Purge

by Sarah Darer Littman

  “No, I really need to get it now. I need to write these feelings down.”

  “How about sharing some of your feelings with the group now and then writing them down later?”

  No. No way. No how.

  “I can’t. It’s easier for me to write about my feelings than to share them. Please?”

  “Okay, Janie. But come straight back to group, please.”

  I practically sprint out of there and down the hall to the privacy of my room. My head is spinning and my stomach churns with this nameless blob of emotions that I can’t wait to get out of my body. I grab a sock, stand near the window, and stick my finger down my throat.

  What comes out is bitter and acidic. Images of Helen flash through my brain: Helen twitching on the floor, Helen lying dead in a hospital bed with no one there to comfort her. I wonder if her father made it to her bedside. Was her mother there or did she die all alone? Did her parents really not love her or did she just feel that way?

  “Janie! What do you think you’re doing?”

  I’m in mid-heave and I try to swallow the evidence but it’s too late. I have to exhale into the sock, sealing my seriously snagged, busted fate.

  Nurse Rose walks toward me, pulling on a rubber glove. She stretches out her gloved hand. Eww. She can’t seriously want me to hand her a puke-filled sock, can she? But disgustingly enough, she does.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Janie,” she says.

  Chalk up another person who thinks Janie Louise Ryman is a Loser with a capital L.

  “Join the crowd.”

  “I thought you were genuinely committed to your recovery. What happened?”

  “I guess recovery is just another thing I’m not good at.”

  “Well, I want to help you be good at it, Janie. All of us do. But we need your cooperation. We need you to want to be healthy.”

  “Of course I want to be healthy. Who doesn’t?”

  Nurse Rose sits on the bed, still clutching the sock of puke. She looks tired and sad, all of a sudden. I can’t believe the smell isn’t making her retch.

  “Helen didn’t, for one.” She sighs. “We just couldn’t reach her. But you, Janie … I know you can do this if you’ll allow us to help you.”

  There’s something I don’t understand.

  “Nurse Rose … why didn’t Helen want to get better? Like I can understand that she wanted to be thinner — we all do — but why would she let it go on so long that she died? I mean if she really wanted to die, why didn’t she just take pills or … I don’t know … slit her wrists or something?”

  “Oh, Janie, I wish I knew.” Nurse Rose looks so defeated. “But I don’t think Helen wanted to die. Patients like Helen seem to have this almost … magical idea that they can do with their bodies as they please. It’s almost like they reject the possibility that they’ll die because they’re so focused on staying in control of how few calories they can put in their body each day.”

  “But she must have known that if she didn’t eat, she might die. How could she not?”

  Nurse Rose looks me in the eye. “Janie, you know that bulimia can be fatal, don’t you?”

  “Well … yeah. But that’s only people with serious bulimia. You know, who’ve had it for a long time.”

  She shakes her head and gives me a stern glance.

  “That’s not necessarily true. But my point is that you know that by continuing to binge and purge, you risk ending up in a coma or dying. But you still do it. In fact, you’re so intent on continuing to do it, you’re willing to lie to Dr. Pardy and sneak into your room to throw up into a sock.”

  My face feels hot as I stare down at the stained linoleum. When you put it that way, it sounds … pretty bad.

  “What I’m trying to tell you is that there’s knowing and there’s knowing. You know that bingeing and purging is bad for you, but you don’t know it, because if you did, you wouldn’t continue to do it. Maybe you think that the danger doesn’t apply to you? Because if that’s the case, I’m here to tell you that it does.”

  I keep my gaze focused on the floor.

  “No …. I don’t think it’s because of that. It’s more like … well, when I started, you know, purging, I was in control of it, like I could choose to be bulimic when I wanted to be,” I tell her. “But after a while, I guess … well, now I feel like the bulimia is in control of me instead. And I can’t stop it. I just can’t.”

  Nurse Rose pats me on the knee.

  “You can stop it, Janie. And I’m here to help you. So is Dr. Pardy. All of us here at Golden Slopes really want to help you — but you have to want to help yourself.”

  She stands up.

  “I’m going to have to report this, you know.”

  “Why? Can’t you just give me a break?” I plead. “I mean, this was an extreme circumstance with Helen dying and all. If you tell Dr. Pardy she’s going to make me stay in here longer, and I want to go home. Please?”

  “Janie, you’re always going to face challenging situations in life, and part of recovery is learning to find more constructive — and less self-destructive — ways of dealing with them. I’m sorry, but the rules are the rules, and you broke one. A big one. You’ll have to face the consequences.”

  Whatever warm fuzzies I was feeling toward Nurse Rose for being so understanding and encouraging evaporate instantly. I should have remembered that underneath her kind and caring exterior, she’s an enemy agent.

  “Come on, grab your journal and let’s get you back to group before it’s over. Dr. Pardy must be wondering what happened to you.”

  I feel awful as Nurse Rose shepherds me back to the dayroom. Is she going to rat me out to Dr. Pardy in front of the whole group? And what are the “consequences” going to be? More jail time? Going to bed without dinner? (Bet the Starvers would love that.)

  Dr. Pardy doesn’t say anything when I rejoin the group, and thankfully neither does Nurse Rose. But I find it hard to focus on what’s going on for the rest of the session because I’m too busy worrying about what Dr. Pardy is going to say when she finds out, and what kind of gruesome punishment awaits me.

  July 29th

  I HATE THIS PLACE!!! I HATE THIS PLACE!!!! I HATE THIS FUCKING PLACE!!!!! It’s NOT helping me — if anything IT’S MAKING ME CRAZIER!!! I HATE THIS GODDAMN MISERABLE SHITHOLE!!!

  July 30th

  Yesterday was a Grade A Suckfest. It started off in my private session with Dr. Pardy. She read me the Riot Act for my sock-puking transgression. Apparently the landscapers had brought to her attention that they’d been finding vomity socks on the lawn, but she hadn’t been sure from whose room they’d originated until Nurse Rose snagged me in pukus interruptus. I got the blah blah blah “disappointed in you” blah blah blah “want to help you” blah diddy blah blah “need to be committed to recovery” blah blah blah speech.

  Then Dr. Pardy got out her rod and started trying to fish my brain: “What emotion were you feeling the moment before you picked up the sock?” blah blah blah and “Can you think of something you could do to distract yourself when you feel like purging?” blah diddy blah blah blah.

  The thing is, I wasn’t lying when I answered “I don’t know” to both questions. Even if I did know, I wouldn’t want to tell her, but I really don’t know. So I’m under orders to try to sit with my emotions when I feel the urge to purge, and report back to her with what it is, exactly, that I’m feeling. Or, as Dr. Pardy put it, that I would rather purge than allow myself to feel.

  Then, after the lecturing and fishing and prodding came the punishment. No phone privileges for five days (Five days!!! They expect me to still be stuck here after five freakin’ days?!!!!!) and, worst of all, no visitors other than my immediate family. And that’s what totally, utterly, and completely sucks, because Kelsey was going to visit me this afternoon. She promised to bring me some good books and some up-to-date gossip magazines. All Mom and Dad bring me are an endless stream of self-help books like How Thinking Positive Can Change Your Li
fe (Dad’s choice) and Eating Disorders: A Plan for Recovery (Mom’s).

  When I got out of there, I wanted to purge so badly, but I couldn’t because they’ve got people watching me all the time. So I was sitting there, desperate because I couldn’t purge and feeling like I was going to explode with some feeling that I couldn’t name but I hated to have inside me. Then it struck me — I was angry. I was so fucking pissed off I wanted to hit someone or something. Because I couldn’t see Kelsey and I can’t even talk to her on the phone. Because I’m going to be stuck in this hellhole for at least another five days, if not longer, and because these people just don’t understand me. Because I hate Dr. Pardy who probably doesn’t have to worry about anything because she’s thin and gorgeous and has great clothes and I’ll bet she has a boyfriend or a husband who is as gorgeous as Matt Lewis, but who actually cares about her.

  To make matters worse, they changed my room so I have a roommate, and it’s Callie of all people. Originally they were going to put a new Starver girl called Eileen, who just arrived today, into my room, which wouldn’t have been so bad but Callie — argh! She’s been lashing out at everyone over the slightest thing, and ragging on everyone in group — especially Tom for some reason. It’s like she’s really got it in for him. I don’t understand why — if anyone, I’d think she’d have it in for Royce because he’s more like your typical Male Chauvinist Pig — but no, she’s picking on Tom. It really pisses me off.

  It’s strange because now that I’ve figured out what the feeling is, I find that I’m walking around with my teeth clenched and my shoulders tense like I can’t stop being mad. Maybe I’ll see if I can get one of the nurses to take a group of us to the gym tonight. They only let the Barfers go, because the Starvers aren’t allowed to exercise, but they keep a pretty strict eye on us Barfers, too, in case we turn into “exercise bulimics” — people who purge by exercising off every single calorie they eat instead of by barfing. That is so totally not me. I guess I’m a “lazy bulimic” — I’d much rather take the easy way out and stick my finger down my throat than have to exercise constantly. But right now I feel like I could do with sweating it out a little. After all, I’m under doctor’s orders to find some “alternative strategies,” aren’t I? And after the family therapy session with my parents and Dr. Pardy that’s scheduled for this morning, I bet I’m going to need some kind of stress relief.

  Mom and Dad are sitting stiff as two mannequins when I walk into Dr. Pardy’s office. You know how you can sense that people have been discussing you? Except I bet they’ve been dissecting me — trying to figure out what is wrong so they can “fix” me, turning me back into the ideal daughter who doesn’t have problems, or if she does have problems keeps them well hidden so her parents don’t have to deal with them.

  Dr. Pardy has put on her geek-chic glasses — I wonder if it’s to give her authority with an alpha male like Dad. Mom looks like she’s been crying again. Argh.

  “Come in and take a seat, Janie,” Dr. Pardy says. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  Make yourself comfortable? Puh-leeze! Who on earth would feel comfortable when they have three adults sitting there waiting to tell them that they’re totally screwed up?

  I take a seat on the sofa, as far away from my parents as I can, kick off my sneakers (pretty easy when they’ve removed your laces so you don’t hang yourself), and hug my knees to my chest. I’m sure Dr. P is noting my “defensive body language” in her chart, but I don’t care.

  “We’re here to discuss what changes could be made at home in order to support your recovery when you leave Golden Slopes,” Dr. Pardy says. “I’ve been getting your parents’ views on the subject, but we’d like to hear what you have to say, too.”

  Oh, no. I’m not falling into that trap.

  “Um … I dunno. I can’t really think of anything.”

  “Janie, your parents were telling me how this came as a shock to them, because you’re an honor student and such a talented actress. Obviously, you’re very good at masking your problems.”

  Obviously.

  “Well, they said I was a good actress, didn’t they?”

  “Enough lip, Janie,” Dad says. His voice is almost as tight and stiff as his posture. He hates shrinks almost as much as he hates divorce lawyers.

  Dr. Pardy holds up a hand to Dad to shush him. She clearly doesn’t realize that she’s taking her life in her hands.

  “That’s true. They did. However, I think your parents were referring to your skills onstage, rather than at home.”

  “Yeah, well. They always call me a drama queen at home, too, so why should things be any different?”

  “Are you a ‘drama queen’ at home?”

  Dad opens his mouth to speak but gets the shushing hand again from Dr. Pardy. Amazingly, he does shush.

  “Well, obviously I am — I mean, otherwise I wouldn’t be in here, would I?”

  “Janie, I think you’re in here for more reasons than being a ‘drama queen,’ don’t you?” she says.

  “I guess.”

  “Getting drunk and throwing up at your sister’s wedding, shaming yourself and your entire family would top my list,” Dad says.

  “Hal, please …”

  Dad cuts Mom off before she can tell him to not make a scene.

  “It’s no use pussyfooting around this, Carole,” he says. “Maybe that’s part of the problem with Janie — that you’ve indulged her.”

  “I’ve indulged her?” Mom says, her voice still watery, yet now with an unmistakable edge. “So this is all my fault, is it?”

  “You’ve got to admit that you spoil her rotten,” Dad replies, seemingly oblivious to Mom’s rising irritation. “At least Clarissa brought up Jenny with a firm hand.”

  Oh, boy. Now he’s done it. He’s used the C-word on Mom. It’s like instant nuclear fission.

  “If Clarissa was so perfect, Hal, then why didn’t you stay married to her, for crying out loud?” Mom says, her voice rising in intensity with each word that manages to squeeze its way out from between her gritted teeth. “I mean you obviously consider her the perfect mother, who was able to provide you with a perfect daughter … something that I have clearly failed to do.”

  I want to disappear into the floor. I hate that Dr. Pardy is seeing my parents fight like this. I hate that my parents are fighting, period. But most of all, I hate the fact that my parents think I’m the ultimate in imperfect daughters, that my screwedupness makes my mother feel like a failure. It’s my fault that they are fighting at all. I bet they’d be happier if I were dead. I want to purge, to empty myself, so that I can feel light and pure again, but I can’t because there’s no way Dr. Pardy is going to let me out of here without someone watching my every move.

  Instead, I pick something to stare at — a picture on Dr. Pardy’s wall of a woman and a little girl walking in a field of red poppies. It’s a print of some famous painting, I think by Monet or one of those other Impressionist guys. I try to take myself away from this room, from these feelings — from this miserable life of mine. I take myself to that field, under the azure sky and white cottony clouds that float overhead, imagining myself as the girl in the picture, walking beside her mother through the sea of red flowers. I bet you anything that the mother in that picture didn’t think her daughter was a complete loser who would end up in a psych ward and make her feel like a failure as a parent. I want to be that girl, even if she is just pigment on canvas. I want to be her more than anything because she doesn’t have to feel.

  I still hear the sounds of my parents’ raised voices, but it’s like being underwater and having someone talk to you from the surface; you know they’re saying words but all you hear are diluted waves of sound. I started doing this at the dinner table when my parents started fighting about the Wedding; I take myself to a secret place inside where I don’t have to listen to the angry words. The thing is, it’s getting harder and harder to come back.

  “Janie … are you with us?”


  Dr. Pardy’s voice ripples through the water over the distant hum of my parents’ anger.

  Reluctantly, I pull myself away from the field of poppies and back into the grim reality of the anger-filled room.

  “What?”

  “Janie, I think it would be best if I spoke to your parents in private for a while. Why don’t you wait for us in the dayroom?”

  She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I practically leap out of the chair, I’m so anxious to get the hell out of there.

  “Sure — see ya.”

  I look back as I exit the room to see my parents are sitting there stony-faced. My father’s arms are crossed across his chest and his body is turned away from my mother. Mom is crying again, surprise, surprise. It’s so unfair; she’s crying up a freakin’ river and I can’t even shed a tear.

  Tom and Tinka are in the dayroom playing Scrabble when I get there. Tinka’s really good at Scrabble — she’s incredibly smart. When she’s not busy starving, she’s a sophomore at Harvard.

  “Hey, how was the grand meeting en famille?” Tom asks.

  I look at his letter tray and the board and figure I can do him a gaming favor and answer at the same time.

  “S-U-C-K-E-D,” I spell out. “And that’s a triple word score for you!”

  “That’s awesome,” he says. “Well, about the triple word score. Sorry that the meeting sucked.”

  “Yeah, awesome is certainly not a word my parents would use in the same sentence as yours truly right about now.”

  “I hate when we have those family therapy meetings,” Tinka says. “I get the impression that my parents liked it better when they didn’t have to deal with me. Like, it’s easier for them to have me being superachieving and anorexic than it is for them to have to face that their expectations for me might have something to do with the fact that I’m so screwed up.”

  “Ditto,” I say. “Well, except for the anorexia part. I’m sure my parents liked it better when I just did my homework, went to play practice, got good grades, and puked my dinner up quietly in the bathroom. I bet I could have gone on being bulimic for years if I hadn’t made such a scene at Jenny’s wedding.”