Purge

by Nicole Johns

  Low and orthostatic blood pressure

  Passing out and getting a concussion

  Sore throat

  Dizziness

  Constipation

  Bloating

  Stomach pain

  Headache

  Electrolyte imbalances

  Acid reflux

  Cramping in extremities from low potassium

  Weakened immune system

  (Loss of Respect for Myself)

  Lying to friends about eating disorder behavior

  Too tired to go out

  Feeling worthless because of my weight

  Not having the energy to get out of bed

  Neglecting my students’ papers

  Missing class

  Pretending everything was okay even when it wasn’t

  (How My Eating Disorder Has Affected

  My Relationship with Others)

  Withdrew from friends and family

  Having a short temper and no patience

  Getting into arguments with friends about weight loss and eating disorder behaviors

  Losing several significant others because I was too wrapped up in the eating disorder

  Not wanting close friends because I didn’t want to have to tell them about the eating disorder

  (Deterioration of Social Life Due to My Eating Disorder)

  Isolating myself

  Not answering my phone or returning messages

  Distancing myself from friends

  Not wanting to get to know people

  Losing touch (on purpose) with friends

  (School and Job Problems Due to My Eating Disorder)

  Lack of concentration

  Quitting my food service job because I didn’t want to be around food

  Missing class because I was ill or hospitalized

  Cognitive problems because of my concussion

  Skipping class because I was too tired to get out of bed

  Having to wear a Holter Monitor to the last class I taught this past semester

  Not being able to sit still during class because of all the caffeine and diet pills I consumed

  (How My Eating Disorder Has Affected Me Spiritually)

  I have become more isolated from people. I have a hard time trusting people, because I am afraid that if I tell them about the eating disorder, they will turn on me. Sometimes I get so caught up in the eating disorder that I don’t see the world around me. My eating disorder has numbed me out. I am cut off from my essence. I feel like I have lost something vital to who I am, like I am a shell of the person I used to be.

  (Loss of Control in Regard to My Eating Disorder)

  My whole life feels out of control. I don’t know when my body is going to fail me, like when I passed out. My purges increased when I tried to cut back. I kept setting goal weights, reaching them, and then going lower.

  (How I Hid My Eating Disorder from Others)

  I’d tell my friends I’d eaten, claim I was ill or not hungry. I’d avoid gatherings involving food. I’d purge in seldom-used bathrooms at school. I’d grocery shop at least half an hour from home. I’d fast before an event, so I could then allow myself to eat.

  (What I Have Lost)

  Not only have I lost weight, but I’ve also lost myself. I lost Diana, my ex-girlfriend, because I was emotionally numb and involved in my eating disorder. I’ve lost so much time that I could’ve spent doing something useful. I lost my confidence. I lost my will to live. I just went through the motions. I’ve lost academic opportunities. I’ve lost money. I’ve lost my health. I’ve lost my voice.

  Everyone except Therapist Elaine stares out the window, because my list mimics everyone else’s list. We have all lost, and sometimes given away, so much.

  Scars

  The scars on my body tell a story. The long, reddish weal on my left shin is where I scraped my leg on the pool ladder one summer. The shiny, raised bump on my chest is the result of scratching a chicken pox welt when I was seven. Under my chin, there is a raised line where I fell and hit the coffee table when I was learning to walk. My forehead bears an indented scar from my running into the same coffee table edge three times, hitting the exact same spot each time, while learning to walk.

  Then there are the scars I carry inside my body: my eroded esophagus, corroded with stomach acid and bile; my heart that skips and flutters to an abnormal beat.

  I am not the only one who carries such scars. One night when Holly lights up a cigarette, I see scar tissue on her inner arm. I glance at her arm and see FAT carved into her flesh. The scar is old and white against her tan skin. Laura took a razor to her abdomen; then the wounds got infected, and now she refuses to show anyone. Sandra hated herself so badly one night that she sliced horizontal cuts all the way from her wrist to her elbow. These cuts are not meant to kill, they are meant to create physical pain because physical pain is a distraction from mental anguish.

  Holly’s esophagus is riddled with tears and ulcers. Clots of blood erupt out of her mouth when she burps. Laura passes out when her heart rate becomes irregular. We are forever marked. Our bodies have borne witness to our madness, and they will never let us forget.

  Autobiography

  For my next assignment, Therapist Elaine asks me to write my autobiography and read it to the group in installments. Over the course of my first two months in treatment, I scrawl the details of my life in 130 notebook pages. I read each year in chronological segments during Group Therapy. There are parts I want to forget; there are parts I want to share.

  Therapist Elaine, various RCs, and all the residents sit rapt in the dayroom and listen as I read the story of my life. I am our storyteller; perhaps something about my life resonates with my fellow residents as I read. By writing, I give my experiences a voice and I lend them credence, both for myself and for the others.

  Some years were better than others. No matter how hard I try, I can’t connect with what I read. Sometimes I cry when writing, but never when reading. This pattern worries my treatment team, and they keep telling me to let go, to let myself feel emotions as I read, but I don’t know how.

  I am not placing blame. I had a happy childhood spent running wild through the hills of rural Pennsylvania. I had Italian grandparents (my mother’s parents) who doted on me and fulfilled my every whim. I had a proper British grandma, who talked in the soft speech of a woman raised outside London, and a Vietnam-haunted grandfather.

  I had my own lavender bush that attracted fuzzy bees. I had parents who were high school sweethearts and too young to know better. I had Italian uncles and great-uncles who looked like gangsters and drank blackberry brandy in their coffee. Their laughter sounded like bells as they jostled me on their knees. I had a brother seven years younger than I whom I never understood.

  My father and I tossed a football back and forth; my mother told me I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up. My Italian grandparents sat with my mother and me during Mass on Sundays, then cooked a large spaghetti dinner, complete with portions for our dog. I drank tea with my British grandmother and listened to Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper with the bulky headphones she attached to the tape player. I grew up knowing I had possibilities and opportunities no one else in my family had. I grew up with the certainty that I would be one of the first people on either side of my blue-collar family to go to college.

  I took dance lessons, gymnastics lessons, swimming lessons, French horn lessons, and flute lessons. I was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church. I had fish, dogs, and a cat. I had two parents who loved each other and never fought. I had all four grandparents alive and mostly healthy. I had neighborhood friends and trees to climb.

  I am placing blame. I faced too much pressure to succeed and take advantage of the opportunities unavailable to previous generations of my family. I experienced the guilt and sexism of the Catholic Church. I was no good at math, no matter how hard I tried. Sometimes trying just wasn’t good enough. I stopped dancing, swimming, and playing instruments. I
refused to go to Mass. I did not fit the image of my family. I was the wild child, the intense, sensitive daughter whom my parents tried to rein in. I was explosive, depressed, and skeptical. I was not the daughter they thought I was.

  Horseback Riding

  While we wait for recreational Therapist Douglas to drive the van around to the front of the EDC, Laura braids my unruly hair into two French braids that hang just below my shoulders, and I don a black tank top and my least flattering pair of jeans. I am ready to go. Recreational Therapist Douglas herds Laura, Holly, Sarah, Courtney, Eliza, and me into the hospital van, and we’re off to the farm.

  In the van, Holly and I fight over the window seat, yelling at each other dramatically and bursting into laughter; Laura and Eliza fall asleep; and Courtney and Sarah sing along to the overplayed song “Roses” by OutKast that is once again playing on the radio. Douglas just smiles to himself, after telling us that he is feeling particularly thankful that it is such a beautiful day and that he is sober (Douglas is in recovery from alcoholism).

  At the stable, I am assigned a lazy chestnut roan who likes to snack on weeds alongside the trail. We aren’t allowed to go any faster than a walk, but I press my thighs and knees into my horse and we begin to trot. Immediately, Recreational Therapist Douglas demands that I stop. Frustrated, I remember riding bareback in upstate New York on the biodynamic, organic farm where I worked a few summers ago, and riding a friend’s horse on the dirt roads of northern Pennsylvania.

  All I want is to gallop, to feel the wind whip my braids about my face and feel the horse’s muscles ripple beneath my thighs. Instead, my horse meanders sedately along the trail while I listen to the other women talk about how exciting this foray into the countryside is. Laura and I exchange looks and roll our eyes at those city girls.

  When we get back to the EDC, I smell like horse and feel fat in my unflattering jeans (they accentuate the wideness of my hips). We arrive in time for a pre-lunch Group Therapy session, during which I talk about feeling trapped in my body and trapped in my life; there are certain things I want to do, and there are things I need to do, and there are cultural and familial expectations to deal with, and all of these make me panic because there are too many expectations and I know I can’t meet them and I just want everyone to leave me alone.

  Laura says she can relate. Everyone in her family wants her to become an orthodontist and become her father’s partner in his orthodontic practice. She wants to be a forensic scientist and study serial killers.

  Everyone else sits around, staring off into space.

  I feel better for getting this issue out in the open. Laura and I bond over our supposedly perfect families. We are the flawed daughters who need to be hidden away. We are the crazy Berthas secluded in the attic. My parents don’t tell anyone where I am, except for one set of grandparents, my brother, one aunt, and one uncle. I am a secret burden, I have fucked up undeniably, and my parents are ashamed of me and horrified that their daughter has an eating disorder.

  They claim this isn’t so—they just don’t want to broadcast private information in a public way, and if they tell the rest of my family, then word will leak out and the entire town will know, and my parents just want everybody to stay out of their business. We do live in a small town (population: 950 and shrinking), and word does get around.

  I invite my parents to Family Weekend at the EDC, so they can meet with the parents of the women on my floor, and attend lectures about dealing with and supporting someone recovering from an eating disorder. Family Weekend coincides with my cousin’s graduation party, and since my parents can’t miss the graduation party without having a good explanation, they tell me they can’t come.

  In my mind, Family Weekend is more important than a graduation party. Once again, my parents’ need for everything to appear perfect comes before my needs. I spend several Group Therapy sessions talking about how angry with and disappointed in my parents I am. We argue over the phone. Finally, they agree to come to the EDC another weekend. I’d like my parents to acknowledge that I am asking for help, and that I need them, and to not make me feel like I am an inconvenience.

  Psychodrama

  We are doing a psychodrama about family secrets, and Rachel has picked me to be the protagonist. Prior to the psychodrama, I was in a good mood. It is Tuesday, and we’re going roller skating after dinner tonight. In preparation for this venture into the real world, I have put on jeans and a fitted purple shirt and done my makeup. My hair cascades over my shoulders and I tuck it behind my ears. Looking in the mirror, I realize the dark circles are gone from under my eyes and my skin has a glow. My body is slowly recovering.

  “I want you to arrange the furniture in this room to resemble the setup of your living room in Pennsylvania,” says Rachel.

  I move three chairs together to represent a sofa and two chairs together to represent a love seat, and leave one chair out to represent an ottoman. I pull a blue mat in front of the simulated sofa to represent a fireplace. The other residents are sitting in chairs or on the floor. I cross my arms over my chest as my cheeks flush with nervousness.

  “Pick someone to represent your mother, your father, and your brother,” says Rachel.

  I pick three residents and arrange them in my pseudo-living room. Mom and Dad sit together on the sofa, and my brother sprawls on the love seat. I occupy the ottoman chair.

  “Are your parents happy together?” asks Rachel.

  “Yes, I’ve only seen them fight once in my life.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “He’s sixteen and at a boarding school in northern Ohio. We’re not close; he’s seven years younger than me.”

  “Say something to your mother,” says Rachel.

  “I’m never good enough for you,” I say.

  “Switch places with your mother and sit beside Dad on the sofa. How would your mother respond to what you just said?”

  “Nicole is immature. She exaggerates. Her father and I push her because she has so many opportunities we never had. She’s a smart girl, but she doesn’t work up to her potential. She puts a lot of pressure on herself and blames it on us,” I say.

  “How does that make you feel, Nicole? What do you want to say back to your mom?”

  “I know you and Dad only want the best for me, but you push me so hard that I feel like nothing is ever good enough. You didn’t go to college, but that was your choice.”

  “Nicole, I want you to tell us one of the secrets of your family,” says Rachel.

  I sit on the ottoman, legs crossed, staring at the wall. I don’t want to do this. I want dinner to be over with and I want to fly around the roller-skating rink, arms outstretched in a flurry of speed.

  “I have an eating disorder.”

  I’m shaking and my anger is rising.

  “You’ve been angry lately; would you like to hit something?”

  “Yes.”

  Rachel retrieves a Wiffle Ball bat and drags the cube-shaped blue mat to the center of the room. I’ve seen other residents do this, and I am ready.

  “I want you to hit the mat as hard as you can and scream why you are angry at your parents.”

  At first I just beat the hell out of the mat because I can’t verbalize. Then I start swinging and screaming. The litany of my anger goes like this:

  “I’m angry that I’m never good enough for you.”

  “I’m angry that you didn’t believe that I had an eating disorder.”

  “I’m angry that you don’t listen to me.”

  “I’m angry that you live vicariously through me.”

  “I’m angry that you won’t let me tell people where I am.”

  “I hear you have some perfectionist tendencies, Nicole. You have perfect posture when you swing the bat—were you a dancer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t have to be perfect, Nicole. Pick someone to represent your eating disorder.”

  “Holly.”

  “Holly, put your arm ar
ound Nicole’s neck. Nicole, keep yelling things and hitting the mat.”

  Now I’m heaving Holly’s weight and my own, and I can’t swing as well as I want to, and that irritates me.

  “I’m angry that I couldn’t trust you.”

  “I’m angry that you didn’t offer to help me pay for treatment.”

  “Holly, I want you to tighten your arm around Nicole’s neck.”

  I can’t breathe and I panic, choking out, “Rachel, I . . . can’t . . . breathe.” Holly starts to relax her grip as she hears the panic in my voice, but Rachel tells her to tighten it back up. Tears form in the corners of my eyes and I can feel blood pounding in my head. Holly and I stand there, locked together.

  “Why don’t you fight back, Nicole?”

  With all my might, I wrest myself free from Holly’s grip and gulp air. I know Rachel is trying to evoke feeling in me, but other than my panic about being choked and my receding anger at my parents, I am numb.

  “Are there any people in your life who love you unconditionally and accept you for who you are?”

  “My maternal grandparents.”