His plan was fair, although now I was going to have to see a therapist and nutritionist. I had never been to either, but I was glad that I did not have to sign into the program that day.
"Ok. I'll set up an appointment with you for a month. What about the therapist and nutritionist?"
"I'll have them call you at home, you'll hear from them soon."
Through with the meeting, I stood up from my chair and tried to escape as fast as I could without being too obvious.
"I'll see you in a month, then."
"Ok, thanks." My legs sped up as I traveled down the hall, eventually leading to my mom still sitting in the waiting room.
"I'm ok for now. I need to make an appointment, though. I'll tell you everything in the car."
9
Therapy for My Mind
A few days later, I received a call from the Stafford Center for Eating Disorders. On the other end was a woman calling to make the appointments for me to see a therapist and nutritionist. She told me that I would be seeing Dr. Pitts and that there was currently a waiting list to see a nutritionist so I would have to make an appointment at a later date. I agreed to see Dr. Pitts the following Tuesday afternoon.
I did not know what to expect. The images of therapists I had seen on television and in the movies had skewed my opinion of them. From taking in stereotypical traits from the media, I pictured that most therapists were older men with a horrible fashion sense, wearing high-water pants and bow ties. They all wore glasses and clashed their patterns together, making them look as if they dressed themselves in the dark with no mirror. I imagined that therapy sessions were spent with the patient lying on a long couch as the doctor listened to him with a giant writing pad. Sometimes, the patient would be recorded for future reference.
Going to therapy had been sort of a taboo subject with most people. I had learned that many people do go to therapy, but that few were willing to openly talk about it. Were they not supposed to be learning how to be more open in therapy? Now that I would be going to therapy, I did not want to let anyone know. I did not want my other family members to whisper about me, and I planned to lie to friends if I was asked about where I needed to be or where I had been.
So with all of these preconceived thoughts already in my head, it was hard to start therapy with a non-judgmental outlook.
The following Tuesday appeared in no time and I drove back to the center, to the same building where I met Dr. Hoffman. I waited in the same room and signed in with the same receptionist, only I did not need to fill out the stack of paperwork again. On the table sat a recent copy of “People” magazine so I chose to skim through the pages to waste some time. Before I reached anything interesting, I heard my name.
A tall, older man with glasses, khaki pants, and a bow tie walked toward me. He absolutely looked like the stereotypical therapist I had seen on television and pictured in my mind. I could not believe my eyes and I silently laughed to myself.
"I'm Dr. Pitts, how are you today?" He reached out to shake my hand and I complied with a weak half-shake.
"Ok." I responded. I always answered 'Okay.'
He led me through the same hallway I walked the week earlier. I passed by Dr. Hoffman's closed office door and continued to Dr. Pitts' office a few doors down. His office was not as big but it had a similar decor and view. There was only one window in the room and it faced the busy road next to the building.
In the room sat four chairs; one was obviously the chair paired with the desk, one was an extra seat along the wall, and the other two were faced toward each other. I was not sure which chair was his -- did it matter? I did not want to make the mistake of taking his chair so I sat in the seat further away from the desk chair. He sat down across from me and my first therapy session officially began.
In order for Dr. Pitts to get to know me better, he held in his hand a sheet of questions, much like the questions asked by Dr. Hoffman. I wondered why he did not just look over the other evaluation but I did not ask him why. I was not sure whether I was allowed to speak up and ask questions or whether I was only to answer and follow the doctor's lead.
Besides his appearance, therapy was nothing like I had imagined. There was no long couch for me to lie on and the office was much smaller than the fancy office suites on television. After he was finished with the questions he had prepared, he asked me simply, "Why are you here?"
Why was I there? Did he not look over Dr. Hoffman’s notes? Was that a rhetorical question or did he legitimately want me to answer him? I stared at the beige carpet in front of my feet until I could think of a decent answer.
"Umm..." I scratched my forehead and wrinkled my nose in thought. "Well...my eating habits and calorie counting has gotten pretty obsessive. I felt like I was going crazy so I thought I should get some help. So, here I am."
He looked back at me and shifted his lip to the side of his mouth.
"Hmm. Ok." His pen scrawled words on the paper and my stare met the carpet again.
Silence filled the room and I began to fidget around and play with my fingers. Silence made me nervous in new situations. It made me uncomfortable, uneasy, worried. I figured that as long as some one was talking, things were okay. But with no one talking, the silence was killing me.
After his long scribble, he asked me another question.
"Do you think you are depressed?"
For that question, I had to think quite a bit. I had only known myself to be depressed, but I was not sure if I really was depressed, or if that was just how everyone felt. The media me did a great job of putting up the illusion that everything was supposed to be happy all of the time, and I tried to buy into it. But in reality, it was not always a happy place all of the time and people were allowed to be sad. I just saw the real truth, the horror, the unfortunate events, and ignored the positive in everything. My view was always covered with a gloomy haze and when the color shined through, I fanned the haze to cover it up again. Living in the fog was sad, but safe.
I had spewed out everything to Dr. Pitts without realizing I was speaking.
"Wow. You're really fucking depressed."
I could not believe what I had just heard. Were therapists supposed to talk that way to their patients? My eyes widened in disbelief and to be sure I heard correctly, I had to ask him to repeat what he just said.
"I said, you're really fucking depressed. I figured you were but your explanation proves it in a big way."
My hands started to fidget again, my fingers rubbing up against each other to try to minimize the anxious tension building up inside of me. I did not know how to respond to his comment and I was not sure if he said it as a test, or if that was how he talked to his patients. I tapped my foot on the ground and just kept thinking, unable to speak.
He caught on to my anxious state.
"What are you thinking?"
I did not want to tell him what I was thinking. If I told him, I would have had to tell him that I thought that maybe he was the one that needed the therapy. I did not want to offend him but secretly I was holding back the urge to leave and never come back for another session.
"Nothing."
"Nothing? You have to be thinking about something. Come on."
He was deliberately trying to get some emotion out of me but I was not going to give in. I was not going to let a stranger see anything but contentment. I was fine. I tried to convince him and myself at the same time.
"I'm really not thinking about anything." I wanted him to move on to a different subject so I could focus on something else.
The session finally ended after 50 minutes of awkward silences and awkward questions. He did not get too much information out of me and I did not really care. I did not feel comfortable talking to him. I left his office in a rush without setting another appointment. From what I could see, he was the one who needed a shrink, and I was not going to trust a therapist who sent off that vibe. How was I supposed to build a relationship with someone who told me, flat our, that I was �
��really fucking depressed?”
Because I failed to make another appointment, Dr. Hoffman ultimately got word of it and he made a phone call to my house a few days later to hear my reason. I did not have a reason, other than I did not want to go anymore and that I was not comfortable. But the thing was, I made a deal with Dr. Hoffman when I saw him last. Since I did not want to continue on with therapy, I was obligated to go into the program he told me about. Technically, I was not forced to go since I was over the age of 18 and legally an adult. But I knew that it would be in my best interest if I did go through with it, no matter how much I did not want to.
Two weeks later, I was back in the office where I made my therapy escape. Dr. Hoffman set up and appointment for me to be evaluated, yet again. Even though I knew that I was being asked important questions, I was tired of answering them all and I liked giving one-word answers. During the evaluation, I was required to get my vitals checked by a nurse to see if I was medically stable enough to go to the outpatient program instead of the hospital inpatient program.
A nurse brought me back to a little secluded room to perform the tests. First, I laid down on the floor and she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm. I laid there and tried to relax as the machine pumped the cuff, then stopped and slowly deflated.
"You have a very fast heart beat. Are you nervous?" The nurse asked. I liked her. She seemed to really enjoy her job and seemed genuinely happy to help patients.
"Yeah, I am, but my pulse is always high."
"Stand up for me." The cuff stayed on my arm and she pressed the button for the cycle to repeat. "Do you feel dizzy? Lightheaded?"
"Nope." It was actually unusual that I was not feeling dizzy or seeing spots. That had become the norm in my every day life and I had gotten used to it. The spots eventually went away after closing my eyes for a few seconds, after my weary body adjusted.
"Do you know what orthostatic hypotension is?"
I had never heard of it and before I could mumble a 'no,' she started her explanation.
"When your body goes from laying down to standing up, your blood pressure usually stays about the same in both positions. Yours drops significantly after you stand up. The blood rushes down to the lower part of your body and your body cannot cope as well. It could mean that you're dehydrated."
"Oh. I got sick a while ago from being dehydrated. I thought I was ok now." I fooled myself into thinking that since I did not physically feel sick all of the time, my body was doing just fine.
After the tests, I was given a bundle of paperwork and another packet of papers explaining the program.
"When you're finished filling these out, just give them back to me, and you're free to go. The program starts this afternoon."
This afternoon? I did not know that I was going that day. At first, I started to freak out because I had not prepared myself, but then I thought that it would be better to start that day. Instead of having to wait another 24 hours, at least, I only had to wait a few hours.
But those hours were so long.
There was nothing for me to do for those few hours so I decided to try and draw to pass the time. It had been a hobby I had all but given up for the eating disorder. I pulled out a Sharpie marker from my bag, along with a book sized Moleskine journal I always carried around with me. My fingers flipped to find an empty page and I began to draw. The felt tip of the marker touched the smooth surface of the paper and suddenly I felt what I had been missing from my life. When I drew, my emotions were able to seep out onto paper instead of staying scrambled, stuck in my head. The marker floated across the paper ever so easily and the time passed by quickly. I drew without thinking, with all of my attention focused on the task at hand. My mind was not focused on food or weight for once. I missed the times in my life when I could relax and ease my mind and not think about anything. Those times were very rare, as my head was always filled with images of me being thin and the food that I was or was not going to eat.
After quite a bit of time passed, I lifted up my hand and focused on the image on the page that I had just drawn. I drew without thinking too much about it and I was surprised at what I saw, the black figure sitting stark on the white page. It was en eye with a single tear dripping from its lower eyelid. It was me crying out for help. In all of the obsessions, I failed to notice the intensity of my sadness within. Focusing on the food and the drive to be better made me forget about being depressed. It gave me a way out, a way to ignore the emotion I did not want to feel. I did not know how to express sadness most of the time, and I was embarrassed to cry in front of others. My way of showing that emotion was by trying to show it physically by depriving myself. That way, others would need to ask if I was alright. Yet, even if I was asked, I still did not want to answer. I wanted to be cared for but I also did not want to show I needed the care.
I kept drawing in my book and glanced down at my watch. I only had 20 minutes until IOP started. My drawing was a clear sign of my need for help but it did not change my feelings of not wanting to let go of the crutch I had been using to escape.
10
Intense Path to Recovery
I stood in front of the brick building for a few moments, staring through the glass paned door, debating on whether or not to step through that entryway. After thinking of the consequences of not entering, my courage finally allowed me to make my way through. I entered the unknown world of treatment where I had no clue as to what would go on. No one else was in the waiting room but me. I started to question if I had made it to the right place, or if I was late for the day. I could feel my heart beating faster and my feet started tapping on the floor without me thinking. The room was dark, quite unlike most medical offices I had seen in the past. It seemed like a more upscale kind of place but it was intimidating at the same time.
After a few minutes of silently sitting by myself, a few girls made their way through the front door. They were giggling and acted as if they had known each other forever. I decided that I would wait for them to say something to me first, so I continued to sit in silence.
“Did you do your homework?” one of the girls asked. She was loud and appeared to be very outgoing.
“Aww, damn. No! Crap.” The girl next to her quickly fished through her notebook and found the homework that was supposed to be completed.
Homework? This place was not school, why would I need to do homework? I also was not told that I would need a notebook and pen, either. My first day was starting out not so well. As if I was not nervous enough, being with completely new people and being unprepared had me wanting to run out of the door and drive back home.
I must have started to show my fear and one of the girls across the room spoke.
“Is this your first day?”
I nodded in response. “Yeah.”
“Ohh. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. We were all really nervous on our first day. It gets easier.” She smiled and tried to comfort me, and although I appreciated her advice, it did not make me feel much better.
“Thanks.”
A door located on the other side of the waiting room opened and a head popped out to greet us all.
"Come on in!"
I guessed she was the therapist, but I was not sure. There was definitely no turning back now. I had reached the point of no return. I was terrified with surprisingly a sense of relief mixed in. Maybe treatment would be the beginning of my chance to change things around for myself. Even though I did not necessarily want to change, I knew that what I was doing was not in my best interest.
We all walked into the wide-open room and took a seat. Each seat was upholstered very nicely, probably to make patients a bit more comfortable. After all, it was therapy, not a time to have fun. The room was decorated much like the waiting room with dark colors and big picture windows looking out to the massive oak trees in the yard. Our seats were arranged in a circle, making us face each other. I was convinced that the chairs were set up that way on purpose, in order to make groups more uncomfo
rtable for newcomers. And I was so very uncomfortable.
"Hi, guys, this is CBT. If you're new here, my name is Dr. Serrano. Can anyone explain what CBT is to the new patients?"
My brain zoned out and I could not hear the explanation of what CBT was, nor did I particularly care at that point. I was more focused on the young therapist sitting before me. She looked not much older than me and I guessed she had just recently earned her doctorate. Her overall look was very put together and she could have stood in for a model in a catalogue. Instead of paying attention to what was going on, I could only think of how the newly educated therapist could possibly know how to treat eating disorders. There was a young, attractive doctor, I was sure very intelligent, but how could she possibly relate to us? I doubted she ever had to struggle with low self-esteem, judging on her appearance alone. I had always assumed that others who seemed put together on the outside were put together on the inside.
I never imagined that someone who looked confident could have been very self-conscious like me. In my world, anyone who was good looking, confident, and sure of themselves was immune to any negative thoughts running around in their mind. Their life was well organized, they had a great job and many friends, and they were not depressed. I pictured them to have a perfect life, a life that I desired to have.
My brain tried to focus back on to what was going on with the group. The doctor looked at me and asked if I understood what was just explained.
"Um. Could you explain it again? I'm sorry." She and everyone else around must have though I was stupid.
"Sure. CBT is short for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. In short, this therapy is designed to dispute your thoughts and challenging them into thoughts that are more realistic. For example, say you were thinking, "My pants feel tighter so I must've gained weight." You could dispute that by thinking, "My pants feel tighter but it's because I just ate dinner, not because I gained weight." Make sense?"
Restricted: A novel of half-truths Page 7
