by Nicole Johns
“Give me one good reason to tell you your weight,” says Dietitian Caroline.
She stares at me with skeptical eyes. I curl my body into a ball on the sofa, enveloped in the afghan my great-aunt crocheted for my high school graduation. At the EDC it has become my security blanket and a way of hiding my body.
“If you tell me my weight, I won’t believe that I weigh three hundred pounds. It will be a reality check.”
I’ve become very good at manipulating staff during my time at the EDC.
Dietitian Caroline sighs as she opens the pink binder to my weight-and-vitals page. We have this conversation every time we meet.
“You’re at 139 pounds. That’s stable and within your weight range.”
“I’ve gained eight pounds since I’ve been here; how is that stable?” I ask.
“You’re going through the refeeding process; everyone gains some weight,” says Dietitian Caroline.
I smile sweetly at Dietitian Caroline and leave the conference room, careful not to slam the glass door behind me. I fling myself onto my bed and cocoon the covers around me, even though it’s about eighty degrees in my room. I begin kicking my legs and wailing with histrionic sobs. I resolve never to leave my narrow hospital bed—139 is almost 140, and 140 is almost 150, which is three-quarters of the way to 200. And that is fat.
Laura bursts into our room, ruddy-cheeked from a climb on the ropes course. She hears my muffled snuffling.
“Nicole, why are you crying? It’s too hot to hide under the covers.”
Laura crawls into bed with me and I gasp, “139,” and Laura snuggles against me and murmurs comforting words in my ear. I begin raving, declaring that Dietitian Caroline is a sadist, that the Wisconsin Department of Health needs to shut this place down, and that I’m going on a hunger strike because I hate my body and hate my life.
Laura untangles herself from my sweaty covers and returns with Alistair, her stuffed dog. She places him in the crook of my arm.
Dietitian Caroline comes into the room and hovers over my bed.
“I knew this was going to happen. This is not an excuse for you to purge,” she says.
Later that day, after a dinner of four-cheese lasagna, I slip down the hall and into the bathroom and hork up my dinner. I almost choke on rubbery globs of semidigested lasagna, and the whole time I’m purging I am filled with hatred I will never be rid of.
Safety Contract #1
I, NICOLE JOHNS, promise not to purge
for the remainder of the night. If I am
having urges, I will find an RC and
talk about why I want to purge.
I will stay safe tonight.
Periods
About half of us still menstruate. Most of us who do are bulimics or EDNOS. We are generally not emaciated like our anorexic counterparts, who lack enough body fat to menstruate. In fact, we are more likely to be overweight than underweight.
The anorexics view their menstrual cycles as a dreaded curse. If they weigh enough to menstruate, they believe they are fat.
I never lose my period. It is light and irregular for a while, but it never disappears.
Then it starts getting heavier as I gain weight and grow healthier. It is all I can talk about when I have it, maybe because it is a sign of health. We are period-obsessed, talking about the duration of our cycles, whether we have cramps, and what our favorite method of feminine protection is.
In Psychodrama, we have to pick a sheer colored fabric that represents how we feel. I pick bright red and wrap it around me like a crimson cocoon.
Fat Is Not a Feeling
In Art Therapy (and most other forms of Group Therapy), we rate our body image on a scale of one to ten, with ten being fantastic and one being horrible. In addition to assigning our body image a numerical value, we pick an adjective to describe how we are feeling. To help us with this task, Art Therapist Tracy has created a colorful construction paper-and-marker list of adjectives for us to choose from. We take turns going around the table and checking in with Tracy about how we are feeling. A typical check-in goes like this: LAURA: I’m feeling like a fucking negative twenty today and I
feel angry and hurt.
HOLLY: Oh, I’m about a four with body image and I feel
content.
SANDRA: My body image is a six and I feel . . . a lot of feelings.
ELIZA: I’m about a seven today and I feel creative.
ME: My body image is a two and I feel fat.
“Fat is not a feeling, Nicole,” says Tracy.
“But I feel fat.”
“You need to explore what is making you feel dissatisfied with your body image,” says Tracy.
How do you explain to someone—who has never had an eating disorder—that fat is a feeling?
To be more precise, fat is a combination of feelings and experiences. It is a complex feeling, a collection of simple feelings bound together. I notice my body more when I am in an uncomfortable situation, when I am emotionally overstimulated or fearful. By focusing on my body at the precise moment when I am so emotionally uncomfortable, I am deflecting the uncomfortable emotions onto something more tangible—my body. When I say I’m feeling fat, I am eluding my feelings; it is a defense mechanism.
“Fat” has become my standard response when someone in the therapeutic world asks me how I’m feeling. Most of the time I can’t even (or don’t want to) figure out what I am feeling. So instead I focus on the circumference of my thigh, the heaviness of my breasts, the double chin I swear I saw in the mirror this morning. Like all addicts, the eating-disordered person goes to great lengths to avoid her feelings.
“Fat” is code for feeling scared, angry, ashamed, hurt, and sad all in one. It is code for I don’t want to talk about it; just leave me alone.
Dairy Queen
We are standing in line at Dairy Queen, pondering what to order. There are six of us on this outing, eight if you include RC Julia and RC Marie. We know the rules: Whatever we get must have ice cream in it, and it can’t be larger than a medium. Some of us eye the illuminated menu with lusty, ravenous eyes; we want everything, even though it won’t satiate us. The rest of us dread the taste of vanilla; we are thinking that ice cream is made with cream and cream is not something we allow ourselves to eat.
I fall between the two extremes. I am afraid that if I eat one ice cream cone, I will want another and another and then will have to make myself sick to get rid of all the calories. This outing is supposed to show us that we can eat ice cream in moderation, and that it won’t make us gain weight instantaneously. Everyone else is ordering small Blizzards, so I order a small Toffee Cheesecake Blizzard, even though I don’t really like Blizzards.
We sit on a long green bench outside Dairy Queen while nibbling our cones and nervously scooping spoonfuls of Blizzard into our mouths. RC Julia and RC Marie sit inside at a booth where they can see us. To distract ourselves, we play a game Eliza has taught us: Friend, Fuck, Push Off a Cliff. The premise is that one person picks three celebrities and another person has to decide whom they’d pick as their friend, whom they would fuck, and whom they would push off a cliff. Everyone wants to push Michael Jackson off a cliff and fuck Brad Pitt.
I eat one-third of my Blizzard and impulsively toss it into the garbage can because I know if I eat the rest of it, I will have to purge later. Some of the other women eat their Blizzards, some don’t.
On the way back to the EDC, we sit in Big Red and play the Friend, Fuck, Push Off a Cliff game some more. We even get RC Julia and RC Marie to play, and we laugh and try not to think about the ice cream sitting in our stomachs, about the calories and fat grams floating in our malnourished bodies. Instead, we laugh and watch the sun set over the cornfields of southeast Wisconsin.
Crack Kills
RC Evan is a muscular, six-foot-two firefighter who also works at the EDC. Evan and I bond over the fact that we are both originally from western Pennsylvania. Like me, he finds Midwesterners a bit ridiculous, with th
eir strange accents and closed-off personalities. We talk about the Steelers and the Pirates. We talk about how Pittsburgh has cleaned up a lot.
One of RC Evan’s favorite pastimes is picking on Holly. A typical conversation between them goes like this:Holly: I need my meds.
Evan (smirking): Can you ask politely?
Holly: I need my fucking meds. Now.
Evan: Inappropriate, Holly, simply inappropriate.
Holly: Fucking shit, what is your problem? You’re inappropriate, Mr. Firefighter.
Eventually RC Evan will give Holly her meds and Holly will pretend to be pissed, but she’ll sit down in the office with RC Evan and me, where we always ask him if he’s fought any fires recently, if his incredibly jealous and nosy girlfriend (whom we’ve dubbed the CIA) is still riding his ass, and how his kids are doing.
At some point during our conversation, RC Evan will open a drawer in the filing cabinet and pull out a package of jawbreakers. He’ll pop one into his mouth and crack a big, gap-toothed smile while Holly and I complain about how inappropriate it is for a staff member to be eating candy in front of a resident. RC Evan will just lean back in his chair and smile the whole time.
Holly and I know we are RC Evan’s favorite residents long before he ever confirms it. We are spirited and wild, unlike the anorexics, but we aren’t as crazy as Laura or Sandra.
One anonymous night in early July, when Natalie comes in for the night shift, she bends over to pick something up, with her backside facing RC Evan and Holly.
“Did you know that crack kills, Natalie?” says Holly.
RC Evan almost swallows his jawbreaker.
“Holly, you are just so strange,” says Natalie.
RC Evan and I leave the office and go out to the deck, where we erupt in laughter. Holly joins us and coolly smokes a cigarette.
Later, when I am close to discharge, RC Evan will start slipping me candy when no one is watching. I will like that we are breaking the rules, and that he thinks I can handle having candy without purging.
Holly starts a fire in one of the industrial-size ashtrays on the deck to keep her hands warm while she smokes. RC Evan smells the smoke and sprints to the deck, ready to fight a fire. Instead, he finds Holly puffing away happily in front of her own private flame.
“No fires! We don’t have fires at the EDC!” Evan yells, as Holly laughs.
After that, whenever Evan works, Holly runs around the dayroom shouting that there are no fires at the EDC, while Evan shakes his head at her inappropriateness.
After I discharge from the EDC, I fly home to Pennsylvania and drive back to Minnesota. Holly flies out to Pennsylvania to road-trip with me because she has never been out east. We decide to take a detour in Wisconsin. We call Evan at the EDC, and he tells us to meet him there after his shift. For a couple hours, we catch up and joke with him.
Before we leave, he tells us that he is proud of us.
RC Evan tells us we are going to make it.
And we believe him.
Voodoo House Field Trip
We’ve become obsessed with the Voodoo House on County Road P. RC Julia showed it to us on our way back from a trip to Target. She slowed the van to a crawl as we plastered our faces against the windows, trying to get a better look at the ruby-red stained glass windows, stick figures hanging from the porch, and creepy devil sculptures in the front yard. We begged Julia to pull over and let us out to look at it, but she kept driving.
The next time we go out, we convince Julia to park the van at a wayside so we can walk up to the Voodoo House for a better look. Seven of us walk single file up the road, with Laura leading the line and RC Julia at the end. We stare at the devil statues, stick figures, and cryptic symbols that adorn the Voodoo House. We disregard the no trespassing signs that are posted liberally around the yard. Someone in the Voodoo House is watching Friends; we can see the flickering of the television and hear Jennifer Aniston arguing with Courteney Cox.
Laura, our daredevil ringleader, is exploring the front yard. Julia hisses at her to come back. We hear voices and take off down the road, abandoning Laura. Back at the van, we see that RC Julia has gotten a ticket for parking illegally in what was really a boat launch, not a wayside.
Fight Club
It starts with the manic need to rearrange the dayroom furniture. After we shove the worn sofas into the corners, vacuum the rug, and dust the end tables and mantel (and burn some calories), we survey the rearranged, clean dayroom. Earlier in the day, we decided to institute EDC Fight Club to liven up the evening. The first match would be me versus Holly.
During Art Therapy we make posters advertising the impending Fight Club. Holly’s Fight Club alias is Smokey McSmokerson because of the large quantities of cigarettes she smokes, and I am dubbed Bookish Babe because of my propensity to curl up on the sofa with a book during any free time. Fight Club is scheduled to begin at 7:00 PM, and the admission cost is one cigarette, which is to be given to Smokey McSmokerson.
RC Julia and RC Camille are working tonight. They sit in the office, chatting with each other. By staying in the office while we manically rearrange the dayroom and institute Fight Club, they are condoning our behavior. Later, Julia tells me Fight Club is a good idea because it releases some of our frenzied negative energy.
Holly and I clear the center floor space while the other residents choose seats and ready their cameras. Laura is officiating; she tells us she wants to see a good clean fight, and then it’s on.
We circle each other and make karate-chop motions. Courtney sneaks over to the stereo and starts blaring “Bombs over Baghdad,” by OutKast, while everyone else is laying bets on who will win. Most people bet on Holly, since she is a good four inches taller than I am. But when she starts posing for the cameras, I seize the opportunity to jump on her and take her down. We both tumble to the floor and I crawl on top of Holly, pinning her arms with my knees, while she bellows that I don’t fight fair (she claims I smothered her with my breasts; I did not), even as she bites my forearm. Laura proclaims me the winner and says she wants to fight me next, and Eliza says she’ll challenge Holly. RC Julia watches the whole thing from the doorway of the office and is smiling and shaking her head.
“I had no idea you were so vicious, Miss Nicole. I didn’t think you had it in you,” she says.
Laura is harder to take down. She is wiry and strong; she keeps slipping out of my grasp. But eventually, I take her down too. Holly wins the fight against Eliza because Eliza can’t stop laughing. Fight Club is deemed successful, but the next morning Therapist Elaine outlaws any further rumbles, on the basis that we are exercising and someone is bound to get hurt.
When I show RC Julia the bite mark Holly has left on my forearm, her eyes grow large and she tells me that Wisconsin law requires that I get an AIDS test, since Holly and I have exchanged fluids. I tell her everything is fine because Holly hasn’t broken my skin. I wear my Penn State sweatshirt until the bite marks fade.
Danielle and I try instituting EDC Dance Party the next night, grinding against each other while bad ’90s techno music reverberates through the dayroom, but RC Camille thinks we are exercising.
EDC Arm Wrestling entertains us for one dull afternoon. Staff even gets in on the action. Dietitian Caroline is beaten easily, while RC Allison beats us all and proclaims herself champion. Therapist Elaine just shakes her head from the sidelines.
Team Building
Laura kicks the wall five times during a manic episode (she has bipolar disorder) because Sandra claims that Laura’s smoking near the patio door has irritated her asthma. Instead of kicking Sandra, Laura kicks the wall, bruising her toes badly, and spends the afternoon in the local ER, happily sipping diet soda while having her foot wrapped and enjoying a Darvocet-induced haze. The result is an additional Group Therapy session during which everyone is anti-Sandra and staff cracks down on the cliques that have formed within the group.
Clique number one (the aggressive, dominant, bulimic clique): Holly, Laura
, me. We tear around the EDC, yelling about how miserable we are and blowing everything up into a major drama. When Holly loses her cigarettes, she plops down in front of the office and rolls around on the floor, laughing and screaming, “I can’t find my cigarettes! Somebody stole my cigarettes! I’m going to die!” One night in the middle of July, Laura duct tapes all my belongings, including the sheets on my bed. I laugh and duct tape her shirt, as well as Holly’s. Laura also puts Holly’s teddy bear in a noose she creates from duct tape, and hangs the bear prominently in the dayroom; this prank upsets Eliza, who had a friend who committed suicide via hanging.
While technically part of the bulimic clique, I am often too caught up in my own misery to effectively incite mayhem on our floor. I am too busy tossing my snack off the deck when no one is looking, sneaking down the hall to purge during some drama on the floor after dinner, or changing my clothes thirteen times a day because I believe they all make me look fat.
During a gynecology consult, I step on the scale when the nurse isn’t watching and move the bars around until they are even and I know my weight. At the same consult, as soon as the nurse leaves the room for me to change, I hide my snack of oyster crackers deep in the trash can filled with medical waste.
Once I learn that team-building activities are imminent, I voice my opinion rather loudly.
“Team building makes me hate myself,” I yell.
“You really need to work on your attitude today,” says RC Shannon. I give her the finger once she turns around.