14
Bottle it Up
A common trait among myself and the other patients in the program was that none of us ever learned how to express our emotions. If we did express our emotions, it was not in a healthy way. I was taught to hold everything in and pretend to be happy, no matter what. I was afraid to cry and I felt embarrassed if I let a tear slip out as I desperately tried to hold back the urge. Anger was just another emotion that I was unable to feel and express. I was afraid that if I got angry with someone, I would hurt their feelings and they would hate me. My insecurities held me back and I was merely a puppet with the strings being pulled by everyone else.
People pleasing was my natural instinct. It was easy to make others happy and give up my own wants in order to satisfy them. My sacrifices did not bother me at first, but they added up and I soon wondered whom I was really living for. I was not living for myself; I was living for everyone else. I realized that it was something that needed to be changed.
I did not believe that I was ever not worried about others judging me based on my feelings, reactions, and emotions. I assumed that to keep people in my life, I needed to be pleasant all the time and cater to their lives. No one saw the true me or how I really felt.
Bottled emotions were something that was talked about a lot during group therapy. No one was comfortable speaking her mind for fear of judgment and ridicule. Even though everyone in the world had emotions, we somehow believed that we did not need them. We were cardboard cutouts of real people, never responding truthfully to others. We walked around like real people, functioned like real people, lived in the world like real people. Only, real people showed what they were feeling on the inside, by expressing it on the outside. They were not afraid to open up their soul just a little bit in order to get closer to another person. We were emotionless.
A lot of the time when I wanted to say something during groups, I kept my mouth shut in order not to create any tension. I did not want to upset anyone else, even if my input would help in the long run. But keeping emotions inside was a threat to all of us. Bottling emotions was one of the factors causing the eating disorder in the first place.
As humans, we were programmed to feel and to emote. It was what made us human, it was how we were different from all other animals. Without emotions, we were not really human. Keeping the feelings inside only worked for so long until there was no room left for incoming thoughts. Eventually, the storage would run out and the emotion could no longer be hidden. Instead of dealing with the feelings of the moment, every other emotion that had been held inside came out along with it. In a split second, the volcano of feelings erupted and life became overwhelming.
The eating disorder was a way to escape that overwhelming feeling. In order not to express those emotions that were held inside for so long, the focus on food became a way to divert attention from the real problem.
Crying had always been the physiological response to an emotional situation. When a baby was hungry and needed food, he cried. When a child scraped his elbow on the sidewalk, he cried. When a boyfriend broke up with his long-time girlfriend, she cried. Crying made the emotional pain just a little bit easier. Somehow, the feelings became trapped in the tears and they disappeared as the salty tears dried.
I learned that crying was not so helpful, that it was not really that necessary. Instead of crying, I was used to keeping it all inside. My tears did not have a chance to go anywhere and I was drowning in years’ worth of pent up anger, sadness, anxiety - everything that I forced myself to shut out. When the tears did slip out from my eyes, I tried to hide the fact that I was feeling anything. I wiped away the wetness and tried as hard as I could to put on a smile for others. Even alone, I felt uncomfortable crying. No one was watching but I still felt like I was doing something wrong.
It was rare to see someone cry during our group sessions, and when someone did, we all sat back and tried to think of a way to make her feel better. We were like deer caught in headlights, staring blankly at the situation in front of us, having no clue what to say or do. I did not feel comfortable consoling anyone who got too teary-eyed. Their emotions scared me and I was used to running away from situations like that. I was confused as to why it was so hard for me, until we shared our stories during one of our groups.
"Who here doesn't like to cry?" Dr. Reed simply asked as we all glanced around, wondering if we all felt the same way. One by one, we all raised our hands, and then giggled when we saw how similar we were. It was more of a nervous laughter since we were not talking about a particularly funny subject.
"Now, why don't you guys like to cry? It's normal. If we weren't supposed to cry, we wouldn't have tear ducts. Or Kleenex, right?"
We giggled again at her sense of humor and quietly thought about the question.
Sara was the first to speak.
"I don't want anyone to think that I need any help. I do not want my family to worry about me. I am able to take care of myself. I don't want to place my problems on anyone else's shoulders and burden them, they have enough to worry about."
Quite a few heads nodded around the room, including mine.
"Yeah. I feel the same way. I feel like I'm old enough to not bother other people with my trivial issues. There are so many other people in the world who have it so much worse and I shouldn't be complaining." Carrie explained, and again, heads nodded and we all agreed.
Dr. Reed was intrigued by the answers that were given.
"So, your problems don't matter because others have bigger issues to deal with? Who says that your issues aren't big and important to you? Why should you cheat yourself out of getting feedback from another person who could possibly help the situation?"
My answer came quickly and I spoke up.
"Well, they're important to me, I guess, but not important enough. Who wants to hear about my little problems? They're not anything huge and I should be able to deal with it myself."
"You're all "should"-ing yourself. When you do that, you're not seeing the situation itself, but what you should've, could've, would've done, making you feel worse."
Deep down, I knew she was right, but my mind wanted to argue against her reply. My stubborn side wanted to let her know that what I thought was correct, even though my truth was not very true at all. My mind loved to play games with me and to make me feel insecure and not so intelligent. I knew I was intelligent, yet somehow, the little voice was able to slip in and tear away at my confidence. It had been doing that for as long as I could remember. It was there before the eating issues, long before I ever thought of losing weight. That voice was what made me turn against myself.
Dr. Reed continued to try to let us in on her line of thinking.
"What happens when you shake up a bottle of soda, if you leave the cap on?"
It was an obvious answer and it did not take long for us to shout back, "It explodes!"
"Right. That's what's happening to all of you on the inside. Your emotions have been held inside for so long and eventually they will need to come out. All the built up emotion will come out at once and it'll be pretty intense. It‘s no wonder you‘ve all learned to deal with things by distracting yourselves with unhealthy coping skills. Do they work? Sure. For a while, maybe. Do they fix anything? Nope."
I did not want to feel everything at once. It was hard enough to feel the emotions separately. There was no easy way to live with the emotions but I also knew that there was no way to live without them, either. I sometimes wished that I was a robot with a circuit board instead of a heart and brain. Robots did not have to deal with feelings. They also did not have to eat, which would have been just fine. But I was not a robot and I could not wish away my life. I was going to need to learn how to deal with things if I wanted to really live my life the way that I had always planned.
15
Celebrating with Paper Candles
Today is my 20th birthday. I don't particularly like birthdays, but this one especially isn't a birthday I want to celebrate
. I feel like 20 is such an in-between age. I'm not a teenager anymore, yet I'm still not an adult since I can't drink alcohol legally. Too bad 20 doesn't have a special meaning. It's not a milestone, I am just another year older. Turning another year older scares me. I feel like I'm behind every one else my age and I should be doing more things by now, but I'm not. I'm stuck in one place while every one else is moving ahead. I want to catch up and do whatever they're doing. I have learned through therapy that if I compare myself to others, I will always find something to critique myself on, but what I haven't learned is how to keep myself from comparing.
One advantage of spending my birthday while in the hospital was that I definitely had plans for my birthday, and friends in treatment would be there for me. One disadvantage of spending my birthday while in the hospital was that....well, it was in the hospital. At least it meant that I would be getting a free meal -- although, a free hospital meal was not much of a treat.
Meal times were, not surprisingly, sometimes very tense, especially for new patients getting used to the program. Dinner was also rough if we just came back from an intense therapy session, leaving us with upset stomachs and no excuse to get out of eating. Since we were in a higher level of care, but not there 24 hours a day, we had the privilege of making our own decisions for our meals. That was sometimes a difficult and demanding task.
I was convinced that the cafeteria deliberately messed around with us on a few occasions, giving us two entree options that had us questioning whether it was fit for human consumption. I was sure it was a sight to be seen as we all roamed around the tiny cafe searching for the best options. Our brains were calculating calories and estimating fat grams, and even though nothing was said out loud, an outside observer could tell we were all in our heads.
Half of the time, we had no clue as to what the Soup of the Day was, and the staff was no help to us in trying to figure it out. Some sneaky patients would try to get away with diet drinks or coffee but the dieticians always caught on to their tricks. We silently counted off each item on our trays since we all had a certain meal plan to follow. After we loaded up our trays with our meals, we all stood in line as the dieticians checked off what we chose. Standing in line was sometimes uncomfortable, as I assumed other “normal” people in the cafeteria knew why we were there. I pictured them whispering, “Look, there are those eating disorder girls!” I did not want anyone to know why we were there. But at the same time, there was a slight twinge of pride. We were a part of the Eating Disorders Club, and membership required ultimate willpower and dedication.
We all sat at a big round table in the dining room of the hospital cafeteria. Sometimes, it felt as though we were a big family, laughing at jokes and having conversations about college choices or what good movies were playing at the theater.
Other times, it was so awkward that I just wanted to crawl under the table to eat my food and stay there until the hour was over.
No matter how comfortable we were with each other, we were all still very uncomfortable with food in general. We were sometimes forced to eat items that we would have normally never eaten at home. The rules and authority intimidated me enough to gag down anything that I disliked. I had never liked mushrooms, but while in the cafeteria, I forced myself to eat them in order to not get in trouble. I did not want to be a bad patient. Others did not care too much about getting in trouble, and some intentionally broke the rules and rebelled against all authority.
Sophie, a normally shy girl about 17 years old, once threw a buttered roll across the table in the direction of one of the dieticians. Apparently, she was not thrilled about adding the extra fat (butter) to her bread. Our eyes widened and we waited for the consequence of her action.
We normally had two dieticians on duty, but that day, there was only one. Julie was newly hired and probably was not expecting a situation to occur within a week of her joining the staff. She was even tempered and spoke softly, traits that probably were a disadvantage to her when Sophie acted out. Julie calmly walked over to Sophie and led her to another room to have a chat. The rest of us at the table burst into laughter, knowing that throwing a buttered roll was very immature and childlike, but very funny at the same time.
Those types of situations did not happen very often but they were quite entertaining when they did. It provided some comic relief and eased the tension in the room, making it just a little bit easier for the rest of us to tolerate our meals.
We were not allowed to talk about certain subjects, in order to stay away from eating disorder and body image issues. Quite a few patients had been in the program before and knew of others who were in the inpatient program at the time we were in IOP. Even though we were not allowed to talk about other patients we knew, that rule often went out the window and current or former patients were mentioned by name. We wondered how they were doing, as we were all genuinely concerned about each other. We were all connected by our life threatening disorders and that bond was strong.
It humored us when the dieticians had to come over to our table and remind us not to talk about certain things. They sat at a table next to ours, usually working on paperwork, and listened intently as we quietly talked and ate our meals. Sometimes, we did not listen to them and it forced them to sit at our table for the remainder of dinner. We got a kick out of breaking the rules since there were a lot of restrictions. We were not allowed to drink coffee with our dinner, yet some of the coffee drinkers would try to sneak in a cup. They were always caught, but the fun of it was trying to get away with something.
Normally, on my birthdays, my parents and I would go out to dinner to celebrate. While in treatment, I had to have my birthday dinner at the program. I was not excited about that but I hoped that there would be cake for dessert, at least. To my surprise, the fridge was stocked with chocolate cake on my birthday. Since we were required to have a sweet dessert at each dinner, I grabbed the cake and informed everyone, “This is for my birthday!” A few others challenged themselves and took a piece of cake as well. We were all worried about the calories in the cake but since we were eating it as a group, we could support each other through the process.
By the time I finished my dinner, I was not too hungry for dessert, but I knew that I needed to find the strength to eat it. We were required to eat everything we chose or we would be written up for non-compliance. I stared at the mound of chocolate cake and for a minute got caught up in my eating disorder thoughts. I wondered how many calories were in it. I worried about the fat content. I was convinced that the slice was bigger than a normal slice and that the cafeteria food was fixed to make us gain weight.
Eventually, I calmed myself down enough that I had 15 minutes to eat it before we had to leave.
Since we were in a hospital, we were not allowed to have candles. Danielle came up with the genius idea of placing rolled up paper into the cake, representing candles. We used our imaginations to picture a few lit candles atop my chocolate frosting and they all wished me a happy birthday. Still stuck in our imaginary world, I playfully blew out the “candles” and thanked everyone.
Even though I was not at a restaurant of my choosing or celebrating my birthday with my real family, I was celebrating with my treatment family. They supported me and cheered me on as I finished the last bite of the chocolate sponge, and instead of feeling guilty about eating the dessert, I felt proud. I accomplished something that I would not have been able to do on my own just a few months before.
16
Stepping Back into Life
It took a few months until I was stable enough to be discharged from the program. I did not expect my stay to be so long and I was excited to be leaving treatment. Since I was required to go to the hospital four times per week for four hours per day, I did not have much free time outside of the program. The therapy groups and worksheets that I worked on throughout the months had given me enough confidence in order to make improvements, at least enough improvements for me to be signed out. Even though I was excited to be le
aving, I was also excited that I would not have a strict watch over my food intake or my weight. I could go back to controlling it, as long as it did not become too obsessive again.
I had acquired a thick binder filled with various handouts I received throughout the weeks. Many were aimed at building self-esteem, working through anger, boundaries with others, and how to deal with emotions by using healthy coping skills. If I was having a rough time and having any doubt, the papers would be there to guide me along the way. The binder was my emergency kit if I ever needed any support.
I also had created a wide array of artwork during my time in art therapy. One of my favorite projects was a mask I created out of plaster material, the kind of material that was used to form casts for broken bones. On the outside was my face, the face I showed the world, the face that smiled and did not look like anything was wrong. On the inside was how I really felt, bright red in color with intense words describing my true emotions. It was a powerful piece of artwork and it reminded me how of I presented myself to everyone else.
The projects collected in my art folder held an incredible amount of emotions, from depressed, to anxious, to excited, to everything in between. It was everything that I had held inside my body. It was an expression of me and my voice, of what I was holding back because of the fear. I could not leave the folder in the art room anymore. My artwork, along with every expression, had to be taken home with me.
On my last day, I was asked to speak in front of the group to provide some insight for the other patients, and to give them encouragement. I looked around and noticed each person's face. Some patients had been there with me for my entire stay and others had just been admitted to the program and were only beginning their journey. Some others had left well before me or were kicked out because of insurance company policies. I saw in all of them a glimpse of hope and sadness. We were all there for the same reasons but no one ever said the process would be easy.
Restricted: A novel of half-truths Page 10
