Purge

by Nicole Johns

  “Pick two people to represent them, and sit between them.”

  My parents won’t let me tell my grandparents I am in treatment, because they think my grandparents won’t understand. My grandparents think I’m temping in Minneapolis. I haven’t called them for over a month, and I miss them so badly that I can’t hold back the tears. My grandparents rub my back and tell me I’m beautiful and they love me no matter what. This knowledge makes me miss them more because, pretend as I might, I can’t transform the two anorexics beside me into my lovely Italian grandparents.

  Geriatric Skate

  After dinner, RC Julia brings Big Red (the hospital van) around front and we pile in and head for the local Skateway Roller Rink. I am trying to hang on to my post-psychodrama grumpiness, but it is hard to do so when everyone is singing along to “Dirrty,” by Christina Aguilera, and gyrating in their seats. The only one of us who can sing is Eliza, who is a voice major at a private college in the Twin Cities.

  At Skateway we jump out of the van and make RC Julia take pictures of us. We do this on all our outings; we feel the need to record our time in treatment as a testament to our experiences. After we pose for pictures, we enter Skateway and pay $3 to rent ancient skates that squeak as we roll onto the wooden floor. I am wishing that I’d brought my Rollerblades with me, but I didn’t think treatment would incorporate roller skating.

  Holly immediately starts racing around the rink in an effort to burn calories. Eliza and I hold hands and skate, and Holly flies by, shouting, “Lesbians!” We catch up to her and grab her hands, laughing as she tries to break free. RC Julia sits on the side with the residents who are not medically stable enough to roller-skate.

  Courtney and Sarah skate backward, and I’m the first to wipe out.

  Then, in come six elderly couples. The men are dressed in their Sunday best, and the women sport neon spandex costumes, complete with tights. We all glance at each other, wondering what parallel universe we have just entered. The music in the rink suddenly changes to a polka, and the couples begin partner skating. They take over the rink.

  All of us huddle around RC Julia, whispering about this geriatric coup d’état. One of the couples skates over to us and informs us that we have infringed on Couples’ Night. Apparently, the couples are part of a skating club, and this is their practice time. The only way we can skate is if we skate as couples. We agree to try it.

  An elderly man in a cowboy hat asks Holly if he can have this skate. Holly’s eyes widen, but she agrees.

  A wizened man with arthritic fingers asks if I will skate with him. I say yes.

  We skate side by side, his gnarled fingers gripping my forearm tightly. His name is Dale. He asks me if I’m from around here, and I panic. I don’t want to tell Dale that we are EDC patients. The words come out of my mouth before I think.

  “Oh, we’re just sorority sisters from the University of Minnesota. We’re having a reunion and we figured skating sounded like fun,” I say.

  “Well, isn’t that something?” says Dale.

  He proceeds to tell me about his grandchildren, and how he is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. I glance over at RC Julia, who is having a hard time keeping a straight face. She pulls out my camera and begins snapping pictures. I notice Dale’s blue-haired skating partner sulking in the shadows.

  “Is that your wife?”

  “Sure is.”

  “You should skate with her.”

  “Okay. Thanks for the dance.”

  “Oh no, thank you.”

  I skate over to RC Julia. Everyone has their skates off and their shoes on.

  “Are you ready to go? Or do we need to give you a few minutes alone with your new boyfriend?” Holly asks.

  “Miss Nicole, I can’t believe you actually skated with him,” says RC Julia.

  “Holly did it too,” I say.

  “Yeah, but you liked it,” says Holly.

  We talk about Geriatric Skate for the rest of the summer. Whenever an RC asks us where we want to go, we always say Skateway, but only if it’s Geriatric Skate.

  Parents’ Visit

  My parents arrive at the EDC at night, via rental car, after flying into the Milwaukee airport earlier in the day. I am sitting out front with Holly, waiting for them to pull up, when they call my cell phone. They are lost on the hospital grounds and have ended up on an access road. I’m trying to give my mother directions, despite not knowing exactly where she is, and I can hear the tension in her voice over the static of our poor connection.

  They pull into the EDC lot in a red car with Iowa plates, and I think about how I’ve never been to Iowa. As my parents get out of the car, I can see that their outfits are color-coordinated. They always say they don’t plan it, but as I grow older I am beginning to wonder. These are the people who joke that they bought our yellow Labrador retriever, Katie, because she matched their living room carpet.

  We hug and I can tell they are nervous. I’m nervous too. I am not the daughter they thought I was. I spent an hour before the bathroom mirror, trying to tame my curly hair and get my makeup just right. Every outfit I tried on made me feel fat. Finally, I settled on my favorite jeans and a red short-sleeved shirt.

  I introduce them to Holly and we head inside. I show them the dayroom, where Laura and Eliza are making a fleece blanket. My mother asks to use the bathroom and is surprised that there is no lock on the door. I show them the room I share with Laura, and they say how nice it is.

  They have brought me a new cell phone, a pair of black pajama pants, and a white tank top, both of which are too small. I give them to Laura.

  My mother chats with RC Marie, marveling at her Wisconsin accent, while my dad and I sign the pass forms so my parents can take me off the hospital grounds. Once we are in the car, we decide to go to Pepino’s, an Italian restaurant in town. This is the first time I will eat with my parents since I told them about my eating disorder (I called them three weeks before I checked myself into the EDC). They order French silk pie and I order coffee. I savor it, dumping three packets of Equal into it. My mother tells me I won’t sleep tonight, but the luxury of coffee takes precedence over sleep. When the pie comes, I take one bite and leave the rest to my parents.

  We talk about my grandparents, my brother, and what is going on in our hometown. We don’t talk about the fact that I’m EDNOS or that I’m in treatment. Therapist Elaine has advised both parties to keep the conversation light and just enjoy each other’s company this weekend.

  After an hour of innocuous conversation, it’s time to head back to the EDC. My parents hug me and tell me goodnight, and that they’ll see me after breakfast the next morning. When I get back to the EDC, RC Caroline asks me how it went and I tell her it was fine.

  On Saturday morning I call my parents after breakfast. They pick me up at the EDC, but before we leave I show them the Art Therapy room. Its walls are covered in residents’ artwork, mainly life-size outlines of how they perceive their bodies. My parents grow silent as they walk around the quiet room, witnessing the distorted vision and self-hatred of the eating-disordered. They don’t stay long; it’s a hard and somber place. None of my artwork is hanging on the walls; I have not gotten that far in Art Therapy yet.

  We decide to drive to Old World Wisconsin, a tourist attraction that depicts life in a nineteenth-century Scandinavian settlement in Wisconsin. It is a bright Midwestern day, and my parents and I walk from village to village, inspecting farmhouses and learning how to card wool. I worry that I am losing weight from all the walking, and that I will get in trouble with Dietitian Caroline.

  We eat lunch in the Old World Wisconsin cafeteria, where I realize I will never be able to accommodate my meal plan. I order a grilled chicken breast on a bun and a snack-size bag of chips. Compared with my parents, I eat slowly, and I can’t finish my sandwich.

  My dad and I wait outside the cafeteria while my mother uses the restroom. He tells me I have something hanging out of my nose, and I tell him it is my nose ri
ng. I can tell he is burning to make a comment about it, but he doesn’t. That would break the easygoing tone of the weekend.

  We spend the rest of the day driving around rural Wisconsin, and my dad keeps saying it looks just like Pennsylvania. At some point I fall asleep in the back seat, like I did when I was little. I am exhausted from my foray into the outside world, and from trying to keep the peace with my parents.

  Later, we stop at Target, where I pick up a few necessities, and then they drop me off in time for dinner at the EDC. At some point after waking up from my nap in the back seat, I’ve grown anxious and nervous. Back at the EDC, I eat dinner as fast as possible and sit on the deck with the other residents. I bum a smoke off Holly, and my hands shake with anxiety and the desire to purge. When RC Caroline tells us we are going to the movies, I immediately begin plotting how I will sneak away from the other women and purge.

  The van ride to the cinema is nerve-racking. I tune out the conversation around me and instead obsess about how many calories I have already digested. At the cinema, my chance to purge comes when Eliza wants to get a drink. While we wait in line at the concession stand, I say I have to use the restroom.

  I walk into a stall and purge my dinner. When I come out, Eliza is none the wiser. After the movie I see my parents walking out, and that adds to my stress.

  That night, I talk to RC Caroline and Cindy about purging, and RC Caroline has me write a Reasons Not to Purge List.

  My parents fly back to Pennsylvania, and I can breathe again. But something has happened. They have triggered a reaction, an emotional response, within me, something I don’t understand.

  Transformations

  After my parents visit, I cut off one foot of my hair. It is not premeditated. Eliza decides to shave her head, and as Laura runs the razor over Eliza’s scalp (with staff permission), Eliza begins to weep. Clumps of ash-blond dreadlocks fall to the floor.

  I tell Eliza I will cut my hair, too, in solidarity. I pull my thick, curly hair into a ponytail, then braid it. In the staff office, I request a pair of scissors and play with the end of the braid as I walk down the hall.

  The scissors are dull. Laura saws through my thick braid and then trims up the ends. My hair rests just above my chin when she finishes. Everyone exclaims, “I like it!” and I shake my head from side to side. It feels so light. Laura jokes that I have just lost five pounds.

  I walk into the staff office, and Marie and Evan, the two RCs on duty, say they like it because they can see my face now. I had so much hair before. They run their hands over Eliza’s shiny head.

  The next morning I realize I can no longer hide behind my hair, and I think short hair makes me look fat. Now my neck, shoulders, and upper arms are exposed. I hadn’t realized how attached I was to my hair, or how much a part of my identity it was.

  I think back to when I shaved my head in high school. I spent my junior and senior years at a boarding school hidden among the Tuscarora Mountains, on the Pennsylvania/Maryland border. When I started there, my hair was just below my shoulders. One day, I stood in front of the mirror in the communal girls’ bathroom and hacked angrily into my hair with a pair of scissors. My best friend, Jane, watched in amazement as chunks of it landed on the tile floor.

  A few weeks later, I decided to shave my head. I borrowed a pair of clippers from a faculty member and had another student run them over my head until nothing was left but a fine, dark stubble. Most of the girls who gathered in the bathroom to witness this transformation were not my friends. They came to watch out of pure curiosity. They gazed, wide-eyed and shocked, while they ran their manicured fingers through their own thick locks. A few rubbed my smooth head in admiration.

  Looking in the mirror now, I see how different I look. People can see my face. I can’t hide behind a curtain of curly hair any longer. Part of me misses all that hair that separated me from the rest of the world. But a weight has been lifted from me, and I am so much lighter now.

  Some of Us Are Just Passing through

  Elise left the EDC early because her insurance refused to pay for treatment, despite the fact that she was thirty pounds underweight and had osteoporosis at age nineteen. Candace signed herself out AMA (against medical advice) when she panicked over her weight gain. Melanie’s parents had enough money to pay for only one month of treatment, even though she needed at least two. Cynthia was asked to leave when she came back from pass drunk. While there is a core group of us throughout the summer, other residents pass through, sometimes before we learn their names. They leave pieces of themselves behind—an Art Therapy collage, an incomplete Group Therapy assignment—as the summer stretches on, but those who just pass through are not forgotten.

  Birthday

  “Happy birthday, princess,” Holly shouts as she jumps on me, and we both fall onto the sofa in the dayroom. Laura produces a red construction-paper birthday crown and places it on my head. I start to pull my hair back into a ponytail, forgetting momentarily that I don’t have long hair anymore. Eliza gives me a hug, and I run my hand over her newly shaved head for good luck. Sarah, Courtney, Danielle, and Sandra hug me and slip me a small envelope. I open it to find a $25 gift certificate from Barnes & Noble. I fight back tears as I thank everyone. I wasn’t expecting this.

  “It’s time to feed the eating-disordered,” Holly shouts. RC Evan and RC Allison unlock the door to the dining room, and we shuffle in for breakfast. On the wall is a banner reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NICOLE, and all the residents on First Floor have signed it. Laura starts singing “Happy Birthday,” and I flush a brilliant shade of scarlet and call her a fuckstick as I sit down with my plate.

  “So, you still want to go ice skating in Milwaukee for our outing, right?” asks Holly. I’ve been allowed to pick where we go for our weekly outing, since it’s my birthday.

  “Yeah, and then I want to go to Caribou Coffee and get caffeinated coffee for a snack challenge. I think I almost have Dietitian Caroline convinced that it’s a good idea.”

  “If anyone is going to convince Dietitian Caroline to let us get caffeine, it’s going to be you. She thinks you’re mature and a good influence on everyone,” says Sarah.

  “That’s because she leaves at 5:00 PM and I don’t get crazy until after dinner,” I say.

  We finish our breakfast and move to the deck, where Courtney gives me a cherry-flavored cigarette. After I’m done smoking it, I continue to periodically lick the filter, since it tastes of sugar. I inch over to the patio door and look at my reflection in the full-length glass. All of the mirrors in the EDC are tiny and nailed high up on the wall so that we cannot scrutinize our bodies. However, the staff does not realize that the patio door is essentially a full-length mirror. After glancing at my reflection, I decide that my current outfit of pajama pants and a sweatshirt makes me look fat, so I go to my room and search through my drawers for something more flattering.

  I decide on jeans and a fitted red T-shirt. Then I decide that the T-shirt is too fitted; I don’t want anyone to see my figure today. I find a shirt that snaps up the front, but that makes me look like I have more love handles than I actually do. Maybe pajama pants and a sweatshirt are the way to go. At this point, I have clothes strewn all over the floor. Laura comes in, looks at me, looks at the pile of clothes, and propels me out the door.

  “You are not changing your outfit any more today,” she says.

  “But I look fat.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  RC Allison comes out of the office and looks at me suspiciously. She has caught on to my habits.

  “Were you in there changing clothes?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, no more—don’t give in to your eating disorder.”

  I head to the dayroom, where I sulk through Group Therapy. I perk up when Dietitian Caroline announces that we will be allowed to order caffeinated coffee at Caribou Coffee after we go ice skating tonight. But we’re still not allowed to use artificial sweeteners or skim milk.

  The r
est of the day flies by in a whirlwind of therapy. Right before dinner, I decide I cannot wear pajama pants and a sweatshirt to go out. I start trying on clothes, throwing them all around the room as anger builds within me. My clothes don’t fit right anymore; I’ve gained weight and I want to cry and scream with frustration and anger. Eliza comes in and drags me out of the room. RC Evan is standing in the hall.

  “How many times have you changed clothes today?” he asks.

  “Thirteen.”

  “Do not let your body image sabotage your night out,” he says.

  After dinner, RC Julia tells us she is not driving Big Red to Milwaukee, which means no ice skating. Instead, we go mini-golfing. I hate mini-golf; I always swing too hard and get frustrated because I never win. Still, I agree to give it a try. Besides, we will still be getting caffeinated coffee, and that’s going to be the high point of the night, anyway.

  In the van, I get the coveted shotgun seat, as well as control of the radio, which I tune to classic rock, amid groans from the other residents. RC Julia and I talk as she drives. Whenever RC Caroline or RC Julia drives us anywhere, I always vie for shotgun so I can talk to them. They talk about topics other than eating disorders. One day I convinced RC Caroline to give us the scenic tour of the local town, partly because I didn’t want to go back to the EDC, and partly because I wanted to talk to her about her former job as a social worker for Planned Parenthood. When I sit shotgun with RC Julia driving, we talk about her upcoming marriage and my experiences in graduate school.

  At the mini-golf course, our group’s dysfunction level soars. Laura mutters and swears when she hits the ball into a water hazard, Holly throws her club into the air like a baton, Courtney and Sarah grow aloof, and Eliza tries to persuade everyone to get along. I, predictably, hit the ball onto I-94 in a fit of anger. After the eighth hole, we ask RC Julia if we can quit and just go get coffee. She thinks that’s a good idea.