the night's end

(continued from previous post "the five minute rule")



Lauren pulled herself back from the door through which she was peeking, "It's Annie and Carson," she said in a worried tone. Ashley rolled her eyes and made a remark about the two of them always raising hell and how sick of it she was. "I swear," she said angrily, "if this whole place is on lock-down tomorrow because of them, I'm gonna be pissed." I just kept looking back and forth between Ashley and Lauren, meanwhile the noise outside of the doors to the group room were getting louder.

The exact timing of all that I heard happening that night is probably a bit off from how it all actually went down, but I will do my best to retrace the steps of what I experienced sitting nervously in that group room on the night of February 5th, 2007.


"DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME! GET AWAY FROM ME!" one of the girls yelled. We heard loud banging noises every so often, but what it was, I still don't know. "Should we do something?" Ashley asked. "I just hope they're okay," Lauren responded, now even more concerned than before. "They're fine, they're just being stupid," Ashley said "If someone would just let me talk to them, I could calm them down." Lauren and Ashley's short exchanges were followed by more loud banging and then a high pitched scream. It was right at that point that I was about to pee my pants.

"DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME! GET THAT AWAY FROM ME! CARSON, DON'T LET THEM TOUCH ME WITH THAT!"

Knowing she didn't speak in third person, I realized it was Annie who was yelling for Carson to help her. Annie didn't sound much like a ring-leader in that moment, but Carson was still playing the role of the accomplice immensely well. "Damn it, Annie" Ashley said out loud, but to herself, "just calm down, stop freaking out, it's only gonna get worse."

"GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF OF HER!" Carson yelled, which was followed by another loud bang and a high pitched scream. At the sound of the second high pitched scream, a calmer, but still loud, voice chimed in, obviously a BHA, "I just need you to CALM DOWN!" she said, "if you calm down nothing will happen!"

"FUCK YOU! GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF OF HER!"

Lauren was beside herself, "Oh, if only they would just stop! No one is listening to anyone! Someone is going to get hurt." Meanwhile, I was sitting in the corner in my bright orange Harley Davidson jacket. I looked like a bad ass, but the only thing going through my head was "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, OH MY GOD!"

Annie and Carson started screaming each other's names, and by the sound of it, being held down by a number of staff. "GET OFF OF ME, DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME WITH THAT! I HATE YOU!"

There was so much yelling and so much noise that it was hard for me to take it all in. I felt like I was hiding in the tunnel of a war zone. I was safe in my little corner, but all I could hear was kicking and screaming and the sound of something banging against the wall, or on the floor, I couldn't tell. I was rolling the scene in my mind and picturing Annie and Carson in camouflage, launching F-bomb hand grenades at the staff. The staff tried to dodge each grenade as they just crept toward the two girls. "GET AWAY FROM ME," one would yell and launch an F-bomb. The staff would duck and the F-bomb would skim the back of their leg or arm, but the relentless staff would keep moving toward the girls. Despite all of Annie and Carson's defense mechanisms and attacks, the staff was determined to take them down... not so much in real life, but in my minds view of the war that was happening outside of those doors.

This went on for a bit before one of the girls, I couldn't tell who, started crying. They were screaming for the one to help the other, but they were both apparently not in a position to do so. Ashley now peeked out from under the curtain that covered the door, "I can't see them, I think they're down the hall."

In that next moment I heard screaming, screaming and more screaming, then a gradual fade of their voices, and then a thud, followed by another thud. I waited to hear something else... but I heard nothing. Dead silence. I sat there with my hands to my mouth and looked at Ashley and Lauren. Dead silence. Lauren looked under the curtain one more time and gasped. I couldn't take it anymore and ran to the door to look under the curtain. I saw enough to catch the tail end of four pairs of legs being dragged away. "Oh my God," I blurted out, "did they just get tranquilized!?!" I think it was Lauren, only because the response was so calm and quiet, though I can't quite remember because I was in such shock, but she simply said "basically."

"Oh my God!" I said out loud again, followed by "Oh my God!" My thought process was quite profound in that moment. "Holy shiiiiiii, they just got tranquilized!" I was in shock. My mind and my heart was racing. "I've only seen that done in the movies, I didn't know people actually did it! Oh my God! Dear Jesus..."

Jesus might have been waiting for me to finish that sentence, but I didn't.

"Welcome to treatment!" Ashley said, as if what just happened didn't phase her one bit. My mind kept asking myself questions that I just couldn't answer... "OK, seriously, where am I? What am I doing here? What just happened? Is that normal? Seriously, did that really just happen? What is my problem? WHAT AM I DOING HERE?"

The three of us sat in the group room waiting for someone to come and get us and tell us that the war was over, that the valiant staff had once again triumphed over the crazies, and that everyone could return home safely to the privacy of their monitored rooms.

"Where'd they take em'?" I asked whoever was willing to answer. "To their rooms," Ashley spoke up, "they'll be alright, they'll just wake up with a big ass headache tomorrow."

I don't remember a staff ever coming to get us, I don't remember having snack that night, I don't even remember walking back through the snow to go back to the adult lodge, but all of those things took place because I ended up right back at the adult lodge, with a full stomach. I think I was just so caught up in my mind, replaying the scene I had imagined and matching it up to the reality of the sound bite I had just heard. It was as if my body kept moving how it was told to be moved, but my mind was stuck replay mode, not really aware or even interested in what my body was doing.

We got back to our lodge to prepare for bed and my roommates and I were quiet. Before I walked into our room, I turned to the BHA who walked us over and told her my beloved fan had been taken away earlier that day and I desperately needed it's soothing white noise to lull me to sleep, especially after such a chaotic night. She said she didn't know about it but would ask someone in the morning. My heart felt heavy and even though it was just a fan, I wanted to cry. The day had drained me of any sort of strength or pride that it was really just all gone at that point. I started to tear up, trying not to let my roommates hear me, "I really can't sleep without the noise." The BHA said she understood, I doubted it, and that she couldn't do anything about it until tomorrow. I walked in our room where Ashley and Lauren were getting ready for bed, aware that they overheard me. "Do you need noise to sleep?" Lauren asked. I wanted to act tough, but I couldn't, "well... yea. I've never slept without a a fan before, at least not inside." I felt the need to add "at least not inside" so she wouldn't think I was spoiled and sheltered. It's funny how even in your weakest moments, pride can rear it's ugly head.

"Well, I don't have a fan," Lauren said, "but maybe you could use the CD player, if Ashley doesn't mind the noise." Before I could even turn to look at Ashley for approval she hollered out from her side of the room "don't worry about me, I took my sleeping pill, I won't hear a damn thing!" Apparently somewhere in the shuffle of the war clean up and snack, nightly meds were handed out, but since it was my first day and I had yet to meet with my assigned psychiatrist, I also had yet to be prescribed to what would keep me from ever needing a fan to fall asleep again.

"What about the night staff?" I asked Lauren, "if they hear the CD player, won't they take it away?"

"Probably not as long as you play it softly. Plus, Mona, she's the overnight shift, she's really cool."

Mona was not and still is not the name of the woman who was the overnight shift, but I will call her that out of respect for her privacy. Lauren was right, she was cool, for lack of a better term, and that very night she became my favorite BHA.

Mona came in shortly after to escort whoever needed to go to their locker for their toiletries. She took notice that I was new, a quality that I admire in other people, and introduced herself. She had her hair up in a yellowish gold head wrap and she had the smoothest, most beautiful chocolate colored skin I had ever seen. She was tall and slender, but wore a big over sized fleece. I quietly told her my name, but she said she would just call me "boo boo." I liked that, as I had always wanted to be considered somebody's "boo boo," but seeing as I had only ever dated white guys, it just never really caught on. She made me smile, the most I had done that day, at least authentically, and I thought about how much I enjoyed being around someone who could bring an authentic smile to my face, a quality that I admire in those who have and do.

After I brushed everything I needed to brush for bed and washed everything I needed to wash, Mona took my stats... blood pressure, heart rate, weight, and temperature. She said she (or whoever was working depending on the night) would be taking my stats every night and again every morning. "In case I gain weight while I sleep?" I asked her. She laughed, "girl, you silly, you ain't gonna gain wait while you sleep! Too funny." She didn't know I serious, but I liked that she said I was funny, so I smiled. It had been such a long time since I felt like I was funny. Even I knew I was too sad to be funny.

Sensing that I could trust Mona, probably solely based on the fact that she called me "boo boo," I told her about the removal of my beloved fan and explained that I knew she probably couldn't do anything about it, but asked her to keep it in mind if she happened to see a fan in a locked closet somewhere. She laughed and said she would. I asked her if it would be okay for me to listen to the CD player to go to sleep, and she said since it was already in the room she thought it would be okay. I thanked her as she wrote down my blood pressure and packed up her equipment, "you're welcome, boo boo, but try to keep it quiet." I promised her I would and I smiled, not only because she said okay, but because I liked my new nickname.

While Mona took the other girls' stats, I looked through Lauren's CD collection again. I sorted through back and forth and as Mona was finishing up with Lauren, Lauren looked over at me and said what I was thinking, "none of it is really music to sleep to." It was true... Gorillaz? No. Jet? No. The Killers? No. All good, but not to sleep to. Mona walked over to Ashley's bed and had to shake Ashley a little, as her sleeping pill had already kicked in and she was passed out on top of her covers. I giggled a little as I watched Ashley jerk up... "Ah fuck, I'm awake!" she yelled out in a drowsy voice. Mona laughed too, "I just gotta get your stats, girl, you can stay in bed." Ashley rolled over and flung her right arm out, "yea, yea, do your thing!" Ashley didn't remember any of it the next morning.

I went through the CDs one more time and since they were all still the same, I settled on the last thing I thought I would settle on... a sermon by Desmond Tutu. "That's probably your best choice," Lauren said, "and it actually really is a good teaching." I wasn't interested in being taught before bed, but I was desperate for a calming noise of some sort, even if it was the voice of Desmond Tutu, a man I had heard about just the year before on a trip to South Africa. It was that very trip that triggered my awareness of the severity of my eating disorder, and it was in that very country that I fell to my knees and cried out to God that I couldn't live the way I was living any more. I had wanted to forget everything about that trip because of how miserable I was and how close to death I felt; but that night in the facility, my first night in, I was reminded of the darkness of my time in South Africa, as the retired Archbishop of that very country spoke silently in the background through Lauren's borrowed CD player.

The sermon was titled "God has a Dream," and it was comical to me because I had asked God to heal me, to fix me, and to make all the pain I felt during those dark times to go away; but he didn't, at least that's what I thought, because there I was... in treatment, getting treated for the very thing that God wouldn't heal me from. I didn't want to actually listen to Desmond Tutu's words, especially if they were about God, as I was so angry at Him, but I needed something that resembled a fan, and a sermon about God seemed to be just the thing... a meaningless gust of wind that would put me to sleep. Even now it scares me to write that out and to think of the possibility of that thought ever being real.

The trouble was, despite how drained I was from the day or how angry I was at God, the day's chaos swam about in my mind, keeping it fully alert as my body laid still. So it was after I pressed play on the CD player and had gotten into bed that I heard the first few remarks of Desmond Tutu's "God has a Dream." He spoke as if he had written a letter, and quite possibly, a letter to me...


"Dear Child of God, I write these words because we all experience sadness. We all come at times to despair and we all lose hope that the suffering in our lives and in our world will ever end. I want to share with you my faith and my understanding that the suffering can be transformed and redeemed. There is no such thing as a totally hopeless case. Our God is an expert at dealing with chaos, with brokenness, with all the worst that we can imagine. God created order out of disorder, cosmos out of chaos, and God can do so always, can do so now... in our personal lives, and in our lives as nations globally. The most unlikely person, the most improbable situation, these are all transfigurable. They can be turned into their glorious opposites. Indeed, God is transforming the world now, through us, because God loves us."


The sermon went on, but it was always at least by that point that I had either fallen asleep or tuned it out. I held onto to the boyd bear that my aunt and uncle had given me, the one dressed as an angel, and as it's halo poked me in the face, I thought about those words "because God loves us."

I wish I could say that I heard those words that night and my whole mindset changed... that I suddenly had hope, and was able to grab a hold of the truth that God knew what He was doing and that He really was going to take care of me.

But I didn't.

That night in my bed, in the darkness of our room, I felt safe... a kind of safe I had never really felt before because it wasn't regarding God keeping me safe. It was a kind of safety that was free from the judgements and criticisms of other people, especially Christians. It was a safety from the Baptist Sunday school teachers who expected the preacher's kid to be perfect. It was a safety from the charismatic church leaders who said I didn't have enough faith to be healed. It was a safety from the Catholic friends who said we could do anything we wanted as long as we asked for forgiveness.

As I thought about how safe I felt from all the faith based claims or accusations spoken to me throughout my life, I also thought about that evening's events with the five minute rule. I realized that the girls in the facility had no clue who I was, where I came from, or what I believed, nor did they care... they had their own problems. I felt safe from the pressure to measure up, and safe from the pressure of being a "good Christian," whatever that meant.

I said those words to myself again, "because God loves us," and I laid there for a second. In the quietness of the room, except for the voice of the archbishop in the background, I rolled over in my bed and whispered exactly how I felt about those words...

"I don't care."

My tears tasted bitter that night, but I welcomed the bitterness. It was the first time I felt free to say how I really felt. I thought I would feel afraid if I were to voice that I didn't care about God, or if He loved me or not, but I didn't... I felt relieved.

And so, February 5th finally came to end, looking much different than how it had started. I never thought that when I woke up that morning and prayed with my dad, before reaching the facility, that I would go to bed that night most confident that God hadn't heard me that morning, or ever at all. I knew that February 6th was going to be the start of a new life, not just because I was going to start recovery, but because I was going to start it without God.

The relief was overwhelming, and it put me right to sleep.






To be continued...

the five minute rule

(continued from previous post... "the diagnosis")




So there I sat, again, same kitchen, same day, almost drunk in my anger and drowning in my anxiety, and before me was yet another meal I had to force down. Truth be told, I don't remember what food was placed before me that night, but I know if I look hard enough I still have my "food logs" stored away in a box somewhere where I keep everything. The food logs were a sort of journal I had to keep to write about every meal I ate and about every emotion involved in eating that meal. Some of my food logs were just nasty, not so much because of the food, but because of what I had to say about how I felt. They were full of anger, the sort of anger that had someone, rather divine or tangible, not intervened it could have easily been birthed into hatred. Some of them were depressing to read, even after having left treatment, so I don't know why I kept them, except for the fact I keep everything I write down (well, truthfully, I actually keep everything, finding it hard to throw anything away... a characteristic that many people have tried to free me from). But other than that I suppose that for as depressing and angry as they were, keeping them has served as a reminder of how far God has brought me. I will try to do some investigating to locate my food logs (a funny name when I think about it), so as to possibly share some of my early thoughts about meals in treatment, but that will come later.

Now, much like at lunch (as written about in "the beginning"), all the other girls were able to eat whatever they wanted, while I was limited to what was in the styrofoam box sitting in front of me. Along with my roommate, Ashley, the same girls from lunch were in the room for dinner; the quiet girl who whispered to herself and rocked back and forth (this went on again at dinner), the loud, epicene girl whose mom hated her because she loved women, the few other girls who would egg on rebellion in any form, and then myself. I was quiet, and sad, and smiled a few times so as not to draw attention to myself for not laughing at the girls who thought they were funny, but mostly I just wanted to cry.

As I was taking in all of the girls being loud around me, my attention once again fell on the girl who was whispering to herself. It was obvious she was trying hard to focus, and though I didn't know what she was trying to focus on, it was clear that it was difficult for her given the noise around us. A female BHA leaned over and hopefully whispered something encouraging because the girl then lifted her head, picked up her spoon and began to eat, smile, and look around as if there wasn't a care in the world. I barely overheard someone saying "she made it through her numbers," but I didn't really know what that meant, nor was I going to ask. Looking back on the situation, I don't think it was obvious, but it might have been, when I realized that I didn't care about what "her numbers" meant because I found myself staring point blank at her hands. As her spoon lifted from her plate to her mouth, I noticed her right hand for the first time and I couldn't take my eyes off of it. She had her left elbow on the table with her left hand tucked in between her plate and herself, and I was able to see enough of her left hand to make out that it looked just like her right.

Her hands... they were covered with cut marks. I mean, not just a few here and there, but patterns from below her wrists up to her fingers of small cuts. I remember feeling shocked and scared at the same time. It looked as if she had been keeping score of something on her hand and each cut was a tally mark of some sort, and she just kept cutting, or tallying, until she ran out of room. "Dear God," I thought, "is she OK?" I wasn't expecting an answer, nor did I get one, but I remember being so shaken in how I felt that the only thing I could think to say over and over again was "Dear God, O Dear God." I looked at the stark contrast between my hands and hers and it literally gave me the chills. I don't think it was so much out of ignorance as it was me just sincerely wanting to know, but I couldn't help but keep asking myself "what is wrong with her?"

I felt in that moment that I wanted to talk to her or be nice to her in some way, but I didn't know how. I was scared, and worried that I might say the wrong thing and offend her, which would then send her into a state of something other than reality. She was so young, at least in high school as she had on a letter jacket, and seemingly pleasant to be around when you weren't freaked out by her rocking and whispering. Mid-way through her meal, she stopped eating to rock and whisper again. A BHA took notice and addressed her, "Corrie, you need to finish your meal, we'll worry about your homework later, OK? It's OK." I was trying my best to keep up with what was going on, but I felt so confused about my own self and why I was there that it was hard to keep track of the others' "drama." Corrie whispered for a little bit longer, as if she didn't hear the BHA, then continued with her food.

"You see," someone yelled out, "if you just leave her alone she'll finish!" I looked up and it was the loud woman-loving, ring-leading girl from lunch standing by the kitchen counter. "Annie, sit down!" the BHA snapped back in a manner that was sort of serious and sort of joking. "What?" Annie laughed, then pulled up her baggy pants, twiddled her lip ring and stuck a spoon full of peanut butter in her mouth. In that moment Annie made it seem as if she cared about Corrie, but I couldn't help but wonder if it was more out of a desire to be the center of attention then it was out of concern. The BHA rolled her eyes and looked at Corrie and smiled. My attention left Corrie's hands and went right back to Annie, as I'm sure that's right where she wanted it. She was a beautiful girl but seemingly tried hard to make herself look like a boy. She wore baggy clothes and a beanie that hid her short hair underneath. She continued to talk loudly about her love for women, mind you she was 16, and would often refer to some of them as "bitches." I had wondered if it was as degrading for a gay woman to call a woman a bitch as it was for a man to call a woman a bitch, but I didn't ask. Ashley spoke up and said something about it, which made me feel proud, solely because she was my roommate and not afraid to speak her mind, but when questioned, Annie implied she meant "bitch" in a loving way. "Interesting," I thought to myself, "maybe men and women really have been misunderstanding each other all these years."

One other girl at the table, Carson, was Annie's accomplice, so to speak. I think Carson was confused about her own sexuality and found something comforting about Annie's confidence in her own. Though Carson would say she was her own person, she followed Annie around and encouraged her in all that she did. She sided with her against other girls or against staff, though that was going to be something I wouldn't find out until later. The main image I have of Carson in my mind is one of her hunched over her cereal bowl, laughing at everything Annie did. As far as I knew, Carson was just a side kick without much conviction of her own, but at the time I didn't realize how dangerous of a place that is for someone to be.

Between Annie and Corrie, the table would go from loud to silent to loud again. I remember just sitting there, trying so hard to take it all in but also feeling so much like I was in a dream, about to wake up at any second. Between my attention being distracted and my desire to not eat my food anyway, I took just as long as I did at lunch to finish my meal. Everyone was done and out of the kitchen while I was still working on a side dish of some sort. I was frustrated that even Corrie was done before me. Sure, I wanted to be nice to Corrie, but truth be told I also wanted to be less crazy than her, and the fact that I thought the food on my plate was pure evil wasn't going to help me plea my case for sanity.

I remember the BHA trying to ask me questions to possibly lift my spirits enough for me to lift my spoon to my mouth, but I was about as interested in her questions as I was in my dinner. I would answer with one word, if even, and kept my head down while I ate as slow as possible. I remember wanting to cry because my stomach physically hurt and I thought that there was no way eating more could possibly healthy. It had been so long since my body not only had that much food in it, but held it down, and so my stomach, along with my mind, was freaking out. The most talking I did at the dinner table was when everybody was gone and I tried to explain to the BHA the pain I was in. She said she understood, I doubted it, and that it would only be that uncomfortable in the beginning as my body just needed to adjust to the changes.

To make matters worse, I began to feel as if I was going to be physically sick. It wasn't nausea, but it was certainly the feeling that my food wasn't going to stay down. I remember wondering what would happen if it didn't. What would happen if I couldn't help myself and just threw up right there on the table, not even because I wanted to, but because I felt like I couldn't help it? This feeling continued after most meals for a while, and I later learned that just as my body was adjusting to the food I was giving it, it was also adjusting to to "keeping" the food. Though it was self induced, my body was so used to rejecting any large amount of food, especially certain types of food, that it almost seemed natural for it to continue in the state of rejection, even in treatment. It's not like I could tell my gag reflexes that I was in treatment now and things were going to be different.

After dinner I was drained of every emotion I could hope to express, even anger. I was just too tired to be angry, but dear God was I uncomfortable. I do remember just feeling gross, disgusted with myself even. I constantly felt my stomach, wondering if I was gaining weight that very moment. I was hoping that maybe by a sheer miracle there were some some laxatives still lingering about in my body, as I had taken them the whole weekend before entering treatment, but I was fairly certain that was wishful thinking.

After waiting around in the main lobby for a little while, once again just observing the interactions of the girls around me, Ashley and I were told we were going to be taken over to the adult lodge so we could unpack before coming back over to the youth lodge for snack and a nightly group. We were escorted outside and through the snow to the building next to the one we were in. I still couldn't believe all of the snow, especially at night. I remember loving the sound of snow crunching underneath my shoes and leaving foot prints the size of my feet. Before entering the lodge where I would be lodging, I felt for a moment that I was somewhere else, somewhere magical, where it snowed at night and the sound of snow could be heard under your shoe... somewhere much like the mid-west in winter, I suppose. I entered through both sets of locked doors that were disarmed by the BHA who was leading us and reality set back in... "I am not somewhere magical, I am in treatment."

Ashley and I were led to Lauren's room, which quickly became "our room." The rooms were quite large with 4 twin beds, but since there were only 3 of us we used one of the beds as a table to throw our stuff on. There were 4 tall dressers as well, one beside each bed with about 5 drawers a piece. I knew I wasn't allowed to keep enough stuff to fill all the drawers, but I still liked the idea of having all those drawers. I've always liked the idea of hiding things, including myself, which could be a good or a bad thing, depending on what or why I am trying to hide. Ashley and I started unpacking and Lauren came in shortly after us. We talked as we unpacked, but about what I don't specifically remember. I discovered two more drawers underneath my bed and those quickly became my favorite drawers where I hid my underwear and letters from loved ones. If I would have had anything else to hide I would have hidden it in those drawers, but the BHAs had already taken anything worth hiding away.

I placed a Boyd bear on my bed that my aunt and uncle had given me the day before leaving for the facility. It wasn't the most comfortable bear to sleep with, as I think it was made more for a shelf than a bed, but it was the only thing I knew I would have to keep me company at night. It had little wings and a halo, obviously resembling an angel, but instead of enjoying it's angelic features, I actually grew annoyed by them. It's wire wings would poke me in the neck or it's glittery pipe cleaner halo would stab me in the face. I should have put him (or her) on a shelf where he (or she) belonged, but despite my annoyances I couldn't let go of him (or her) at night. As silly as it sounds, having that bear, even at 23 years old, made me feel loved and not so alone.

As I finished unpacking I felt my stomach to check and see if I had gained any weight. There were no mirrors in the rooms, only in the bathrooms, but those remained locked at all times. I felt disgusting, but I tried not to let it show. I looked over Ashley's side of the room, then Lauren's. I tried not to compare, but I did. Ashley seemingly came from money, Lauren didn't. I figured I was somewhere in the middle, but told myself to shut up because it didn't matter anyway. I noticed that Lauren had a small CD player on her dresser which I thought was interesting because they had taken all my CDs away, and if one couldn't have CDs, why have a CD player? I asked her about it and she said it belonged to the facility and that one day she had asked if she could use it during the day, but whoever had given it to her forgot about it and so there it still sat in our room. I asked her if she had any CDs and she said she did because whoever had given her the CD player for the day had also given her her CDs and they forgot to take those back as well. Prior to that moment I never in my life would have thought that I would be so excited about the idea of smuggling CDs, but there I was, thrilled at the thought of having something deemed as "contraband" so close to my possession. She allowed me to thumb through her very small collection of CDs... a few burnt CDs of mixed music, followed by The Killers, Gorillaz, Jet, and a sermon by Desmond Tutu.

As I was examining Lauren's pittance of music, I was told by a BHA that I could put my toiletries and such in my locker where they were to be kept on lock down at all times. I could use my tooth brush and tooth paste and non-alcoholic shampoo, but I had to ask permission for said toiletries to be used, in which case a BHA would follow me to my locker, unlock it, and take note of what I took out. After making use of said toiletries, makeup and dental floss included, I had to inform the BHA that I was done so he or she could lock everything back up until I asked for permission again. So, the BHA walked me down the hall and showed me my locker that looked like a square of no bigger than 10 inches by 10 inches. I loaded my locker up with my hairdryer and hairbrush, and all of my other toiletries, and watched the BHA lock them up as I thought to myself how crazy it was that I couldn't even have my hairbrush out. Ashley, Lauren and I were then told we would be walked back over to the adolescent lodge for snack and our nightly check in group.

Before heading back out into the snow, I put on my layers of sweaters and covered them all with the bright orange Harley Davidson Jacket that my Chicago native uncle had loaned me since I had never owned, nor had I ever planned on owning, a winter jacket. Not having had time to go shopping for a winter jacket between landing in Chicago, watching the Bears loose the Superbowl at my aunt and uncle's house, and checking into treatment, I just had to take what I was given. Being that my uncle may still be one of Harley Davidson's biggest fans, there wasn't much he could have offered me that didn't have "Harley Davidson" plastered across it somewhere. I have since grown fond of Mr. Davidson, but never in a million years would I have planned on sporting such a winter jacket as that one. I guess it's funny because I had also never planned on having an eating disorder, let alone going to treatment for one, yet there I found myself... in a men's large, bright orange Harley Davidson jacket, flames and all, standing behind two sets of locked double doors, waiting to be escorted out. John Lennon so poetically sang once that "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans," and that is exactly how I felt when I wore that jacket.

In addition to adjusting to treatment, as a born native to the coast of South Carolina, I was also still adjusting to the Chicago climate change. I had to figure out how to move about in a down jacket, especially one that made such a loud statement in contrast to the serene, white snow. When I walked outside it was as if my presence was screaming "HERE I AM, BITCHES!!" Why my presence had to include the word "bitches," I don't know, but I thought it was something that someone wearing a Harley jacket might be prone to say, which may sound like a stereotype, but I felt okay making that judgement since just earlier Annie had said that "bitches" could be used as a term of endearment.

And so, as if it wasn't enough of a shock for me that I was wearing a flaming orange Harley jacket in the freezing cold of a Narnian look-a-like town outside of Chicago, I could have never been prepared for the shock that was about to take place when we walked back through the doors of the adolescent lodge.

As the night was coming to an end we arrived back at the lodge where my morning started. The BHA who was with us couldn't even unlock the second set of double doors before a BHA from inside came running to the doors, out of breath, telling us not to come in yet. I heard yelling coming from inside and I didn't know what was going on, but I knew something wasn't right. As I stood in the middle of two sets of locked doors, loud yelling on one side and the quiet of the snow on the other, I clinched my fists in an effort to relieve the stress I felt.

"It's a five minute rule!" the BHA from inside snapped at us, as if I understood what that meant. Lauren with her "oh no!" and Ashley with her "oh shit!" seemed to know what "five minute rule" meant and judging by their reactions, it didn't sound good. The BHA who was with us said that the five minute rule meant everyone had to go to their rooms and shut the doors until told to come out. "But why?" I asked. "Because somethings going down!" Ashley blurted out. "Just for the safety of everyone," the BHA quickly chimed in. The BHA from inside said she needed all the staff help she could get, so for our BHA to walk us into the group room off to the side as quickly as possible, close us in there, then follow her. Ashley joked by saying she'd help "lay the smack down," but the BHA from inside cut her a look and said "seriously, go straight to the group room!" Everything was happening so fast and it was all so ambiguous that I started to get anxious.

We got through the second set of double doors and down one of the three hallways I heard someone yelling "FIVE MINUTE RULE! FIVE MINUTE RULE!" Our BHA rushed us to the group room, shut the door and left. The group room was quiet. I looked at Ashley and Lauren... Lauren looked concerned while Ashley just grinned. "Congratulations!" Ashley said to me as she laughed, "no one ever gets introduced to the five minute rule on their first day!" Her warm welcome was interupted by a girl yelling on the other side of the door... "I'LL GO TO MY FUCKING ROOM WHEN I FUCKING WANT TO!" I looked at the glass door that was covered by a curtain, which Lauren was peeking under, then I looked back at Ashley. "Welcome to fucking treatment," she said sarcastically, "you might as well sit down because this is going to take longer than five minutes." I clinched my fists again as the comotion outside of the door got louder and F-bombs where being launced through the whole facility like hand grenades. There was only one thing that came to my mind in that moment...

where the hell am I?




To be continued...