in line to reclaim control over my body and my life because it was His and He wanted it back from me. My rebellion against God was the biggest sin I had committed thus far in my life. I had sunk into a deep dark and dangerous place. My destiny and purpose were inside the will of God, but the demon of Anorexia was trying to claim my life, and I was tasked to do warfare against it. My pastor’s wife had had a vision and she recreated her vision on a poster board for me to hang on my bedroom wall. The demonic shroud of an eating disorder encompassed me, making for a very creepy rendition of a demon-girl under an obscure shroud that scared the hell out of me so that I would run back into the arms of Jesus. As I was obedient to the mission of conquering the backslide from God’s will, He was faithful. Even if His plans for me were not in New York City, I was able to be a ballerina for the glory of God and worship Him in dance at church. All I had to do was continue the good fight against the evil of self-will and aspiration.

My mentor had gotten better too. In Francesca’s world, people went to medical professionals trained and educated in human behavior. Francesca talked out her struggles with therapists and doctors who listened and helped guide her toward physical and mental health. I handed her back over to the librarian, and would sometimes visit her on the shelf, wishing I could talk to her therapist too.

If you have sinned, slide forward.

I’m not saying an eating disorder helped me move forward. The impetus for this struggle was a classic teenage quest for finding one’s place and happiness from within, driven by personal will and desires. The means to my end were horribly damaging to my body at the time and to my overall mental state. The adults in my life had to save me. And they did. But I was desperate for someone to listen to me and hear my voice. I was ill at ease in my world, so I went about to make myself a place. Perhaps if the will of the self wasn’t outright shunned for the will of God, I could have been appropriately guided to avoid destructive solutions. Religion has a way of scapegoating with the devil that spectacularly misses the point. Anorexia was a symptom. And evil rebellion was not the cause. My teenage self was not naturally motivated by the immense responsibility of mediating the cosmic scuffle between God and Satan. It’s what religion had on offer though, so for fear of being a shameful sinner and rebel, I squashed myself just barely into the inside edge of God’s will, a place I struggled to stick to in order to please my church elders. It was a game of facades.

All in all, the sum of this experience did move me forward in life. For starters, I will never pit myself or others against the devil. I’ve learned it’s not productive or truthful. I won’t play the child and close my eyes to realism and offer the excuse “the devil made me do it.” I won’t delegitimize my hurt or the pain or dreams of others and offer judgment for not being good and right. No, the devil doesn’t get to take the credit for free-will, desires, agonies, mistakes, dreams, and victories. Can humans tap into spirituality and ask their own god for guidance? Sure. But only if they want to. You are free to choose.