Falling with Wings

by Dianna De La Garza

  I tried to remain strong for Demi and for all of us, but I was growing increasingly weary. Some mornings I struggled to get out of bed, and I often fell asleep midsentence as I sat on the sofa in Madison’s dressing room on set. Still refusing to talk about our family’s problems, I pretended I was fine. But I wasn’t. Not even close. Ominous thoughts looped in vicious cycles through my mind. How was this all going to end? Would we survive? Even as my brave front slowly crumbled, I refused to give up the fight. I prayed even more fervently and, at the same time, increased the Xanax I was taking. It wasn’t a contradiction in my mind. It was survival.

  * * *

  Once Demi got over the fact that she was staying at TK longer than anticipated, we started to see some positive changes. Early on, Dallas had made a great suggestion. “After the first ten minutes of conversation, things can get awkward,” she said, “and games are a great distraction.” It was something she had learned during her own rehab stay. Her strategy was good for all of us. Sometimes we played Hangman on the whiteboard in the room and sometimes we played Old Maid or Bullshit, a card game that revolves around assessing if someone is bluffing about the cards in their hands. But it was Apples to Apples, a crazy card game that involves categories and a bit of intuitive guessing, that quickly became our favorite. We never finished a round without dissolving into silliness. Once Demi earned some privileges, we even went out to the basketball court to shoot hoops. We tried to keep our visits bright and cheerful.

  As time dragged on and Christmas neared, Demi seemed more herself. The kinder, happier daughter I once knew was slowly reemerging, which bolstered my spirits, too. Demi even took up knitting, which seemed completely out of her wheelhouse, but she said it was relaxing. When we opened our Christmas gifts that year, we each found a special, hand-knit scarf in our favorite colors.

  * * *

  Once Christmas was over, we said good-bye to Demi and flew to Texas so we could spend the rest of the holiday season with our relatives. Twitter, at the time, was full of tweets about fans showing their support for Demi by getting little pink heart tattoos, similar to the one that she used in her signature. It got me thinking. “I’m not much for needles or pain,” I said to Dallas, “and I’ve never even liked tattoos, but maybe we should get that heart tattoo on the inside of our wrists. I think Demi would like that.”

  Dallas said she’d think about it, but since she already had a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader star tattooed in that area, she thought another would be too much. In the end, Lisa, Marissa (Demi’s best friend), and I bravely walked into a tattoo parlor and explained what we wanted.

  “Have a seat,” said the young, bearded man covered in tattoos. With his ball cap obscuring his eyes, he pointed to a chair. I plopped down and excitedly told him, “Make sure that the heart is pink!” My heart fluttered with excitement as he swabbed my left wrist with alcohol. But at the sound of his machine, I almost lost my nerve. As he drew nearer, I closed my eyes and gripped the chair with my right hand. Then I held my breath. Oh, my God! It hurt like hell! The pain was far worse than I had imagined it would be. Ten seconds in, I couldn’t take it any longer.

  “Are you almost done?” I shrieked. In the end, those sixty seconds of pain to etch a quarter-inch symbol of support seemed endless. “All done,” the tattoo artist chuckled at my intolerance for pain.

  “No more tattoos for me,” I declared when it was over. “Never again!”

  On the next visit to Chicago, I strode into the conference room and declared, “Demi, I have something to show you!”

  “What?” she asked curiously.

  When I proudly held out my wrist, she couldn’t believe it. “You did not!” she gasped, her eyes wide with disbelief. And then that big, wide smile of hers spread across her face. I smiled, too, knowing that I had stepped out of my comfort zone for her and she truly appreciated the gesture.

  That January, Demi started talking about the future and I was thrilled that she wanted to keep working on her career, even mentioning that she wanted to start working on her next album as soon as she got better. “I want you all to listen to this song that I recorded right before I came into treatment,” she said during one visit. “It’s called ‘Skyscraper.’” The painful lyrics declared that she would rise from the ashes like a skyscraper. By the end, we were all sitting around that conference table bawling. The heartache and determination in her voice touched us all.

  * * *

  “Can you tell me about your eating habits?” the nutritionist asked.

  We were sitting in a family counseling session, and the TK staff was training us to be supportive once Demi came home. Comments such as “I’m so full!” or “I can’t possibly eat another bite” were to be avoided. And, we needed to watch for signs of relapse, such as frequent trips to the bathroom after meals or obvious weight loss. The nutritionist’s sudden interest in my diet surprised me. Why did she care about me?

  “Oh, I don’t eat much,” I said. “I just don’t get very hungry.”

  It would be months before I realized that Demi probably had told the staff about my own eating disorder, which I still refused to acknowledge. I was completely oblivious to the fact that if Demi re-entered an environment where someone was participating in an eating disorder, it would make her feel unsafe, which also meant she was far more likely to relapse. Coming back home would be like walking into a lion’s den.

  At the end of January, that’s exactly what she did.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “I didn’t think they’d take my Xanax away!”

  It wasn’t a good day. That April I dropped Madison off at school and turned my car toward home, knowing with certainty that the demons in my head were ready to strike. I tried to block out all of my inner noise by turning up the volume to Reba Rambo McGuire’s “Ain’t Givin’ Up Now,” a song that had been my personal anthem since my teens. From start to finish, I sang along and tried my best to belt out those final words. “It’s too late now to start this talkin’ defeat … ain’t givin’ up now.”

  But I couldn’t summon the strength to believe any of it. Typically, the lyrics infused me with the determination and conviction that I could move mountains. That morning, though, I was grasping to hold on to my own life. Demi had been home for a little more than two months and was doing well. She was recording music again, going to support meetings, and agreeing to the supervision of a sober companion, someone designated to stay with her 24-7 to ensure her sobriety. Now that I no longer had to be strong for her or Dallas, I was free-falling into darkness.

  Just drive into that oncoming car! End the pain! Give up!

  The dark voice inside my head wanted destruction. While Madison was with me, I refused to give in. But when I was alone, I felt helpless and afraid. As I inched my way home, I kept singing, though my voice was barely above a whisper. After parking my car, I trudged up the six flights of stairs from the garage to the house, telling myself with every step that I had the strength to live another day.

  Like most mornings, my plan was to crawl back into bed for a while. Sleep—that soothing, gray fog of nothingness—was my friend. Afterward, I’d spend some time trying to look and feel better, a ritual that usually involved trying on half a dozen outfits until I found the right one that didn’t make me feel “heavy.” In reality, I was skin and bones, weighing less than ninety pounds. Yet, when I looked in the mirror, I saw a woman who was overweight.

  Before I could reach the bedroom, my phone rang. Seeing that it was Eddie, I figured if he wasn’t texting, it must be important.

  “Hello,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

  His voice exploded in my ear. “Did you give Dallas a credit card again?” he roared. “She just spent six hundred dollars at Target! You can’t let her do that!”

  First suicidal thoughts and now this? I couldn’t believe that Eddie was ready to pick a fight. We rarely argued, but his reprimand triggered a landslide of emotions that tumbled out of me.

  “What do you want m
e to do about it?” I shot back. My words clanged like the bell before a boxing match. All those years of being strong for my kids, dealing with the pressure to be perfect, and feeling so homesick that I could barely breathe ruptured inside of me. “That’s it,” I screamed. “I’m done! I’m going back to Texas!”

  At first there was only silence. Then Eddie softened, “Dianna, you don’t mean that.… You can’t leave Madison behind.”

  But I couldn’t think about that … couldn’t open the door to staying. I knew if I didn’t leave, I would die. It wasn’t safe here … in this house … in this life. I knew that I’d eventually give in to those terrible voices. It might be tomorrow, or it might be next week. My only hope was to get back to Colleyville, the one and only place I had ever felt safe.

  I hung up and started packing. And not just for a few days. I grabbed a huge suitcase and threw in everything that I couldn’t live without. In went a couple of purses, three pairs of sunglasses, ten pairs of shoes, my makeup, my favorite jeans, my favorite sweatpants, my favorite necklace, my favorite anything I could get my hands on. And, I tossed in my bottle of pills, too. But before I could buy a ticket, I decided to lie down. The Xanax I had taken earlier made it impossible to stay awake.

  Sometime later, in the twilight of my nap, I heard Demi’s voice. “Mom, wake up,” she said. “We need to talk.”

  “About what?” I asked, opening my eyes to see a hazy crowd of people around my bed. Eddie, Dallas, Lisa, and Demi slowly came into focus.

  “We think it’s time for you to get some help,” Demi said, pointing to the suitcase.

  “Oh,” I replied, summoning my sweet southern voice. “Okay, I’ll go to a therapist … three times a week.” But the looks on their faces told me they weren’t convinced.

  “No, it’s time to get some real help, like inpatient treatment,” Demi continued.

  “I can’t do that,” I suddenly wailed. “I can’t leave Madi—”

  But I never finished saying my daughter’s name because at that very moment the room began to spin. Visions of my suitcase, everything I had thrown inside, and my plans to run away to Texas swirled around me. The full weight of what I had been ready to do hit me with such force that I thought I would collapse. What was wrong with me? How sick was I to have considered leaving my child so I could return to Texas?

  Lisa’s voice momentarily cut through the whirlwind I was swimming in, but she sounded far away. “Don’t worry about Madison,” she said. “We’ll take care of her.”

  The next thing I heard was Eddie, who was on the phone, asking for an admissions counselor. When I looked at him, he handed the phone to me. On the other end was a counselor from TK, the very facility that Demi had just left. Within minutes, I was spilling my guts. There, in front of my family, I revealed every dark secret and terrible thought that had stalked me for the past few months. When I was finished, I couldn’t look my family in the eyes. Were they horrified by my revelations? Or worse, disappointed?

  Resigned to the fact that I needed help, I agreed to be admitted. Eddie rushed to purchase airline tickets for the next morning, as Dallas and Demi rifled through my suitcase, removing all the items I couldn’t take with me. They took away my shampoo, my conditioner, and anything with alcohol listed as an ingredient. Out went my hairspray and my razors. When someone offered to put all my music onto an iPod, I remembered that I’d be surrendering my phone, too.

  That night, we sat down with Madison and explained what was happening. She welled up with tears at the news that I was leaving. It crushed my heart. The poor kid had been through this twice before, but this time was far worse because it was me—her mom—the one who was supposed to love and protect her. There wasn’t much more that I could do, so I hugged her and promised to call from the pay phones at TK as often as I could. The next morning, Eddie and I left for Chicago.

  * * *

  Like an instant replay of Demi’s drop-off, I didn’t panic until we reached the entrance gate. In fact, I had calmly called my parents and a few close friends before our departure to let them know where I was headed. I didn’t want the special people in my life learning the details from the media news outlets like so many had after Demi entered treatment. But as I thought about all the people I wouldn’t see or talk to in the coming weeks, I began to wonder if my stay would feel more like jail than therapy. Would I be as strong as Demi and Dallas had been?

  While Eddie and I sat in a small room, seated at a little round table, an intake counselor asked a lot of big questions. “How long have you had suicidal thoughts?” “Were you ready to act on those thoughts?” “Has this ever happened before?” Considering I had answered similar questions earlier, I figured there was no reason to hide anything now, so I answered the counselor as honestly and truthfully as I could. Every word seemed to dislodge more tears.

  I slowly became numb and lethargic, probably from the extra Xanax I had taken on the plane. When I glanced at Eddie, he looked like someone had punched him in the gut. My heart hurt for him. I knew without a doubt that this time I was the one inflicting the pain. The past ten months seemed too bizarre to be real. How did we get here? I kept thinking. Wasn’t it just a short time ago that I almost had a perfect life?

  “You’re rather thin,” the woman suddenly said. “Are you eating normally?”

  “Oh,” I faltered, “I’m … well, I’m just a small person and … I’ve had a high metabolism for years.”

  When they asked how much I ate, I lied and told them I ate more often than I did. We can explore my depression, I thought, but not my diet! I knew if they suspected an eating disorder, I’d be put on a meal plan, just like Demi had been. The very thought made me angry. Don’t make me gain weight! That’s not why I came here!

  There was one final question: “Do you have Xanax with you?”

  I had moved the bottle to my purse before our flight, so I reached in and retrieved it. When she asked me to hand it to her, I objected. “But I need this,” I pleaded. “Sometimes I take it three times a day.”

  She smiled and took the bottle away. “We’ll help you with that,” she said.

  Help me with what? I wondered. Xanax wasn’t the problem!

  With that, it was time to say good-bye to Eddie. I tried to be strong, but I wasn’t. Every time I thought of Madison, I started crying even harder. As Eddie walked away, Sheila, a tall, brunette BHS, led me across the parking lot to Oak Lodge, my new home. Rattled as I was, I felt comforted when Sheila placed her arm around my shoulders and looked at me in a way that told me she understood. Her kindness and compassion would see me through a lot of tough days in the coming weeks.

  Sheila flashed her badge, and the doors to the lodge parted. When we stepped inside, the finality of the moment hit me: I’m stuck! I can’t get out! I berated myself for not making a break toward the main entrance when I had a chance. It seemed incomprehensible that I, a forty-eight-year-old mother of three girls who had supervised and guided her children to reach their dreams, was now being told what I could and couldn’t do.

  “Everything gets started at five a.m., so you should unpack now,” Sheila suggested as she led me to my room. Instead, I sat on the bed in my pink warm-up suit and Uggs, staring at her. My hair was perfectly coiffed, but my eyes were swollen shut from crying. I no longer cared about anything—not even meeting my two new roommates. Both were older women who later told me their first impressions of me ran along the lines of “prima donna, trophy wife, and eating disorder.”

  Faced with my stubbornness not to move, Sheila graciously offered to unpack for me. “Wow, you sure did bring a lot of stuff,” she remarked as she emptied the last few items from my bag. Then she held up a purple stone in the palm of her hand. “What’s this?” she asked.

  “Never saw it before,” I said. “Probably isn’t mine.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “Tonight I want to go out with a dance party.”

  When I look back at the woman who entered treatment that April in
2011, I hardly recognize her. She was fragile and broken in so many ways. And horribly thin and malnourished. There was no light in her eyes, no happiness in her soul. It still makes me sad to think of her. But she didn’t dissolve into a pile of dust. Instead, I helped her to grow stronger, though not right away.

  Life at TK was very structured. I could no longer reach for my phone when I was lonely or take a nap when I felt exhausted. There were schedules to follow and rules to obey. We got up at the crack of dawn and turned off our lights by ten each evening. Televisions, radios, and newspapers were nonexistent. Morning coffee was offered at 5:30 a.m. and taken away by noon—and there was always a line! Every class, meal, and shower was monitored by a BHS. And I couldn’t leave Oak Lodge, except to eat in the dining room or attend certain classes.

  I, like everyone else, had a support team, and we met almost daily. Like dedicated scientists, my team always had piles of notes that detailed my moods, my participation, the meds I took, the comments I made, the food I ate, my grooming habits, the things I worried about, and … well, everything. I was a lab rat, of sorts, that they hoped to turn back into a healthy, functioning human being one day. They had their work cut out for them, especially in the beginning. But I came to love my team. The group consisted of Kimberly Dennis, MD, my psychiatrist, otherwise known as Dr. Kim; one regular therapist; a trauma therapist; a nutritionist; and a crew of BHSs. Not one of them ever gave up on me, though at times I wanted to give up on myself.

  Those first two weeks at TK were nothing short of a marathon of weeping. When I was asked to make a time line of my life, I cried. When I was asked to make a poster about my future, I sobbed and shook uncontrollably. When I listened to everyone else’s stories, I wept and refused to join the conversation. There was simply too much pain and grief inside of me fighting for air. And I didn’t have the energy—or guts—to open the wounds of my life for everyone to see. On top of that, I also was muddling through the haze of withdrawal, as Dr. Kim slowly weaned me off Xanax, a complicated process that had to be monitored carefully so that I wouldn’t suffer a stroke. All of it put me squarely in the first stage of recovery, which TK describes as “Coming In.”