the letter N

(continued from previous post..."the family night")

That is how Uncle Buddy came to save our phone time from ever being interrupted again, and that is how he forever sealed his spot in my heart. I think of Uncle Buddy almost every day. Rarely does something not remind me of him; a Harley Davidson motorcycle, a large great dane (which sounds redundant but Uncle Buddy not only has an exceptionally large great dane, he has two), a bottle of Tabasco sauce, which I'm sure he'd drink from with a straw should that be socially acceptable, a southern draw, a big smile, a perfectly made bed, he taught me everything I know about making a bed, African art (his house is covered in it), and a balanced checkbook, another life lesson I would never have mastered without his help, even at age 23.

Uncle Buddy married Amy when I was in college and I loved her as an aunt instantly upon meeting her. She had a realness about her that most people in my immediate and extended family lacked. When it came time for me to go to treatment, she was there right by Uncle Buddy's side and mine, and it was then that I came to love her as a mother. For the remainder of my time in treatment there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't talk to at least one of them. Amy called me every night before bed. Amy picked me up on family outing days and took me shopping, got my hair cut and helped me feel a sense of normalcy at least once a week. Amy told me I was the daughter she never had and together we would laugh and cry over coffee and hot chocolate.

I no longer believe in the idea of perfection as something to be reached by humans, but I do believe that given the skin we're in and the sky we're under, things can be imperfectly perfect. That said, I think Amy is perfect for Uncle Buddy. My time in treatment would have looked extremely different without the two of them being so accessible and available to me. I continue to find myself grateful that the Lord intervened when I planned to go to California for treatment and sent me instead to the cold, cold land of Illinois.

Days went by in treatment where I would sit and stare out the window, much like you would see in the movies. I couldn't tell if watching the snow fall so intently made me feel more crazy or less crazy, but I was drawn to it nonetheless. I paid less and less attention in groups as I watched the snow outside cover the ground more and more. I so badly wanted to go outside and play but two things stood in my way. One being that I was on exercise restriction until I gained more weight. Exercise restriction meant that not only could I not exercise, I couldn't even walk to the cafeteria. A van came and picked up the underweight girls and carried us all of twenty feet. We spent more time loading and unloading in and out of the van than the other girls spent walking to the cafeteria. Heaven forbid we burn a calorie in a thirty second walk.

The other thing that stood in the way of me playing in the snow was my inability to stay warm. Whether it be my southern heritage or being underweight for my height, no matter how much I layered, I was constantly cold. Even before moving to Illinois, while still in the warm climate of South Carolina, there was a certain season of life where I can't remember not being cold. As some of the other girls in treatment joked, "you know you might be anorexic if you're in a heated room and you're experiencing hypothermia." The more I learned to speak up in treatment, the more frequent I would ask someone to turn the heat up, eventually one of the crack head girls would respond, "eat a cheeseburger!" "Don't be a bitch," one of the bi-polar girls would yell. All of the girls more often than not supported and loved each other, but we each had our moments when we thought everyone else was absolutely ridiculous, and didn't hold back in letting each other know.

One of those moments where the girls found themselves pitting themselves against each other instead of the staff involved the game Scattergories. It started out as a fun game time to get everyone's mind off of the intense group time, but it turned into a yelling match between the eating disorder girls and the substance abuse girls. Depending on the eating disorder, I'd say the substance abuse girls stood a better chance physically, after all, the anorexics were too tired to physically fight, but considering the fact that they had been hungry for the last few years, they were an extremely angry group of people. They were "hangry," as some people like to call it.

When I entered treatment I was clincally diagnosed with Eating Disorder N.O.S (Not Otherwise Specified). What started out as anorexia turned into bulimia and by the time I entered treatment I was so fully engaged in both, restricting for days then binging and purging, that it couldn't really be classified as one or the other. Or so they said. I have no problem identifying myself as either one. Call me what you will, an angry anorexic or a bi-polar bulimic, I've tasted both and I'm proud of how far away I've come from each. For the sake of this particular story involving Scattergories, I was one of the angry anorexics, not to mention I was cold, so I was extremely irritated. It's only a matter of time before even the sweetest of girls snaps when she's hungry, angry, tired and cold. It was a long time coming.

The game proceeded as Scattergories does... You roll the dice, it lands on a letter, you have a little sand timer that gives you a certain amount of time to come up with a list of words within a certain category; those words have to start with the letter the dice landed on. I remember Lauren, my roommate who was in the facility for severe depression, was in my group. I remember her sitting on the couch and quietly and calmly saying a word or two to the girl who was writing our words down. Everyone else was intensely whispering and interjecting quietly enough for the other team not to hear but not quietly enough to actually be quiet. I remember Lauren's peacefulness amongst the chaos. Perhaps it was more her depression than it was her peacefulness, but I think sometimes the two can co-exist. After a few rounds, the dice rolled and landed on the letter N. Within the list of categories was "things you're afraid of."

Things you're afraid of that begin with the letter N? I didn't even hesitate. Being both afraid of and addicted to food, it made sense to me, as it did to the other eating disorder girls on my team, to write in the blank NUTRIENTS. Sure, nutrients are good for you, but seeing as how having nutrients meant having food, in my disordered and distorted thinking, I was legitimately afraid of nutrients, especially if I had no control over how they got in my body. The teams were mixed as far as ED girls and girls with other issues, so the game didn't start segregated, but it ended that way.

After the timer ran out, the time came for everyone to read their answers. The other team went first and then my team. I read off our answers that started with N and got down to the 5th or 6th category, "things you're afraid of," I said, "nutrients!" I was proud and I proceeded to finish reading our list until an alcoholic from the other team spoke up... "that doesn't count!" she yelled. "Why not?" I asked. "Because you can't be afraid of nutrients, they're good for you!" she said, as if I was an idiot for even suggesting it. "You can if you have an eating disorder!" I shot back, my blood beginning to boil already. "You're just using that as an excuse to win the game," another girl yelled, her lip ring increasingly pissing me off as she spoke, "no one is afraid of nutrients!"

A girl on her team who had an eating disorder tried to speak up, "yes they are," she said quietly but firmly. "Hell yea, they are!" I yelled, "who the hell are you to say what I'm afraid of? You don't know me," my inner black girl making an appearance, which I don't mean as a stereotype, I mean literally, a black girl in 7th grade taught me to verbally defend myself by saying "you don't know me!"

"I know you aren't afraid of nutrients," the alcoholic yelled, "you just couldn't think of anything else... that's so fucking stupid if you get credit for that!" I don't know if the Behavioral Health Assistants liked watching things escalate to the last minute or not, but they made no effort to defend me, so I did what any girl in my situation would have done, I snapped.

"Are you fucking kidding me!?" I yelled, "I'm making up something about my eating disorder to win a game of fucking Scattergories!? You think I'm fucking proud of being afraid of food and anything related to it?" At this comment other eating disorder girls chimed in, "yea, what the hell!?" A bi-polar girl sat in the corner screaming for everyone to shut up and calling every one stupid. Girls started calling her stupid, to which she so eloquently responded, just as I would have, and later did, "FUCK YOU!"

The alcoholic girl kept yelling, "that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life, if nutrients are good for you and something you can eat because they are good for you then why would you not want something with nutrients in it? It just doesn't make sense! It's so fucking stupid!"

"You're stupid!" an eating disorder girl yelled and started crying. My anger grew, "why don't you try going to a bar and only having one drink!?" I yelled, "oh wait, that's right, you can't just have one because you're a fucking child who can't control her alcohol!" She laughed, "I'm the child? I'M THE CHILD!?" the volume of her voice increasing, "at least I can eat a plate of food without being afraid it was going to kill me!" "Or without throwing it up!" the girl with the lip ring yelled. Back and forth girls yelled, all of us mis-understanding each other and the addictions we all had. We each had fears, we just failed to understand that they looked different.

Above the voices, a BHA finally chimed in and told the girls to calm down, that the word "nutrients" wouldn't be counted and to move on. I was pissed and my least proud moment up to that point took place. In my anger, I looked at the heavy set BHA and yelled out, "you can't do that! It's not fair, that's a legitimate fear! Maybe if you were more afraid of what you ate you wouldn't be such a fat ass!" The room got quiet, as did the BHA. The other girls started to snicker. Breathing heavily, I turned bright red and quietly said I was sorry. I dropped the list of words that began with N and said I didn't want to play anymore.

"Fine, just count it," the girl with the lip ring said, "whatever." The BHA was still quiet. "NO, I don't care," I yelled, "whether you count it or not doesn't make it not real, I just wanted to prove that it was a real fear but forget it, you don't get it! You don't fucking get it!" I started to cry. I was angry, angry that being afraid of food was real. Angry that it had been my reality for so long. And angry that it didn't make sense to other people, or even me. I was also jealous, jealous that my issue wasn't alcoholism or drug use, for that seemed more legitimate and more "normal" of a struggle. I didn't understand the other girl's inability to just have one drink anymore than she understood my inability to eat without throwing up. We were both in a struggle, with a lot in common, but instead of bonding over the struggle, we focused on our differences and created division in our lack of understanding each other.

The BHA remained silent as girls started to file out of the room. I said nothing, not even "I'm sorry," other than the whisper of it I got out just after calling her a fat ass. I went to my room, crawled under the covers and cried. I hated where I was, I hated what I struggled with, and I hated who I had become. The only feeling that seemed to pulsate through my body at the time was hatred. As I cried, another BHA came into my room and said it wasn't nap time. "I'm not napping," I cried as I hicupped. "I know," she said cooly, "but you're in bed and it's not time for that." I was so angry that I aggresively threw the covers off of me and cried as I walked swiftly past her back out into the group room. "I hate this," I said under my breath.

"I know," she said, "I'm glad you do."


To be continued...