I nodded.
“Because she has all the symptoms listed, we’re able to feel confident in giving her the diagnosis of anorexia. We diagnosed you with Not Otherwise Specified. This is where it gets confusing. Basically, NOS means you have many of the symptoms of a particular disorder, but you don’t have enough of the symptoms present for us to feel confident diagnosing you with the disorder. Unfortunately, your case gets even more complicated because you have symptoms that could meet the criteria for many of the dissociative disorders, but you don’t meet criteria to have any one particular disorder. As we go along, we might find more information that allows us to be able to narrow down a better diagnostic picture for you, but for now, I’m comfortable with your diagnosis. Does any of that help you?”
“It does. Thanks.”
Not really. It was still confusing.
“Good. I’m glad.” He paused for a minute. “I’m really excited for you to begin reestablishing your relationship with Thomas. I think it’s going to be really helpful for your treatment. Have you given any thought as to whether you’re ready to see Bob and Dalila?”
Thomas told me they called him every day to see if he’d heard from me or if I’d allowed him to visit me. He’d avoided their calls for the last two days because he didn’t want to tell them he’d seen me and he wasn’t going to lie and pretend like he hadn’t. I was sure they’d call again today and didn’t know how much longer he could dodge their calls.
“I guess I probably should,” I said. I didn’t want to put the responsibility of telling them on Thomas. It wasn’t fair.
“You’re not going to be able to stay in the hospital forever. Part of our goal is to get you ready to be discharged, and when we discharge you, we want to make sure you have a support network in place. I think Bob and Dalila would be a great support network for you if you’d allow them the opportunity.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“What if you called Dalila instead of seeing her? Do you think you could call her and try to talk to her at least? Or how about Bob? Would it be easier if you talked to him?”
If I had to call one of them, I would rather call Bob, but I never called him because he didn’t like to talk on the phone and it always hurt Dalila if I showed a preference towards Bob.
“I could call Bob, but then I’ll have to deal with Dalila being hurt because I called him instead of her.”
“Dalila’s an adult and she’s responsible for her own feelings. Not you. If you want to call Bob instead of her, then it’s perfectly acceptable for you to call Bob.”
“Really?”
Dalila and Bob were a unit and I never considered having unique relationships with them. Thinking about calling Dalila made me feel heavy and depressed, but the thought of calling Bob made me feel good. It was similar to how I felt when I called Thomas.
“Yes. There’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing wrong with preferring to talk to Bob instead of Dalila. Maybe the two of you could start figuring out how you’d like your relationship to be.”
We spent the rest of our session discussing what I would say to Bob when I called and what I could talk to him about that wouldn’t make me feel uncomfortable, but I wasn’t all that interested or focused. I was too excited to tell Rose about the twins’ stories I’d read to pay attention to our session. I’d been too emotional to explain things to her last night, but this morning I couldn’t wait to fill her in on what I’d found out.
“You okay?” she asked as soon as I sat down next to her once my session with Dr. Larson had ended.
“I’m okay.”
“Well, that’s great. Really great,” Rose said. She turned away from me.
I looked towards her and noticed her lower lip was quivering.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “It’s really stupid. I’m being dumb. Just ignore me.”
“Did your weigh-in go bad?” I asked. She was always in a terrible mood after her weigh-ins.
She laughed and shook her head again. “I told you. I’m just being dumb, but I thought you were like me.”
Like her? Like her how? I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t get it.”
“I don’t have any friends.”
She never used the phone and didn’t get any visitors. I’d been here for a week and no one had come to visit her. Now it was my turn to laugh.
“You think I have friends? I’ve had one friend my whole life and that’s it. You’re the first girlfriend I’ve had who wasn’t Emily.”
“I told you I was being stupid. But even the nutjobs get phone calls.” She motioned to the rest of the group scattered in their respective positions around the room, hanging out. “And you had your boyfriend here. A real boyfriend. I’ve never had one.”
“You act like I’ve had so many of them. Seriously, he is my first real boyfriend. Ever. And I mean ever. I told you before that I’m still a virgin. Clearly, I’m not experienced when it comes to guys.”
“Did you guys mess around while he was here?” She was back to her old self that quickly.
I rolled my eyes at her. “Sure, we did. We got naked while staff watched.”
“I could never take my clothes off in front of a guy. Never. Can you imagine what they’d say?” She shuddered.
“Yes, believe me, they’d just be happy your clothes were off. And besides, I’m sure you’d look amazing.”
“I’d look fat is what I’d look.”
I rolled my eyes again. “C’mon, get up.”
“Why?”
“Just get up. I’ve got to show you something.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled her off the couch.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
“Follow me.” I turned to look at Felicia and called out to her. “We’re going to the bathroom. We’ll be back in five minutes.”
Felicia nodded.
“What? You’re off restriction?”
“Yep. As of this morning, I’m free to move about without a shadow.” I continued to pull her along down the hallway to the women’s bathroom. “And we’re celebrating my freedom.”
I pushed open the bathroom door on the right side of the nurses’ station. Rose looked at me, bewildered, but she followed me anyway. I shut the door behind us and checked underneath all of the stalls to make sure there weren’t any shoes.
“Take your clothes off,” I said.
Rose burst out laughing. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you taking your clothes off.” I giggled. “Now take them off. You’re always saying you’re going to show me what you look like naked. I want to see it.”
“Really? Are you serious?”
“Sure am. How many times have you said I haven’t seen you naked? Well, now it’s time for me to see you.”
“You’ll see.” She pulled off her shirt and tossed it at me with a big grin on her face.
I stared in horror. She wasn’t wearing a bra, but she didn’t need to because she didn’t have any breasts. There were only nipples. Her chest looked like a twelve-year-old boy’s chest. I could see every one of her ribs, and her stomach was concave. It went in so deeply, it looked like I could lay my head down in it if I wanted to.
“You’re the skinniest person I’ve ever seen.”
She lit up. “Really?”
“Yes.” I didn’t know people could get that skinny.
She took off her pants and stripped down to her underwear. Her stick-thin legs bowed out as if they might snap. I didn’t know how they held up her body. How did she walk without breaking?
“What do you think?” she asked with her hands on her hips. They jutted out like dinosaur bones.
“I think you need to gain some weight.”
“Ugh, so that’s what this is about.” She reached down to find her shirt, scowling.
“No, stop.” I grabbed her shirt back from her. “You keep saying you’re fat over and over again, so I want you to show me where th
ere’s fat.”
“That’s easy.” She lifted up her arm and pointed underneath her forearm. “See this flab? It jiggles.”
There was nothing there.
She grabbed some of the skin on her stomach and pulled it out. “And this? This is what I’ve gained since I’ve been here.”
She was only pulling on skin. There was nothing there either.
She pinched her thighs, but came up empty-handed, so instead she slapped them. “Look how they flap when I hit them. So gross.”
The skin on her thighs hadn’t moved. It was stretched so tightly the bones threatened to poke through.
“Now do you get it?” Tears welled in her eyes as she stared at herself in the mirror.
I put my arm around her. “No, Rose, hon, I don’t get it. You don’t have any fat on your body. There’s nothing there. I’m looking right at you and there’s nothing there.”
She shook her head, disbelieving. “You’re only trying to be nice. I’m staring in the mirror and it’s there. I see it.”
I looked into the mirror at her emaciated body with her oversized head attached to her bony neck. She didn’t see what I saw. The fat on her body was real to her even though it didn’t exist. She was staring in the mirror and seeing things that weren’t there.
My heart started to pound in my head and my stomach rose into my mouth. I stared at her in the mirror as she pinched and poked at fat only she could see. Her brain had tricked her. Hypnotically, I began to undo my jeans and dropped them to the floor slowly as she continued to prattle on, listing each area of fat she found. I locked eyes with my own eyes in the mirror, afraid to look down at my body.
Just do it. Look. Just look.
I felt dizzy and all the air left my body. I gripped onto the sink in front of me, forcing myself to breathe, and then I looked down at my legs. They were mutilated. Jagged red cuts sliced through the skin, creating butchered deformations.
These are my legs.
I squeezed my eyes shut, counted to ten slowly, and then reopened them. I forced myself to look again, hoping I’d been wrong. The angry red scars were still there, screaming at me. Tangled wounds wrapped their way up and down from hip to calf, some of them chaotic, as if they’d been released in a fury, others methodical and clean as if they’d been done with deliberation.
Adrenaline shot through my veins as if a gun had been fired. I scrambled for my jeans as fast as I could, pulled them up, fumbling to do the zipper and button as if I were a two-year-old. And then I ran. I sprinted as fast as I could out of the bathroom and away from the mirror.
19
I lay in bed staring at the ceiling tiles and not sleeping. I saw my legs every time I closed my eyes.
My legs. My wounds. My scars. My body.
How could I do that to myself? How could I hack my legs and not remember doing it? My brain had tricked me in the same way Rose’s brain tricked her. What was wrong with me?
A few hours ago, I’d experienced my first glimmers of hope, but it’d been destroyed in the bathroom. It was one thing to pretend and make-believe Emily was alive, but it was insane to butcher and brutalize myself without having any recollection of doing it. I was terrified. If I’d done something so awful to myself and had no recollection of it, what else had I done? Were there other things I didn’t remember? Fear shot through my body over and over again.
Talking to Dr. Larson wasn’t an option. If he knew what I’d done to myself, I was never going to get out of the hospital. There was no way he wouldn’t tell the team and they’d probably send me to the state hospital. I could tell Thomas, but we’d barely scratched the surface in our discussions about what had happened before the hospital. He’d listen like he always did, but he wouldn’t have any clue how to help me. Somewhere around three o’clock, it dawned on me that I could talk to Lisa. She knew my history, understood me, and I trusted her. Bob had told me she wanted to visit when I was ready, and I was more than ready now. Thoughts of Lisa calmed my brain enough for me to fall asleep.
I didn’t wait for Dr. Larson to ask me how I was feeling during our session the following morning. “I want to work with my old therapist,” I said before he had time to get out his notebook.
“Your therapist? Do you mean Lisa?”
It seemed like a good idea in the middle of the night and was still a good decision in the morning.
“Yes. Her. I want to see her.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s hospital policy that you work with the psychologists provided for the patients on staff.” He looked insulted.
“Why?”
“The team works hard to provide you with consistent care. It’s really important that the care you receive is consistent among caregivers.”
It sounded like more psychobabble to me, which was exactly why I wanted to see Lisa. She talked like a regular human being. I wasn’t giving up on being able to see her.
“And why would Lisa be inconsistent?” I’d never argued with him before and he was taken aback.
“She’s not part of the treatment team,” he said. “She doesn’t have access to your charts or any of your treatment plans that we’ve created while you’ve been here. You can see her as your outpatient therapist when you leave if you’d like. I’d be more than happy to arrange it for you. I think it’d be a great idea. We can talk more about arranging it once we’re closer to your discharge. We still have quite a lot of work to do until we get to that point.”
“I want to see her now.”
“Can you tell me why?”
“I think I would be more comfortable talking to her.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s hospital policy.” He shrugged. “Maybe we could talk more about why you would feel more comfortable talking with her than me or one of the other therapists here.”
He wouldn’t understand even if I explained it to him. He looked at me like I was a cell in a Petri dish.
“Can she visit me? She doesn’t have to do therapy with me since it would violate hospital policy, but can she come during visiting hours?”
He frowned. “I guess she could, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It might be confusing for you, but I can’t control who comes to visit you. You would have to add her to your list of visitors.”
Our session was rushed and hurried. I wasn’t paying attention to anything he wanted to talk about because I was focused on counting the minutes until it would be over. Our session couldn’t end fast enough and when it finally did, I leaped up from my chair and raced to the nurses’ station. I called out to the closest nurse and told her I needed my visitor log. I scribbled Lisa’s name on the line. Then I scurried off to wait for the phone. I was there forty-five minutes ahead of schedule and first in line. I looked up her number in the yellow pages while I waited.
I tapped my feet together as it rang.
“Can I speak with Lisa?” I asked when the receptionist picked up.
“I’m sorry. She’s unavailable right now, can I take a message?”
“It’s an emergency,” I said. “I really need to talk to her.”
“I’m sorry. She’s in session, and I can’t interrupt her session.”
“Please? It really is an emergency. Please? I’ve got to talk to her. I’m not going to be able to call back.”
“Listen, I understand it’s an emergency. She gets lots of emergencies. I can take down your information and have her call you.”
I could tell by her tone she was getting irritated.
“Okay, can you write all of this down?”
“Go ahead,” she said.
“All right. Tell her Elizabeth Rooth called and that I’m in Galston United Hospital and I’m in the psych ward. I really want her to visit me. Tonight, if at all possible. And I don’t know the number here. Damn. I have no idea what the number is.”
“I’m sure she has the number. What time are visiting hours?”
“Six until seven. Can you please get her this message? Will you tell her it’s super important?”
; “I will. Anything else?”
“No.”
“Okay. Have a great day.”
Click.
I didn’t have any choice except to hang up the phone and wait. I wandered back to the family room and settled in to wait out the day.
“What’s up with you today?” Rose asked.
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“You’ve been acting funny all day.” She stuck out her lip. “Are you mad at me or something? Did I do something wrong? You still haven’t told me why you went running out of the bathroom last night. Was I that hideous?”
“Not everything is about you, all right?” I snapped.
“Fine,” she huffed, grabbing one of her magazines. “I don’t want to talk to you either.”
I’d hurt her feelings, but I didn’t have the strength to try to make her feel better. Not today. Panic threatened to overtake me. I kept seeing my legs and each time, a flood of terror washed over me, making me feel as if I was going to throw up.
It was the longest day at the hospital I’d had, even longer than my first day. Each minute dragged. I told myself not to look at the clock, which only made me look at it more. Every time I was sure a significant amount of time had passed, I’d look up to discover it’d only been a few minutes. It was excruciating. I wished there was a fast-forward button I could press to take me to visiting hours. I was as scared of Lisa coming as I was of her not coming.
I was acutely aware of my surroundings all day. The lights were too bright and the voices of everyone around me were too loud. I could hear the nurses talking to each other at the nurses’ station and most days their voices didn’t even register. Shelly’s exaggerated laugh was so shrill I wanted to cover my ears to drown it out. I heard my heartbeat in my head.
By the time visiting hours arrived, I was exhausted from feeling as if I was at a starting line waiting to begin a race all day. I couldn’t eat my dinner. I was glad I didn’t eat because when six o’clock arrived I was in the bathroom dry-heaving clumps of yellow-and-green slime into the toilet. I ran into Lisa at the nurses’ station on my way out of the bathroom.
Phantom Limb: A Gripping Psychological Thriller Page 17