Heavy Things Won't Fly
She walks next to me, hand encircling my arm right above my elbow. Her long fingers overlap themselves easily, and although she does not put pressure on my arm, I can still feel small bruises forming. We do not talk as we head towards a pair of closed double doors.
She pushes the doors open for me, and we walk into what could be considered a cafeteria, although it is different from the one at my high school in many ways. I see another nurse look up and register my face. Turning around, she uncaps the dry erase marker and makes a note next to my name: Abigail, 12:04. They’re all about precision here.
I have to pick the tray up from the counter and carry it to my table. It is a rule, to show that I am getting better, that the weight and contents of the plate do not send my heart into overdrive, that I will not in fact throw my plate into the nearest garbage can and run screaming from the room. I have to pick it up, and feel the heat from it warm my hands. I cannot see what is under the fog that has gathered on the Saran Wrap. It doesn’t matter that I can’t see it. I know what’s on the plate, or close enough. There isn’t much variation of food here. It’s a nice subtlety of theirs; food is stable, food is constant. You can trust the food.
I peel back the wrapper, slowly, and look down at the plate while keeping my face blank. Here is what I will be eating for lunch today: a breaded chicken breast, overcooked and tough on the teeth, a circular lump of grey mashed potatoes, and a hardened biscuit with a pack of full fat butter next to it. They even have vegetables, which I cannot get too excited about because they are also overcooked-limp asparagus and softened carrots soaked in even more butter.
This is not all. I must tell the nurse who walked me here what drinks I want. Not just one obscenely tall glass of something, but two. Water does not count, and skim milk does not exist here. I ask in a clear, somewhat bored voice for 2% milk that feels as thick as cream going down my throat, and orange juice so heavy that I do not know if the flakes floating around are pulp or just seeds of pure fat that will lodge themselves into the walls of my veins and never leave.
All of this, every bite of the chicken-300-and the mashed potatoes-110-and the veggies-60-and the two drinks that are, respectively, 130 and 110-I have to finish in forty minutes.
Yes, I am in hell. Thank you for asking.
This is not what I say out loud, of course. I do not say anything else except “thank you” to the nurse she sets down the glasses in front of my plate. Talking to them doesn’t change anything. Yelling in their face gets you nothing but a blank stare, a finger pointed at the food, and an extra concerned look from the therapist you must meet with individually once a week to talk about your Issues.
There are three other girls already at my table, and one other nurse. We are all mirrors of each other, more or less: we are dressed in short sleeves only, and we keep our napkins uncrumpled and next to our plates. Staff is used to us; they too have learned all the tricks. We tremble slightly as we slowly cut into our meat and butter our biscuit, and we fight the urge to create symmetry on our plate, or to separate the asparagus from the carrots, or to make sure we chew each bite ten times before we swallow, or to cut everything into microscopic pieces. We resist taking the plastic knife and trying to dig it into the necks of the nurses, or our own.
Instead: we sit there and chew and drink and smile at the nurses and at each other and we watch the clock out of the corner of our eyes. We sit there and chew and drink and try not to think about how much we’re eating or how quickly or how we will not be allowed to use the bathroom for at least an hour afterwards. We sit there and chew and drink and try not to think how this cycle will repeat itself again in three hours, for the midafternoon snack, and three hours after that, with another bland overcooked meal, or again for late night tea.
To keep my sanity, I try to convince myself that no, after this I do not have to sit still in a recliner while reading a book from the vastly limited library, nor will I have to create a collage of faces and explain its meaning to my therapist, nor will I have to sit patiently against the wall from my room while the nurses check for laxatives, medications, cigarettes, or anything else that is forbidden inside these walls.
Stop, I tell myself. It is real. No matter what I tell myself everything I mentioned is going to happen, and thinking about it only makes it worse. It’s irrelevant. The food will end up in my stomach, and from there it will be distributed to my thighs, my arms, my boobs. I will choose the best words to represent my soul’s pain and try, for the millionth time, to explain to my therapist that my thighs are too round and that my double chin embarrasses me. I cannot stop these events because they are the reasons I am here.
And they are also my only way out.
I shut off my brain, grip my plastic ware harder, and finish eating.
---
My roommate Crystal and I aren’t exactly friends. There’s nothing wrong with her personality; if I met her anywhere else I would get along with her just fine. But she makes me weary. Instead of biding her time in here, trying to get out as soon as possible, she actually wants to be here. Or rather, she truly wants to get better. I…don’t. Not completely. I guess it’s true that I don’t want to die, but I don’t really know how else to live either. There are so many different versions of better; her definition scares me because it matches up with the nurses’ definition, which means she’s always telling if she messed up, or if she saw someone else break the rules as well. It isn’t vindictive of her, it’s honest; she truly believes it is helping all of us get past our Issues. The rest of us don’t quite agree, so I’m always on my guard around her.
I walk into our room after mealtime and before Group, and notice that she’s taken down the posters that covered the entire wall above her bed. There are two royal purple suitcases open on top of her comforter, one filled with clothes and shoes, the other with miscellaneous knick-knacks. Music is coming from speakers, low, but I can still hear her sniffling over the beat.
Before coming here, I not only ran away from my problems, but anyone else’s as well. When I hear her crying, my first instinct is to turn around, close the door like I’d never even been in the room, and go to the common room to read a book for the next hour. But my therapist has been telling me-surprise, surprise-that I can’t run away and hide, that it doesn’t change anything. And that facing up to challenges will help me through the rest of my life, even in regards to other things besides forcing food down my throat. Excuse me-besides eating three pleasant yet fulfilling meals a day so that I have enough energy to function as a normal human being. So I count to three, nails pressed tight into my palms, and walk over to sit on her bed. What do you know, I’m learning something from this place after all.
She turns to face me and before I can even ask, she tells me she’s leaving. Her insurance has run out. I stare at her, part horror, a bigger part jealousy.
“It’s not the end of the world though,” she’s saying, while I try to work through my own emotions. “This is good. I can do this.” She gives a shaky laugh.
“Are you sure?” I ask in the middle of her pep talk before I can stop myself. Her eyes dim for a second and she picks up a pillow.
“No, I’m not. I’m terrified. Not purging in here is different than when I’m back at home. Here-it’s safe. But not there. It’ll be triggering, you know?”
I knew. Home is always the worst place to be when you have an eating disorder. Everything that brought you to that point, chances are a vast majority came from your house and family members.
Before I talk myself out of it, I reach out and give her a hug, quick. It took me over a month here before I actually started touching people, and then it was mostly small hand squeezes or pats on the shoulder to help a girl finish her meal on time, or confess to hiding cigarettes in her shoes. I’d never hugged anyone here before. I’d barely even done it before I got here: first, because I was afraid people would feel my fat, then because I was afraid people would feel my bones. I let go quickly, but surprisingly I feel better. I can’t tell about Crystal, she’s still sniffling.
“I’m scared, I’m scared to go back out there.” she says to me, gesturing towards the window. “What if I’m not strong enough?”
I give her a close-lipped smile. “If there was anyone in this place that has a chance of succeeding out there, it’s you. You actually want this, to change, to get better. Everyone else is confused.” No need to add I’m right there along with them. “You will be fine.”
I slide off her bed and head towards her dresser. “I’ll help you pack,” I tell her, and open the top drawer, still tingling from the hug.
---
Overfield Treatment Center. Located just 30 miles outside of sunny Orlando, Florida. Run by watchful, overweight nurses and intrusive therapists. Occupied by distended stomachs and scarred thighs, skeletons and dying hearts. It could either be a place of refuge or a place of torture, depending on who you asked. And why you were asking.
I checked in three months ago, the week after the homecoming dance at my high school.
Edit: I was forced to come here three months ago by my parents, the week after I collapsed on the dance floor and my date panicked and called an ambulance because he couldn’t wake me up and I was barely breathing.
The first thing that happened after I walked through the revolving door (revolving-right: as if I could have just simply kept it spinning if I chose to and walked away from this whole mess) was two nurses came out to greet us. The second thing was that my parents were led down the hallway to the left, while I was told to follow the second nurse down the hallway in front of me. Tired from my meds on top of everything else, and weak from carrying my suitcase, I didn’t even have the energy to ask why.
I woke up a little when she opened the door of an examining room. The scale was hidden slightly behind the door, and a bed was pressed against the far wall. Locked cabinets ran around the top and bottom of the rest of the room. In the right hand corner was another door, slightly ajar. A bathroom.
“Why am I here?” Part of my brain knew that I would end up in a room like this sooner or later, but I was still coming to terms with the fact that I was about to be locked up and force-fed until my stomach puffed out like an overinflated balloon.
“We need to get your stats, your vitals, so we can figure out the most effective treatment plan for you.”
Shivers, up and down my spine. “Just use the information from the hospital. They did all of that stuff.”
The nurse shook her head. “Those numbers are from a week ago, and don’t reflect your body anymore. We need to be as accurate as possible to help your body recover.”
Recover. Another word I didn’t like. I stood there with my arms folded, trembling all over. She stared at me, patiently, holding a backless robe out to me. Her mouth didn’t frown, her eyes didn’t narrow. She simply waited for me to realize that I couldn’t win, that whether I chose to put on the robe or not, whether I decided to step on the scale or not, in the end it would still happen.
I snatched the robe from her and stalked to the bathroom. My intent was to slam the door as hard as I could manage, but about an inch away from closing it bounced back as if it had hit an invisible wall. I tried pulling it shut again, with the same result. No matter how hard I pulled, the door would not shut.
“It doesn’t close all the way,” the nurse said to me, leaning back on the counter. My face must have reflected my horror. “It’s to stop girls from water loading, or messing with urine samples. It’s for your own good.”
No. Way.
“This is bullshit!” I screamed, throwing the robe towards the nurse. It didn’t come close to her, and before I could find something else to throw two more nurses came into the room. “Don’t touch me!” I spat at them as they came towards me, “Don’t you dare touch me.” I let out a wordless, prolonged scream as they came closer to me, arms trying to hold me down. I screamed continuously until the world tipped sideways, fuzzing around the edges. It was impressive-I’d never screamed for that long before. And that pissed me off because if I had enough energy inside me to scream that long and loud, I should have used it to stay conscious at that stupid homecoming dance so I would never have ended up here.
Our bodies always choose the worst times to betray us.
---
Abigail Ellenora Frost, F. DOB 02-10-93
Height: 5’5”
Weight: 91 lbs
BMI: 15.2
Notes: Bradycardia, Orthostatic hypotension, Anemia, Osteopenia. Suspected laxative abuse, scars on inner left thigh.
---
Two weeks after Crystal left, I am sitting in my therapist Dr. Walden’s office. I want to make a joke out of his name based off of Thoreau’s book, but I cannot remember much of what happened in it. We read it in March of my sophomore year. I do not remember the plot of the book, but I do remember wondering how many calories one would burn if they had to chop all that wood for a cabin. I remember my weight at the time: 104, and thinking knowing that was too much. I remember the book solely in terms of how it pertained to my body. Most of my life has been like that, come to think of it.
I sit back on the couch and wait for the therapy to begin. It always starts the same: Dr. Walden will take one of the omnipresent Starburst from the dish on his desk and then ask in a slightly muffled voice, “How are you doing today?” as he rolls it around with his tongue. I used to be disgusted by that, how he could so casually eat the Starburst, and then on top of it talk while it was in his mouth. Now-I don’t know. I am kind of jealous. I used to love Starburst. They were just good, in general, and plus they helped with my period cramps-back when I used to get my period. He never offers them to me though, which is surprising because everyone else that works here uses every opportunity to shove more calories into our systems.
“Abigail.” This unexpected beginning stops my mind from wandering. I look at him, and realize he does not have his clipboard out, or my file open on his desk. He is staring straight at me, hands held together in his lap. My muscles tighten, and my heart starts beating a bit faster, and I am not sure why. But I know enough to say that something has changed, somehow. And I know that I do not want to know the answer. Surprises or changes here, as a general rule, tend to be less than pleasant. I stare at him, waiting.
“Did you talk to your parents last night?” He makes eye contact and doesn’t look away. I stare back and shake my head no.
“Your insurance has run out. You’re going to be discharged in a week. I’m sorry, Abigail.”
I still stare at him, but I can slowly feel the adrenaline crawling through my veins. I want to tear my skin off to get that feeling out of me. I want to run from this room and scream in his face that that’s not possible, but I learned a lot from my first weeks here. I used to either scream at Dr. Walden or give him the silent treatment during my sessions, until I realized this was the reason I was on 24-hour supervision and was given a can of Ensure to finish every night in ten minutes, regardless if I had reached my daily caloric intake for the day. After that, I answered when spoken to, politely, but guarded. I was not going to let him mess with my head, although some argue that my head was already messed up before I came here.
Dr. Walden asks me if I’m okay, and I tell him I don’t know. I’m not sure what’s going on in my head right now, nor in my body. A week ago, I would have been ecstatic to find out I was getting out of here over a month early. But now-this past week, my view of this place has changed. After Crystal left, everything seems a bit surreal. My new roommate Jackie is young, barely 14, severely bulimic, and clearly does not want to be at Overfield. Her attitude and sarcastic under-the-breath comments would have annoyed me if I didn’t know I was exactly like her when I first checked in. It makes me sad to watch her now. And it makes me sad that Crystal had to leave early, when she actually wanted to be here. I’ve been trying these past two weeks to actually pay attention to what the nurses are saying, like why I’m eating protein every day and how important fiber is. In Group, I confess when I’ve made a mistake, and I actually try to see my body properly when I draw its silhouette on the paper roll. I have been trying so hard, in honor of Crystal, in hopes that my new roommate will eventually snap out of it, and now it’s being taken away from me. So no, I want to yell at him, I do not know if I’m okay, thank you very much for your concern.
“It’s surprising, I guess,” is what I say to him. Not using sarcasm has been the hardest thing, but I try. I can’t help what goes through my head, but I can help what comes out of my mouth. “I just-I kind of felt like everything was starting to make sense these past weeks.” He nods at me, a little wrinkle on his forehead. I assume it’s either because he doesn’t believe me or he’s not used to me opening up this much to him. Maybe a bit of both.
“Why now?”
I sigh. “Part of it was Crystal leaving. She really wanted to get better, but when she found out she was going home she was so afraid that she wasn’t ready. Part of it is Jackie. She’s so angry all the time, and it makes me sad that I used to be like that.” I play with the hair tie I always keep around my wrist, refusing to look him in the eye. I don’t like sharing with people, anyone, so telling him this is humiliating. “On my more optimistic days, I think maybe it’s just been coming up to this point for a while now. I was just too stubborn to realize that maybe eating isn’t the worst thing in the world. Maybe it might actually be good, sometimes.”
My face is blazing. Dr. Walden surprises me by giving a small chuckle and I almost look up at him. “You, stubborn?” Then he sighs. “I’m not going to lie and tell you that you’ll be fine. I am worried about you leaving early. But I also am hopeful. Especially now, if what you’re saying is true. I think what happens when you leave here is up to you.”
While he talks to me about discharge and gives me a folder with advice and phone numbers in case I slip up, I think about his words. It is up to me, what I do when I get out of here. I understand enough now that if I choose to do this right, I can go back to school, sit down in the cafeteria, and laugh with my friends while I take a bite of my sandwich without cutting it into eighths and making sure I chew each bite 10 times and throwing away more than half of it. I can also go back to school, hide in the library with the excuse of extra homework, and later run on the treadmill endlessly long after my parents have gone to bed. Both sides are clear to me now, and both sound good-and bad. Yes, objectively, I know what the right scenario is. It’s now just a matter now of convincing myself.
I thank Dr. Walden when my session is over, and head to my room to pack.
---
My mom pulls into the restaurant’s parking lot, turns off the car, and takes a breath. We have been driving in silence the entire way here. Not an awkward silence, more like a heightened silence, where you’re aware that no one’s talking but you don’t feel the need to blurt out the first thing that comes into your mind just to break it.
I get out of the back seat before either of them says anything to me, because I don’t want to think about why we’re here. It worries me that they’ve chosen for my first meal to be at a restaurant. At Overfield, restaurants were handled slowly. You had to be there at least two months, and you had to work your way towards being trusted to be able to go out. I had gone on two restaurant trips, and both times I was able to eat a good portion of my food but I kept wondering how many calories, exactly, I was consuming. I liked the fact that when I ate at Overfield they told you how many calories exactly were on the plate. Restaurants are mysterious about that, and so often it’s impossible to calculate really because you don’t know what type of butter they used; or dressing; if the bread is enriched; or the exact serving size of the mixed vegetable, and it drives me crazy. As the hostess leads us to our table I wipe my palms on my jeans.
The menu holds no surprises: burgers, chicken breast, pastas, salads, sandwiches. I find a turkey wrap with avocado and tomatoes, and figure that’s probably my best bet. I see my mom’s forehead scrunch when I place my order, and I can hear her worrying if it’s enough, should she make me get something greasy, shouldn’t I order a real drink instead of water? I know my dad has his hand resting on her leg even though I can’t see it, because his shoulder is subtly moving up and down in time with my mom’s leg. But neither of them says anything about my meal choice and I hand my menu over to my waitress, making sure to put a smile on my face.
We sit and talk about everything except the obvious, which doesn’t leave much else to talk about. Our family has never been particularly chatty. I find out my grandma broke her hip last week when she fell in her kitchen, and that a pipe burst in our house so it kind of smells. I don’t have any stories to tell them, since we’re not talking about it.
The food comes and both my parents stare, and then try not to stare, as I pick up half of my wrap and take a bite. One, two, three…I start counting in my head how many times I chew before I catch myself and try not to think about it. I do twelve just to mess with my brain. They are so intent on trying not to watch me that they have not started on their own meals yet. If I wasn’t so annoyed, I would have laughed.
“It’s good,” I say to my mom, “how’s your pasta?” and she quickly picks up her fork. My dad takes a bite out of his burger, I shove more of the wrap into my mouth-no I am not counting chews, I did not swallow that bite only after seven-and we all smile at each other without talking.
The waitress comes over when we look like we are full. My dad declines another beer, I decline more water, and then she asks the inevitable yet nerve-racking question of whether we’d like to try some dessert.
My parents look at me, and I look back. I need to show them that I am fine, just fine, that it doesn’t matter that I left treatment early, that the last weeks I was there really did help me try to change my thinking. I nod, slowly, and ask if they’d like to share the brownie sundae. The waitress walks away and I put a smile on my face for my parents’ benefit.
“Are you cold, honey?” My mom asks me suddenly, and at first I am confused. Then I realize that I am shaking, trembling. It’s very slight, but she’s always been observant.
“A little, but I’m okay,” I lie to her, and unclench my fists that I didn’t even know I had made. In my palms, little half moons appear, light in color. They throb for a second, and then disappear as if they were never there.
---
---
Where are they, where are they? The lights seem too bright for my panicked eyes and I squint to try and read the signs above the rows. Everything seems to have moved around while I was gone. I turn into Aisle 7, but now stare at body lotion and deodorant. I try the next aisle, no luck either. But damned if I’m going to ask someone where they are. The store is almost empty; most people are asleep in their beds by now. This is precisely the point. I take my time going up and down the aisles, thankful that I don’t have to worry much about people seeing me.
Finally, finally, I spot them. I grab a box, take two steps away, backtrack, and grab two more. Better safe than sorry.
I look for the line with a cashier that looks very old or very bored. Although sometimes the old ones are chatty, and I am not in the mood for conversation-I’m in too much of a hurry. I find one that has a man, maybe around 50, and slap the boxes face down on the strip along with a pack of gum. I throw in a candy bar for show.
Running home, I can still feel the brownie sitting inside my stomach, slowly making its way outward into my veins, clogging up my heart. It expands like bread in the oven, until I feel like my stomach is going to burst inside of me.
My phone beeps as I walk into my house and up the stairs as silently as I can, but I don’t check it until after I swallow half the box. I’m tempted to swallow it all, but I’ve overdosed badly before, and it’s not worth it. Better to ease into it.
It’s a message from Crystal. I purged today :’(, it says. I feel horrible but better at the same time. How are you doing?
I don’t respond, because I don’t know what to say. Or maybe I do, but I can’t say it. Her text makes me feel guilty, but I can’t undo it now, so I don’t tell her anything. Maybe she thinks I’m sleeping. Maybe she thinks I’m still at dinner with my family, laughing and hugging and creating wonderful family memories. She never has to know what happened. As they say, the best little secrets are kept.
For the next hour, I lie on my bed and read. Finally, I feel that first twinge in the lower part of my stomach that tells me to head towards the toilet, now please. I slide my feet into my slippers and open my door as slow as possible. Quietly, I make my way down to the bathroom, book in my left hand, ready to let everything move through me until my stomach is empty. Small, pink, and empty. I know this is not what I should be thinking, that I specifically have a sheet in the folder that Dr. Walden gave me on what to do when I start thinking these kinds of thoughts. I almost turn back to my room, but it’s impossible now. I sit down on the toilet and wait.
The laxative grip my intestines, and I give a relieved sigh without quite meaning to.
I feel horrible but better at the same time, Crystal had said.
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
She pushes the doors open for me, and we walk into what could be considered a cafeteria, although it is different from the one at my high school in many ways. I see another nurse look up and register my face. Turning around, she uncaps the dry erase marker and makes a note next to my name: Abigail, 12:04. They’re all about precision here.
I have to pick the tray up from the counter and carry it to my table. It is a rule, to show that I am getting better, that the weight and contents of the plate do not send my heart into overdrive, that I will not in fact throw my plate into the nearest garbage can and run screaming from the room. I have to pick it up, and feel the heat from it warm my hands. I cannot see what is under the fog that has gathered on the Saran Wrap. It doesn’t matter that I can’t see it. I know what’s on the plate, or close enough. There isn’t much variation of food here. It’s a nice subtlety of theirs; food is stable, food is constant. You can trust the food.
I peel back the wrapper, slowly, and look down at the plate while keeping my face blank. Here is what I will be eating for lunch today: a breaded chicken breast, overcooked and tough on the teeth, a circular lump of grey mashed potatoes, and a hardened biscuit with a pack of full fat butter next to it. They even have vegetables, which I cannot get too excited about because they are also overcooked-limp asparagus and softened carrots soaked in even more butter.
This is not all. I must tell the nurse who walked me here what drinks I want. Not just one obscenely tall glass of something, but two. Water does not count, and skim milk does not exist here. I ask in a clear, somewhat bored voice for 2% milk that feels as thick as cream going down my throat, and orange juice so heavy that I do not know if the flakes floating around are pulp or just seeds of pure fat that will lodge themselves into the walls of my veins and never leave.
All of this, every bite of the chicken-300-and the mashed potatoes-110-and the veggies-60-and the two drinks that are, respectively, 130 and 110-I have to finish in forty minutes.
Yes, I am in hell. Thank you for asking.
This is not what I say out loud, of course. I do not say anything else except “thank you” to the nurse she sets down the glasses in front of my plate. Talking to them doesn’t change anything. Yelling in their face gets you nothing but a blank stare, a finger pointed at the food, and an extra concerned look from the therapist you must meet with individually once a week to talk about your Issues.
There are three other girls already at my table, and one other nurse. We are all mirrors of each other, more or less: we are dressed in short sleeves only, and we keep our napkins uncrumpled and next to our plates. Staff is used to us; they too have learned all the tricks. We tremble slightly as we slowly cut into our meat and butter our biscuit, and we fight the urge to create symmetry on our plate, or to separate the asparagus from the carrots, or to make sure we chew each bite ten times before we swallow, or to cut everything into microscopic pieces. We resist taking the plastic knife and trying to dig it into the necks of the nurses, or our own.
Instead: we sit there and chew and drink and smile at the nurses and at each other and we watch the clock out of the corner of our eyes. We sit there and chew and drink and try not to think about how much we’re eating or how quickly or how we will not be allowed to use the bathroom for at least an hour afterwards. We sit there and chew and drink and try not to think how this cycle will repeat itself again in three hours, for the midafternoon snack, and three hours after that, with another bland overcooked meal, or again for late night tea.
To keep my sanity, I try to convince myself that no, after this I do not have to sit still in a recliner while reading a book from the vastly limited library, nor will I have to create a collage of faces and explain its meaning to my therapist, nor will I have to sit patiently against the wall from my room while the nurses check for laxatives, medications, cigarettes, or anything else that is forbidden inside these walls.
Stop, I tell myself. It is real. No matter what I tell myself everything I mentioned is going to happen, and thinking about it only makes it worse. It’s irrelevant. The food will end up in my stomach, and from there it will be distributed to my thighs, my arms, my boobs. I will choose the best words to represent my soul’s pain and try, for the millionth time, to explain to my therapist that my thighs are too round and that my double chin embarrasses me. I cannot stop these events because they are the reasons I am here.
And they are also my only way out.
I shut off my brain, grip my plastic ware harder, and finish eating.
---
My roommate Crystal and I aren’t exactly friends. There’s nothing wrong with her personality; if I met her anywhere else I would get along with her just fine. But she makes me weary. Instead of biding her time in here, trying to get out as soon as possible, she actually wants to be here. Or rather, she truly wants to get better. I…don’t. Not completely. I guess it’s true that I don’t want to die, but I don’t really know how else to live either. There are so many different versions of better; her definition scares me because it matches up with the nurses’ definition, which means she’s always telling if she messed up, or if she saw someone else break the rules as well. It isn’t vindictive of her, it’s honest; she truly believes it is helping all of us get past our Issues. The rest of us don’t quite agree, so I’m always on my guard around her.
I walk into our room after mealtime and before Group, and notice that she’s taken down the posters that covered the entire wall above her bed. There are two royal purple suitcases open on top of her comforter, one filled with clothes and shoes, the other with miscellaneous knick-knacks. Music is coming from speakers, low, but I can still hear her sniffling over the beat.
Before coming here, I not only ran away from my problems, but anyone else’s as well. When I hear her crying, my first instinct is to turn around, close the door like I’d never even been in the room, and go to the common room to read a book for the next hour. But my therapist has been telling me-surprise, surprise-that I can’t run away and hide, that it doesn’t change anything. And that facing up to challenges will help me through the rest of my life, even in regards to other things besides forcing food down my throat. Excuse me-besides eating three pleasant yet fulfilling meals a day so that I have enough energy to function as a normal human being. So I count to three, nails pressed tight into my palms, and walk over to sit on her bed. What do you know, I’m learning something from this place after all.
She turns to face me and before I can even ask, she tells me she’s leaving. Her insurance has run out. I stare at her, part horror, a bigger part jealousy.
“It’s not the end of the world though,” she’s saying, while I try to work through my own emotions. “This is good. I can do this.” She gives a shaky laugh.
“Are you sure?” I ask in the middle of her pep talk before I can stop myself. Her eyes dim for a second and she picks up a pillow.
“No, I’m not. I’m terrified. Not purging in here is different than when I’m back at home. Here-it’s safe. But not there. It’ll be triggering, you know?”
I knew. Home is always the worst place to be when you have an eating disorder. Everything that brought you to that point, chances are a vast majority came from your house and family members.
Before I talk myself out of it, I reach out and give her a hug, quick. It took me over a month here before I actually started touching people, and then it was mostly small hand squeezes or pats on the shoulder to help a girl finish her meal on time, or confess to hiding cigarettes in her shoes. I’d never hugged anyone here before. I’d barely even done it before I got here: first, because I was afraid people would feel my fat, then because I was afraid people would feel my bones. I let go quickly, but surprisingly I feel better. I can’t tell about Crystal, she’s still sniffling.
“I’m scared, I’m scared to go back out there.” she says to me, gesturing towards the window. “What if I’m not strong enough?”
I give her a close-lipped smile. “If there was anyone in this place that has a chance of succeeding out there, it’s you. You actually want this, to change, to get better. Everyone else is confused.” No need to add I’m right there along with them. “You will be fine.”
I slide off her bed and head towards her dresser. “I’ll help you pack,” I tell her, and open the top drawer, still tingling from the hug.
---
Overfield Treatment Center. Located just 30 miles outside of sunny Orlando, Florida. Run by watchful, overweight nurses and intrusive therapists. Occupied by distended stomachs and scarred thighs, skeletons and dying hearts. It could either be a place of refuge or a place of torture, depending on who you asked. And why you were asking.
I checked in three months ago, the week after the homecoming dance at my high school.
Edit: I was forced to come here three months ago by my parents, the week after I collapsed on the dance floor and my date panicked and called an ambulance because he couldn’t wake me up and I was barely breathing.
The first thing that happened after I walked through the revolving door (revolving-right: as if I could have just simply kept it spinning if I chose to and walked away from this whole mess) was two nurses came out to greet us. The second thing was that my parents were led down the hallway to the left, while I was told to follow the second nurse down the hallway in front of me. Tired from my meds on top of everything else, and weak from carrying my suitcase, I didn’t even have the energy to ask why.
I woke up a little when she opened the door of an examining room. The scale was hidden slightly behind the door, and a bed was pressed against the far wall. Locked cabinets ran around the top and bottom of the rest of the room. In the right hand corner was another door, slightly ajar. A bathroom.
“Why am I here?” Part of my brain knew that I would end up in a room like this sooner or later, but I was still coming to terms with the fact that I was about to be locked up and force-fed until my stomach puffed out like an overinflated balloon.
“We need to get your stats, your vitals, so we can figure out the most effective treatment plan for you.”
Shivers, up and down my spine. “Just use the information from the hospital. They did all of that stuff.”
The nurse shook her head. “Those numbers are from a week ago, and don’t reflect your body anymore. We need to be as accurate as possible to help your body recover.”
Recover. Another word I didn’t like. I stood there with my arms folded, trembling all over. She stared at me, patiently, holding a backless robe out to me. Her mouth didn’t frown, her eyes didn’t narrow. She simply waited for me to realize that I couldn’t win, that whether I chose to put on the robe or not, whether I decided to step on the scale or not, in the end it would still happen.
I snatched the robe from her and stalked to the bathroom. My intent was to slam the door as hard as I could manage, but about an inch away from closing it bounced back as if it had hit an invisible wall. I tried pulling it shut again, with the same result. No matter how hard I pulled, the door would not shut.
“It doesn’t close all the way,” the nurse said to me, leaning back on the counter. My face must have reflected my horror. “It’s to stop girls from water loading, or messing with urine samples. It’s for your own good.”
No. Way.
“This is bullshit!” I screamed, throwing the robe towards the nurse. It didn’t come close to her, and before I could find something else to throw two more nurses came into the room. “Don’t touch me!” I spat at them as they came towards me, “Don’t you dare touch me.” I let out a wordless, prolonged scream as they came closer to me, arms trying to hold me down. I screamed continuously until the world tipped sideways, fuzzing around the edges. It was impressive-I’d never screamed for that long before. And that pissed me off because if I had enough energy inside me to scream that long and loud, I should have used it to stay conscious at that stupid homecoming dance so I would never have ended up here.
Our bodies always choose the worst times to betray us.
---
Abigail Ellenora Frost, F. DOB 02-10-93
Height: 5’5”
Weight: 91 lbs
BMI: 15.2
Notes: Bradycardia, Orthostatic hypotension, Anemia, Osteopenia. Suspected laxative abuse, scars on inner left thigh.
---
Two weeks after Crystal left, I am sitting in my therapist Dr. Walden’s office. I want to make a joke out of his name based off of Thoreau’s book, but I cannot remember much of what happened in it. We read it in March of my sophomore year. I do not remember the plot of the book, but I do remember wondering how many calories one would burn if they had to chop all that wood for a cabin. I remember my weight at the time: 104, and thinking knowing that was too much. I remember the book solely in terms of how it pertained to my body. Most of my life has been like that, come to think of it.
I sit back on the couch and wait for the therapy to begin. It always starts the same: Dr. Walden will take one of the omnipresent Starburst from the dish on his desk and then ask in a slightly muffled voice, “How are you doing today?” as he rolls it around with his tongue. I used to be disgusted by that, how he could so casually eat the Starburst, and then on top of it talk while it was in his mouth. Now-I don’t know. I am kind of jealous. I used to love Starburst. They were just good, in general, and plus they helped with my period cramps-back when I used to get my period. He never offers them to me though, which is surprising because everyone else that works here uses every opportunity to shove more calories into our systems.
“Abigail.” This unexpected beginning stops my mind from wandering. I look at him, and realize he does not have his clipboard out, or my file open on his desk. He is staring straight at me, hands held together in his lap. My muscles tighten, and my heart starts beating a bit faster, and I am not sure why. But I know enough to say that something has changed, somehow. And I know that I do not want to know the answer. Surprises or changes here, as a general rule, tend to be less than pleasant. I stare at him, waiting.
“Did you talk to your parents last night?” He makes eye contact and doesn’t look away. I stare back and shake my head no.
“Your insurance has run out. You’re going to be discharged in a week. I’m sorry, Abigail.”
I still stare at him, but I can slowly feel the adrenaline crawling through my veins. I want to tear my skin off to get that feeling out of me. I want to run from this room and scream in his face that that’s not possible, but I learned a lot from my first weeks here. I used to either scream at Dr. Walden or give him the silent treatment during my sessions, until I realized this was the reason I was on 24-hour supervision and was given a can of Ensure to finish every night in ten minutes, regardless if I had reached my daily caloric intake for the day. After that, I answered when spoken to, politely, but guarded. I was not going to let him mess with my head, although some argue that my head was already messed up before I came here.
Dr. Walden asks me if I’m okay, and I tell him I don’t know. I’m not sure what’s going on in my head right now, nor in my body. A week ago, I would have been ecstatic to find out I was getting out of here over a month early. But now-this past week, my view of this place has changed. After Crystal left, everything seems a bit surreal. My new roommate Jackie is young, barely 14, severely bulimic, and clearly does not want to be at Overfield. Her attitude and sarcastic under-the-breath comments would have annoyed me if I didn’t know I was exactly like her when I first checked in. It makes me sad to watch her now. And it makes me sad that Crystal had to leave early, when she actually wanted to be here. I’ve been trying these past two weeks to actually pay attention to what the nurses are saying, like why I’m eating protein every day and how important fiber is. In Group, I confess when I’ve made a mistake, and I actually try to see my body properly when I draw its silhouette on the paper roll. I have been trying so hard, in honor of Crystal, in hopes that my new roommate will eventually snap out of it, and now it’s being taken away from me. So no, I want to yell at him, I do not know if I’m okay, thank you very much for your concern.
“It’s surprising, I guess,” is what I say to him. Not using sarcasm has been the hardest thing, but I try. I can’t help what goes through my head, but I can help what comes out of my mouth. “I just-I kind of felt like everything was starting to make sense these past weeks.” He nods at me, a little wrinkle on his forehead. I assume it’s either because he doesn’t believe me or he’s not used to me opening up this much to him. Maybe a bit of both.
“Why now?”
I sigh. “Part of it was Crystal leaving. She really wanted to get better, but when she found out she was going home she was so afraid that she wasn’t ready. Part of it is Jackie. She’s so angry all the time, and it makes me sad that I used to be like that.” I play with the hair tie I always keep around my wrist, refusing to look him in the eye. I don’t like sharing with people, anyone, so telling him this is humiliating. “On my more optimistic days, I think maybe it’s just been coming up to this point for a while now. I was just too stubborn to realize that maybe eating isn’t the worst thing in the world. Maybe it might actually be good, sometimes.”
My face is blazing. Dr. Walden surprises me by giving a small chuckle and I almost look up at him. “You, stubborn?” Then he sighs. “I’m not going to lie and tell you that you’ll be fine. I am worried about you leaving early. But I also am hopeful. Especially now, if what you’re saying is true. I think what happens when you leave here is up to you.”
While he talks to me about discharge and gives me a folder with advice and phone numbers in case I slip up, I think about his words. It is up to me, what I do when I get out of here. I understand enough now that if I choose to do this right, I can go back to school, sit down in the cafeteria, and laugh with my friends while I take a bite of my sandwich without cutting it into eighths and making sure I chew each bite 10 times and throwing away more than half of it. I can also go back to school, hide in the library with the excuse of extra homework, and later run on the treadmill endlessly long after my parents have gone to bed. Both sides are clear to me now, and both sound good-and bad. Yes, objectively, I know what the right scenario is. It’s now just a matter now of convincing myself.
I thank Dr. Walden when my session is over, and head to my room to pack.
---
My mom pulls into the restaurant’s parking lot, turns off the car, and takes a breath. We have been driving in silence the entire way here. Not an awkward silence, more like a heightened silence, where you’re aware that no one’s talking but you don’t feel the need to blurt out the first thing that comes into your mind just to break it.
I get out of the back seat before either of them says anything to me, because I don’t want to think about why we’re here. It worries me that they’ve chosen for my first meal to be at a restaurant. At Overfield, restaurants were handled slowly. You had to be there at least two months, and you had to work your way towards being trusted to be able to go out. I had gone on two restaurant trips, and both times I was able to eat a good portion of my food but I kept wondering how many calories, exactly, I was consuming. I liked the fact that when I ate at Overfield they told you how many calories exactly were on the plate. Restaurants are mysterious about that, and so often it’s impossible to calculate really because you don’t know what type of butter they used; or dressing; if the bread is enriched; or the exact serving size of the mixed vegetable, and it drives me crazy. As the hostess leads us to our table I wipe my palms on my jeans.
The menu holds no surprises: burgers, chicken breast, pastas, salads, sandwiches. I find a turkey wrap with avocado and tomatoes, and figure that’s probably my best bet. I see my mom’s forehead scrunch when I place my order, and I can hear her worrying if it’s enough, should she make me get something greasy, shouldn’t I order a real drink instead of water? I know my dad has his hand resting on her leg even though I can’t see it, because his shoulder is subtly moving up and down in time with my mom’s leg. But neither of them says anything about my meal choice and I hand my menu over to my waitress, making sure to put a smile on my face.
We sit and talk about everything except the obvious, which doesn’t leave much else to talk about. Our family has never been particularly chatty. I find out my grandma broke her hip last week when she fell in her kitchen, and that a pipe burst in our house so it kind of smells. I don’t have any stories to tell them, since we’re not talking about it.
The food comes and both my parents stare, and then try not to stare, as I pick up half of my wrap and take a bite. One, two, three…I start counting in my head how many times I chew before I catch myself and try not to think about it. I do twelve just to mess with my brain. They are so intent on trying not to watch me that they have not started on their own meals yet. If I wasn’t so annoyed, I would have laughed.
“It’s good,” I say to my mom, “how’s your pasta?” and she quickly picks up her fork. My dad takes a bite out of his burger, I shove more of the wrap into my mouth-no I am not counting chews, I did not swallow that bite only after seven-and we all smile at each other without talking.
The waitress comes over when we look like we are full. My dad declines another beer, I decline more water, and then she asks the inevitable yet nerve-racking question of whether we’d like to try some dessert.
My parents look at me, and I look back. I need to show them that I am fine, just fine, that it doesn’t matter that I left treatment early, that the last weeks I was there really did help me try to change my thinking. I nod, slowly, and ask if they’d like to share the brownie sundae. The waitress walks away and I put a smile on my face for my parents’ benefit.
“Are you cold, honey?” My mom asks me suddenly, and at first I am confused. Then I realize that I am shaking, trembling. It’s very slight, but she’s always been observant.
“A little, but I’m okay,” I lie to her, and unclench my fists that I didn’t even know I had made. In my palms, little half moons appear, light in color. They throb for a second, and then disappear as if they were never there.
---
---
Where are they, where are they? The lights seem too bright for my panicked eyes and I squint to try and read the signs above the rows. Everything seems to have moved around while I was gone. I turn into Aisle 7, but now stare at body lotion and deodorant. I try the next aisle, no luck either. But damned if I’m going to ask someone where they are. The store is almost empty; most people are asleep in their beds by now. This is precisely the point. I take my time going up and down the aisles, thankful that I don’t have to worry much about people seeing me.
Finally, finally, I spot them. I grab a box, take two steps away, backtrack, and grab two more. Better safe than sorry.
I look for the line with a cashier that looks very old or very bored. Although sometimes the old ones are chatty, and I am not in the mood for conversation-I’m in too much of a hurry. I find one that has a man, maybe around 50, and slap the boxes face down on the strip along with a pack of gum. I throw in a candy bar for show.
Running home, I can still feel the brownie sitting inside my stomach, slowly making its way outward into my veins, clogging up my heart. It expands like bread in the oven, until I feel like my stomach is going to burst inside of me.
My phone beeps as I walk into my house and up the stairs as silently as I can, but I don’t check it until after I swallow half the box. I’m tempted to swallow it all, but I’ve overdosed badly before, and it’s not worth it. Better to ease into it.
It’s a message from Crystal. I purged today :’(, it says. I feel horrible but better at the same time. How are you doing?
I don’t respond, because I don’t know what to say. Or maybe I do, but I can’t say it. Her text makes me feel guilty, but I can’t undo it now, so I don’t tell her anything. Maybe she thinks I’m sleeping. Maybe she thinks I’m still at dinner with my family, laughing and hugging and creating wonderful family memories. She never has to know what happened. As they say, the best little secrets are kept.
For the next hour, I lie on my bed and read. Finally, I feel that first twinge in the lower part of my stomach that tells me to head towards the toilet, now please. I slide my feet into my slippers and open my door as slow as possible. Quietly, I make my way down to the bathroom, book in my left hand, ready to let everything move through me until my stomach is empty. Small, pink, and empty. I know this is not what I should be thinking, that I specifically have a sheet in the folder that Dr. Walden gave me on what to do when I start thinking these kinds of thoughts. I almost turn back to my room, but it’s impossible now. I sit down on the toilet and wait.
The laxative grip my intestines, and I give a relieved sigh without quite meaning to.
I feel horrible but better at the same time, Crystal had said.
Couldn’t have put it better myself.