Believarexic
Page 2
“After the cereal.”
“Do you take laxatives, diet pills, or diuretics?”
“Yes, laxatives. Yes, diet pills. Diuretics, no.”
“How many? How often?”
“Not many. A diet pill every day,
laxatives every day, but just one or two.
I’m not physically addicted,
like when you have to take hundreds.”
“How much do you exercise?”
“Not enough.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I take dance classes three times a week.
I do aerobics the other days.
And sit-ups.
Sometimes I jog.”
“How often do you weigh yourself?”
“Four times a day.”
“How long would you say you’ve had
disordered eating?”
“I don’t know.” She hesitates again.
“I started dieting and throwing up
in eighth grade.”
“So that was…”
“Two years ago.”
“Do you consume alcohol or illegal drugs?”
Jennifer can feel Mom’s eyes
lasering into her neck.
“Um. I drink. I’ve smoked pot a couple times,
but nothing big.”
Mom makes a clicking sound in her throat.
The questions are merciless.
Answering them in front of Mom is agony.
Dr. Wexler continues,
“How often do you drink?”
“Um. Every weekend that I can.
Friday and Saturday nights.”
“When was the most recent time
you drank alcohol?”
“Saturday night. This past weekend.”
She stares at her hands.
“When was the first time you became inebriated?”
“Inebriated?”
“Drunk,” Mom interjects, coldly.
“Oh,” Jennifer says. Her face burns.
“Uh, not this past summer,
but the one before.
When I had just turned fourteen.”
“When was your last menstrual period?”
Safer territory. “Not sure.
Maybe two, three months ago?”
“Have you ever attempted suicide?”
“Um. Kind of.”
Mom takes in a quick, loud breath.
“How?”
“I…cut my wrists a few times. But not deep.”
“Were you ever in serious danger?”
“No. My parents didn’t even know.”
Mom sighs. Regretful? Irritated? Worried?
“Have you ever been hospitalized
for your eating disorder, or from self-harm?”
“Sort of.”
Mom’s head whips toward her,
but Jennifer still can’t meet her eyes.
“Sort of? Can you explain?”
“Uh, well, at summer camp, I wasn’t eating,
so I got dizzy and semi-passed out
and kind of also…threw myself down the stairs
because I wanted to go home
and my parents wouldn’t come get me.
The camp sent me to a hospital for X-rays
and kept me overnight.
So it was related to the fact
that I wasn’t eating. Kind of.”
Jennifer doesn’t want Mom here.
She’s hidden this so long,
protecting Mom,
and
protecting herself
from Mom knowing.
Years of secrets
are unraveling with every answer
to every question.
Because they are the right questions this time.
Dr. Wexler asks, “Does your heart race?”
“Sometimes.”
“Have you ever fainted fully,
to the point of lost consciousness?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How is your sleep?”
“Not so good.
It’s hard to fall asleep.
And I wake up a lot during the night.”
“Do you ever dream about food?”
“Oh God. Yes. All the time.
How did you know that?”
“And what about school? How are your grades?”
“Straight As.”
“Are you missing school
because of your eating disorder?”
“Sometimes I don’t feel good enough to go.
But my parents usually force me to.”
“Do you participate in extracurricular activities?”
“Dance, like I said.
Piano lessons.
Student government, honor society.
I have an after-school job
teaching art to little kids.
And babysitting, if that counts.”
Mom straightens up and says,
“I called her counselor, and he said that
obviously she’s doing well in school,
and in all her activities. Which indicates that
she does not need to be hospitalized.”
Dr. Wexler raises his eyebrows, high,
above the frames of his glasses.
“On the contrary,” he says.
“Most of our patients are straight-A students.
Eating disordered girls will do
almost anything
to keep their grades up.”
Almost anything. Yes.
Yes. Almost anything.
Yes, Dr. Wexler, yes, thank you, yes.
“Oh.” Mom deflates slowly,
like a punctured tire.
Dr. Wexler asks,
“Does this come as a surprise?
You scheduled this appointment,
didn’t you?”
“I called because Jennifer asked me to.
Her father and I can see she hasn’t been happy,
but she has a history of needing attention—”
And here it comes.
Jennifer interrupts.
“Don’t you remember?
Don’t you remember when I came home wasted,
drunk out of my mind,
puking all over the place last year?
And I told you I don’t eat
and I purge all the time,
and I want to die?”
“Yes, I remember,” Mom snaps.
“That’s why we took you to counseling.”
Her mother looks at Dr. Wexler and continues,
“That is the counselor I mentioned. He said
hospitalization isn’t necessary.”
Turning back to Jennifer, Mom says,
“He sounded as though
this eating disorder business
was news to him.”
“Because I was hiding it, Mom!”
Jennifer is on the verge of hysteria.
“Okay. Fine,” she says. “Then what about the time
I took all those caffeine pills in eighth grade?
I confessed to the nurse
I’d been throwing up and dieting!”
Mom purses her lips and says to Dr. Wexler,
very calmly,
“The school nurse
and Jennifer’s guidance counselor—
both of them told us quite clearly
that the dieting was just a phase.”
The air is heavy, thick, and quiet
except for Jennifer’s sniffing,
because she is crying now.<
br />
Dr. Wexler looks from one to the other of them,
mother to daughter,
daughter to mother,
like this is quite interesting,
professionally, clinically interesting.
Mom clears her throat and asks,
“Do you think—
does it seem like—
she should be hospitalized?”
Jennifer’s ears burn.
This is the moment.
Here is the expert.
What will
Dr. Wexler
say?
Time
slows.
Time
almost
stops.
“Based
on
your
daughter’s
responses,
yes.
She
belongs
in
a
hospital.”
Dully,
from
far away,
he continues,
“If she’s dizzy and
light-headed, it would suggest
her blood pressure is a concern
and her electrolytes may be imbalanced.
Leg cramps indicate a potassium deficiency.
And her weight is, obviously, quite low.”
Blood crashes inside Jennifer’s ears.
She can’t look at Mom.
Jennifer is not as relieved
as she thought she’d be,
or vindicated,
like she’d hoped.
She is terrified.
Dr. Wexler continues,
“As to your question on the phone,
Jennifer is clearly very bright—
and yes, she could be answering my questions
based on research instead of personal experience.
This could, indeed, be attention-seeking behavior.
But we must proceed in the interest of safety.”
He flips the folder shut and says,
“At any rate,
time will tell
if this eating disorder
is legitimate.”
Mom begins to cry.
And how the hell
should Jennifer feel?
If this eating disorder is legitimate?
Dr. Wexler looks at his desk calendar.
“Weekdays are best for admissions.
Let’s schedule it for Monday.
I’ll ask our admission coordinator
to call you at home later today.
They will talk you through
the insurance filing process.
You will receive full orientation on Monday,
but for now, in brief,
our philosophy at Samuel Tuke is that,
in order to recover from their eating disorders,
patients must do three things simultaneously.”
He holds up his index finger.
“First, they must return to safe health.”
He looks at Mom. “We will monitor Jennifer’s
physical condition to make sure she does so.”
“Second,” Dr. Wexler says, adding a second finger,
like a peace sign, or a V for victory,
“Patients must separate
from unhealthy enmeshment with their families.”
He sticks out his thumb. “And third,
patients must relinquish all control
over food and eating.
This includes access to toilets.
Bathrooms are locked and monitored.
Our staff assumes complete responsibility
for patients’ dietary decisions
and maintenance-weight range.
We keep that control until patients earn
privileges back, one step at a time,
as they learn to make healthy choices.”
Icy dread
claws up Jennifer’s spine.
“Will I have to gain weight?”
His eyebrows again.
“Most likely.”
“But how much?”
He sighs, like the question is tiresome,
and intones, as if he has to repeat it often,
“Your weight will be a range appropriate to your
height and age. While you are here,
until about a week before your discharge,
you will be weighed with your back to the scale.”
Dr. Wexler looks at Mom and says,
“A person with an eating disorder,
her whole day can be ruined
by the number on a scale.”
Mom inhales slowly.
This is news to her.
This
is news
to her.
Does she not hear the rattling
of the bathroom scale
every morning?
And afternoon?
And night?
The expensive new scale
that Dad bought in preparation for
his latest round of dieting.
A very loud scale, which clanks and bangs
no matter how delicately Jennifer tiptoes.
It’s like they haven’t been living
in the same house,
or planet,
or universe.
Jennifer takes a deep breath and asks,
“How long will I have to be here?”
Dr. Wexler shrugs and lifts his hands, palms up.
“That mostly depends on you.
Your length of stay will be determined by
how long it takes to reach
your maintenance weight,
and by how hard you work the program.”
“Work the program?” That sounds
very different from Jennifer’s image
of resting and recuperating
in a sunny hospital room.
Dr. Wexler nods. He turns to Mom,
as if she had asked the question.
“While Jennifer is here,
she will attend daily group therapy
and classes for wellness, nutrition, body image, that sort of thing.
I will see her for individual therapy, and
she’ll have weekly sessions
with a psychiatrist.
We will also ask you
and your husband and your…”
He looks at the folder in his lap.
“Your son…”
“Richard,” Mom says.
This answer she is sure of.
“Richard. Thank you.”
Dr. Wexler writes in the folder.
“We will ask all of you to come in
for family therapy
every so often.”
“What about school?” Mom asks.
She is now taking her own notes
in a little notepad.
Dr. Wexler says, “Jennifer will be transferred
to the Syracuse City School District,
which is required to provide tutors for
hospitalized students.”
He closes the folder and sets his pen on the desk.
It feels like a cue for dismissal.
“Any other questions?”
I have a question, Jennifer thinks,
but does not say.
Will you get the monster out
before you kill it,
or will you murder it
while it’s still in me?
Will I walk around,
always,
with a
monster carcass rattling inside?
— Admission, Part Two —
Intake
Monday, November 21, 1988
Jennifer is riding in the backseat,
behind Mom. Dad is driving.
He took the day off work.
Both are ominously quiet.
Jennifer would give anything
to know their thoughts,
but she won’t, can’t, couldn’t possibly, ask.
She would shatter on impact.
Richard is in school, like a normal Monday.
Will anyone there wonder
why she’s not around?
Probably not until the absences pile up.
Does anyone besides her brother and Kelly
know where she is headed?
What about her teachers?
Did Mom and Dad notify the school?
She is wearing headphones,
listening to The Smiths,
The Queen Is Dead.
Cassette wheels turn in her Walkman.
Morrissey sings his dread of sunny days.
The weekend was terrible.
Her parents were suspicious, watchful.
She was grounded.
There was a family meeting.
Richard’s eyes had gone wide with surprise,
then back to blank. Just another annoyance
from his kid sister.
The minutes had dragged,
as if she had to carry them,
slung over her shoulder,
lumbering up a mountain of Saturday,
over the other side of Sunday.
Jennifer endured them quietly,
with empty stomach,
and The Smiths and James Taylor.
She and Spike staked out a fort in her closet,
like when she was little,
except instead of thermoses of apple juice,
she drank wine from bottles hidden in ski boots.
The seat belt presses against her hip bones.
She runs her finger along the window,
moisture condensing
from the difference in temperature,
cold outside, warm inside.
The sky is a dark ceiling of clouds.
Brown grass blurs past,
broken cornstalks, sad late-November farmland.
Deer look up from their browsing, watch her pass.
They come to a big highway
encircling Syracuse.
Dad merges into traffic.
A highway exit, down the ramp,
through stoplighted intersections,
into flat downtown.
And now, they are here.
“Turn.” Mom points, and
Dad steers into the little lot.
Jennifer pulls her headphones
down around her neck
and clips her Walkman to her belt.
They park,
get out of the car,
lock the doors.
Pillow in one hand,
Jennifer slings her backpack onto her shoulder.