I was wasting away.
I spent my 25th birthday in the hospital.
When I entered the emergency room I weighed 80 pounds.
Frances Mocnik / Getty Images
I was jaundiced and anemic, and no longer producing any blood.
Doctors gave me two blood transfusions and discharged me with orders to eat more.
But I didnt, and within the next month I had lost another 10 pounds.
The author at a healthy weight.
This time calling an ambulance was my idea.
This time I came away with an official diagnosis: anorexia nervosa.
Unlike manypeople who struggle with anorexia, I never looked in a mirror and thought I was fat.
“This is from a dance photo shoot when I was healthy."
This was harder to argue with.
I had once epitomized the post-modern Ivy League female.
My long, shiny hair framed a round face that had no pores in sight.
Soon, the calorie counting started.I found myself consumed by coursework.
I began to think my body did not need as much fuel as it once did.
Most days I would eat a plain bagel with a shmear of jelly at most.
The other days, I dont remember eating at all.
That was the first time my period stopped.
I went to see my pediatrician for a regular check-up.
My weight had dropped from a healthy 118 pounds to 98 pounds.
My weight went up as my appetite revved up, and seven months later my period resumed.
Things looked good for a while.
While I applied to graduate schools I went on a self-imposed fitness journey.
While I waited to hear back on my applications, I lost weight, and myperiodcame and went.
Within two months I lost more weight.
My clothes hung on my gaunt frame.
By the time I graduated in May 2015, I had lost upwards of 20 pounds.
I had chills and felt dizzy, faint, and weak.
My last workout was just before my birthday, on that evening that changed everything.
I didnt want to wake my parents who reprimanded my weight loss on a daily basis.
In an attempt to lightly lift my feet, I wobbled and knocked down a stack of magazines.
I looked down to find that my feet were swollen and misshapen.
They were squishy and elephantine.
My skin took on the mustard yellow tinge ofhaldi, or turmeric.
I had an academic background in biomedicine and knew my situation was dire.
The next day, I showed my mom my feet.
The left one looked like a water balloon filled beyond capacity, threatening to burst.
My hemoglobin levels were almost non-existent, which meant I was hardly producing any blood.
I needed two blood transfusions and even then, my blood cell count was low.
It was not until my mother said incredulously, Who knows whose blood you have in you now?
that the severity of the situation began to dawn on me.
I will forever have blood coursing through my veins that are neither from my maternal nor paternal ancestry.
I had become someone else altogether.
A few hours later, I couldnt move my arms or legs.
I had had a severe allergic reaction to the iron drip.
I broke out in welts, my eyes swelled, and I was convulsing, gasping for air.
An eye, ear, and throat specialist was called to ensure my throat had not closed up.
A pulmonologist was also called to ensure my lungs had not collapsed or shrunken.
My parents were escorted out of the room.
Before being discharged, I was forced to meet with a hospital psychologist.
I knew I had developed an illogical fear of olive oil.
He suggested that my disordered eating stemmed from a need for control, a penchant for perfectionism.
He advised me to eat consistently and in bulk.
I no longer just ate once at night.
I now ate three times a day.
But I wasnt eating well.
In reality, I lost another 10 pounds, dropping down to my lowest weight of 70 pounds.
There was no more skirting around the taboo topic set aside for celebrities and runway models.
Unlike many anorexics, my organs were unaffected.
As a Sikh, fasting is considered self-harm and discouraged.
The diagnosis underlined once more just how much of my identity I had lost.
Its been eight months since then.
I feel like I am living in an alternate universe.
ANew York Timesarticlepublished a couple of weeks after my hospitalization declared, Americans are finally eating less.
Meanwhile, I am being counseled to eat more.
I have gained almost 10 pounds, but I still have well over 20 pounds to go.
My goal is to gain half of that before attending a family wedding in two months.
I am relying on the foods of my heritage to fuel my being and help me become myself again.
It turns out beans are not only good for the body, but also the soul.
