Believarexic
Page 9
The nurse thinks I have an eating disorder that’s so bad
I would tank,
while my parents don’t think I have one at all.”
She starts sobbing. “I can’t win.
No one believes anything I say.
Even you, even you didn’t believe
that I have an eating disorder.”
She can’t meet his eyes, she’s crying so hard.
“I have no way to convince anyone I’m telling the truth.”
“Why do you feel like you have to convince anyone?”
Jennifer is practically choking on all the snot she’s producing.
“Because,” she says, “if I can’t convince people
that I have an eating disorder, and that I want to get better,
and that I’m telling the truth,
I’m never going to get privileges.
And if I don’t get privileges,
I’ll never get out of here.”
She tries to get her breath under control.
“Plus, it sucks…it sucks going around
trying to do the right thing.
I mean, what’s the point if no one believes you?
I tell my mom I need help, I ask to come to the hospital,
I make an intentional decision not to drink water
before weigh-in today,
and what do I get for any of it?”
“What, Jennifer?
What do you get?”
“I get total…just complete and utter shit.
From everyone.” She takes a deep breath, exhales slowly,
breath shuddering. “It totally sucks.”
Dr. Wexler sighs. “I’ll bet it does,
in your words, ‘suck.’
But Jennifer, the only way to earn people’s trust
is to be honest—”
“I am being honest!” she insists.
He frowns. “To continue to be honest
if you are being honest,
and to be consistent. Honesty and consistency.
That is how you build trust.”
He looks at the clock. “Well,” he says,
“That’s our time. I’ll walk you back to the lounge.”
So abrupt. Dismissed.
Jennifer stands,
puts her wadded tissues in the wastepaper basket.
She follows Dr. Wexler out of his office, down the hall.
“By the way,” Dr. Wexler says as they walk,
“we’ve determined your treatment-planning team.
Dr. Prakash will be your psychiatrist.”
“Okay,” Jennifer says.
“That’s the lady from yesterday? From admission?”
Dr. Wexler nods. “Yes, from yesterday.
And your treatment planning will be Wednesdays.”
Should Jennifer be writing this information down?
It seems important.
“Your secondary will be Chuck,” Dr. Wexler says.
“Chuck?” Jennifer asks.
“You haven’t met him yet?” Dr. Wexler asks.
“No, no, I suppose you haven’t,”
answering his own question.
“And the head of your nursing team,
your primary, will be Sheryl.”
Sheryl? Which nurse is she?
Didn’t Monica say something about a Sheryl?
Wait…
No. Not—
“Nurse Ratched?” Jennifer blurts.
Tears stream down her cheeks again,
plus, now she feels like she’s going to throw up.
Dr. Wexler chuckles. “I think she prefers to be called Sheryl.
She’s tough, yes, but that might be just what you need.
She’s the director of our nursing staff.”
Nurse Ratched is what she needs?
It doesn’t feel that way.
But Jennifer probably shouldn’t trust her feelings,
should she?
Where have they gotten her so far?
Sick, sad, enmeshed, hospitalized, that’s where.
So, yes. Surely the doctors, the nurses,
they all must know better than she does.
• • •
After lunch, Nurse Ratched sits down at the table
across from Jennifer.
Behind Ratched, Bronwyn crosses her eyes
and pokes out her tongue.
Jennifer tries not to giggle.
Nurse Ratched taps Jennifer’s file against the table,
stacks and straightens the papers within,
and then lays it flat.
Her short fingernails tap tap tap on the file.
“Well, Jennifer,” she says,
“I’d like for us both to move past
what happened this morning.
I’m willing to give you another chance.
A fresh start.”
Jennifer nods. The false accusation is lodged in her heart,
as big as an anvil. But she has to try to move on.
This is her primary. The head of the nursing staff.
A strict disciplinarian is what she needs.
Jennifer must try not to hold a grudge.
Nurse Ratched sighs, like she’s sorry for what’s coming next:
“That said, we’re canceling your unsupervised bathrooms starting tomorrow morning before weigh-in,
so we can support you in being safe from yourself.”
Her index finger is still tapping.
“I don’t…,” Jennifer says, “I don’t understand. You mean…
I have to be watched in the morning, too?”
No chance to poop in private.
The door will be open five inches.
Someone will watch her poop and wipe.
And will then look in the toilet to make sure
everything looks right,
and then flush it for her.
Jennifer is mortified.
Nurse Ratched tilts her head. The pointy tip of her nose,
stippled with blackheads, shines under the fluorescent lights.
“We want to support you in
fighting your disease, Jennifer,” she says.
“This way, we can be sure
you won’t feel tempted to tank before weigh-in.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“And if your weight tomorrow
doesn’t seem to have decreased significantly,
well…then we’ll consider it water under the—oh!” She chuckles.
“Water! Under the bridge. No pun intended.”
Jennifer swallows her anger.
“Fine,” she says.
Nurse Ratched tilts her head to the other side.
“Fine?” she says.
“Fine,” Jennifer repeats.
“That sounds rather passive-aggressive.
Are you angry?”
Jennifer forces herself to sound agreeable.
“No. It’s fine,” she says. “I’m not doing anything wrong,
so it’s fine to watch me. It’s just unpleasant, is all.”
Nurse Ratched smiles.
“Well, yes, it’s all rather unpleasant, isn’t it?
But our job here is to keep you safe,
and sometimes that means
a staff member has to be the bad guy.
I’m okay with that.
And I truly believe that you’ll come to appreciate it.”
Jennifer grits her teeth, nods.
It doesn’t seem like something she will ever appreciate.
“Now.” Nurse Ratched opens Jennifer’s file.
“Yo
ur notes indicate you went over the rules
with staff last night.
Do you have any questions for me?
Anything new that’s come up since yesterday?”
Yes.
Are you always such a bitch?
Does it hurt to have such a big stick up your ass?
“I don’t think so,” Jennifer says, then remembers. “Oh wait.
Dr. Wexler said my treatment planning will be Wednesdays?
So, that’s tomorrow? Should I do anything for that?
Can I make requests?”
Nurse Ratched exhales sharply. She shakes her head.
“Not tomorrow, I don’t think.
Since you are not medically cleared,
you can’t request privileges or off-campus passes.
And that is quite apart from the fact that
you haven’t begun to demonstrate
that you are willing to do the work
it takes to earn privileges.”
Jennifer doesn’t say anything.
She has the feeling that anything she says could
be turned around and held against her.
She thinks of police shows: Miami Vice or 21 Jump Street,
Johnny Depp cuffing criminals,
You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you.
Maybe Heather and Thriller are smart not to talk much—
except staff can hold that against you, too.
It’s a lose-lose situation.
“And besides,” Nurse Ratched is saying—
and Jennifer swears it sounds like she’s enjoying herself—
“you haven’t been here a full week,
so you can’t receive visitors.
Next week we will meet and talk through
what your requests should be.
Or, really, whether you should even
make any requests at all.”
“But I was planning—”
Jennifer’s stomach roils. “I mean, next week,
I want to go out on a pass with my family.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Nurse Ratched purses her lips.
“One day at a time, Jennifer.
One day at a time.
Now, I’ll walk you to Meditation.”
Jennifer nods.
One day at a time.
But she’s pretty sure that it was Nurse Ratched
who brought up the future.
Samuel Tuke Center
Eating Disorders Unit
Rules and Therapeutic Expectations
Toilets and Bathing
•All bathrooms on the EDU, including those in patient rooms, shall remain locked at all times, except between the hours of 6:00 and 8:00 a.m.
•All patients may close the bathroom door and flush their own toilet between the hours of 3:00 and 8:00 a.m.
•When a patient is using the bathroom, the door must remain open at least five inches (except between the hours of 3:00 and 8:00 a.m., and patients with bathroom privileges).
•Patients must not flush toilets. Staff must check and flush toilets (except between the hours of 3:00 and 8:00 a.m., and patients with bathroom privileges).
•Patients may only use toilets on the EDU. Patients are not to use toilets in any other area of the hospital.
•Patients needing to use the bathroom during off-campus meetings and excursions must be supervised by staff.
•Patients must be medically cleared before they can take a standing shower.
•On request, staff will provide supervision of tub bath and/or hair washing for patients not yet medically cleared.
•Patients are expected to maintain good hygiene, as determined by staff.
All rules are subject to change without notice by staff.
Bathroom privileges.
It’s funny, and diabolical, and infuriating
that using the bathroom is called a privilege.
As if it’s a privilege to do her business in private,
without someone standing at a door
that always must be open five inches,
listening, watching.
As if flushing her own toilet is not something
she’s done since she was two years old.
It makes sense, in theory.
They are taking away Jennifer’s control
so she doesn’t have to fight with herself.
In theory, it’s a relief.
In reality, it is humiliating.
Made worse by her shy bladder.
Jennifer has never been able to pee
if she thinks someone can hear
or if someone is waiting for the bathroom.
She can barely let out a trickle in a public restroom
if any other stall is occupied.
There are people who can squat and whizz in milliseconds,
talking to their friends the entire time.
Her brother’s girlfriend is one of these people.
Mom is one of these people.
Jennifer is not one of these people.
And now, here she is in the bathroom in her room,
because that’s where her urine-collecting hat and jug are.
Nurse Trendy is listening,
her ear in the space between door and frame.
Pee hitting the hat will be louder than a jackhammer.
But better to do it here than the lounge bathroom.
“Are you okay in there?” Nurse Trendy asks.
Argh.
Every time Nurse Trendy speaks,
Jennifer’s pee backs up into her bladder.
Up to her armpits.
“Yes,” Jennifer says.
And…restart.
Bladder, come on. Come on, bladder. You can do it.
Jennifer can see Nurse Trendy’s shoes moving.
Her eyeball in the crack of the door again.
“You sure you’re okay?”
Damn it.
She’s not puking.
She’s not hiding anything.
She’s just trying to pee.
And, good Lord almighty,
how much more embarrassing will this be
when it’s poop, not pee?
What about when her period returns?
Jennifer murmurs, “I’m okay.”
She cannot wait,
cannot WAIT,
to get bathroom privileges.
But there’s no chance of that until she hits maintenance.
And her primary nurse has to approve.
So who knows how long it will be.
When at last Jennifer is finished,
and has transferred the urine to her jug,
she washes her hands while Nurse Trendy checks
that there is nothing but tissue in the toilet bowl.
Nurse Trendy uses her foot to press the flusher.
She composes her face, like she’s trying to be businesslike,
but a wrinkle in her nose betrays her disgust.
If Jennifer had to flush someone else’s toilet,
she would probably use her foot, too.
Still, it’s hard not to take it personally.
It’s easy to imagine that Trendy and Ratched and Bosom
don’t want to get anywhere near
something that touched or came out of Jennifer,
because she is gross.
Wednesday, November 23, 1988
Jennifer is awoken by the light of her bedside lamp
and Trendy’s cold fingertips pressing her wrist.
Blood pr
essure and pulse: lying, sitting, standing.
Heather grunts and snores.
It’s 6:04 a.m.
“Weigh-in, right now,” Trendy says
as she writes numbers on her clipboard.
She tucks the blood pressure cuff
back into its place on the cart.
“Change into your paper gown.”
“I don’t have one,” Jennifer says.
“Where’s your gown from yesterday?” Trendy asks.
“I threw it out,” Jennifer says.
“I didn’t know I was supposed to keep it.”
Nurse Trendy sighs. “Come with me, then.
Save this one. They don’t grow on trees, you know.”
But aren’t trees exactly what paper grows from?
“I really need to pee,” Jennifer says.
“Weigh-in first,” Trendy says.
Jennifer follows Trendy to the nurses’ station.
Ratched and Bosom are deep in conversation with Beverly.
Trendy parks the blood pressure cart in a corner
and tosses the clipboard onto a desk.
Everything is quiet; the other patients are sleeping.
It’s just Jennifer and the nurses.
They’re dealing with her before they wake anyone else.
“Where’s your paper gown?” Ratched asks,
more to Trendy than Jennifer.
“She threw it out,” Trendy says,
like, Can you believe the cluelessness of this girl?
Trendy takes a new gown from a tall stack on a shelf.
Jennifer reaches for it,
but Trendy tucks the gown under her own elbow
and says, “Back to your room.”
In her dim bedroom, Jennifer wants to curl up in her bed and never come out.
“Go ahead and change,” Trendy says,
keeping her voice low.
“You’re going to watch?” Jennifer asks.
It sounds like a soft yelp.
“Afraid so,” Trendy says.
Jennifer unfolds the paper gown and lays it on her bed.
Turning her back to Trendy,
she lifts her nightshirt over her head,
throws it on the bed, and puts the paper gown on,
holding the back closed.
“Underwear, too,” Trendy says.
“I need to see.”
Jennifer wiggles out of her underwear,
picking it up and tossing it into her clothes hamper.
She opens the gown quickly,
flashing her naked butt so Trendy can see.
Back in the nurses’ station, Beverly is buttoning her coat.
She dons her hat, slides her hands into mittens.
“Have a good day, Jennifer,” she says.