A woman I loved (continued from where I left off)

Okay, as I was saying (I am finally home)…Whole Foods Market.  This is an expensive store.  Kind of a fake health-foody supermarket for upscale people.   Very trendy.  I suspect they sell a lot of…you got it…yeah…bottled water.  Packaged untested water from god-knows-where that tastes weird.  Half the people that drink it don’t even recycle the plastic bottles, mind you.  These bottles sit at the dump forever.  Yes, forever.  Okay, enough about that.  I don’t know as a fact that WFM sells bottled water anymore.  Maybe they’ve caught on that Coca-Cola and all that big business that thought they could rip people off charging more for water than they do for Coke were doing us all a disservice.  Okay, anyway….I was thinking Whole Foods Market and where these stores are located.  I’ll bet there ain’t any in places like Mattapan, Dorchester, Southie…I’ll bet Brockton doesn’t have one either.

Then I got to thinking about Brockton.  I don’t happen to recall if I’ve ever been there.  It’s a city outside of Boston, an area of its own.  I don’t know much about it.  I could be entirely wrong, but I’ve heard there’s a lot of poverty there, or at least that there are pockets of Brockton that are impoverished and places where there are a lot of drugs and prostitution.

So this was my thought process, just as I was leaving the house on my way to Boston to run an errand.  I was wondering what it was like to be a teen living in Brockton.  I figured it was a tough place to grow up.  I wondered what it was like being a teen in a really poor neighborhood in Brockton, or living in the “projects.”  I wondered what it was like if both your parents were hooked on heroin or really bad drugs and were out cold all the time.  I wondered what it would be like to find your parent real bad off, and have to call 911.  As I lifted my backpack to my back, I remembered that when I was a young teen, I was able to carry both brothers on my back simultaneously, the smaller one on my shoulders, and the middle child on my back.  This is why to this day I am able to carry heavy backpacks.  I pride myself in this.  I carried both brothers literally and metaphorically.  I am guessing that any teen with absentee parents, (absentee either literally or in their hearts), would have to raise his or her siblings and take on the role of parent.

But to be a teen in Brockton, or anywhere…being a teen is hard no matter where you are.  It might be tough in Brockton, but then again, there might be a way out for those kids.  Cuz all it takes is one adult in a kid’s life, one special adult that listens and cares.  This adult is more important than where you live, how much money you have, or anything.  When this thought came into my head, I started crying.  I stood by the computer with my backpack half-slung over my shoulder, and wept.

I did have someone like that in my life.  She wasn’t really an adult, not yet.  She was in my life f0r a very, very short time, but she was there.  I wrote about her in my book.  I believe that I first introduce her in my chapter, “Locker #47.”  I call her “Maria,” which is a pseudonym.  Before I met her, I had no clue what human closeness was.  I thought you had to keep all your thoughts, everything, to yourself.  I thought that humans were bad people who did nothing but tease me or dominate me and kick me around.  I always had to watch out for myself and be careful not to say something that would get me teased yet another time.

She was my camp counselor.  She was only eighteen years old, about to go off to college.  I was twelve, and had just finished what had turned out to be a nightmare for me: seventh grade, that is, my first year of our two-year junior high school.  Is twelve too young to fall in love?

I couldn’t get enough of her.  When I was with her, it felt like nothing else mattered, only that I was sitting beside her and I wanted to soak up all my emotions, everything I felt right then and let them surround me and bathe me, because what I felt in my heart for her was sweet and tender beyond what I had ever felt before.  Even if the sun had set, I felt that it was upon me, keeping me warm from the other side of the earth.  Maria!  Maria!  I could summon her up at any time, when I was walking to dinner, or singing at the lake with the guitars at sunset, even naked in the shower with the water, not quite warm enough, thoughts and images of her were always in my heart.

But summer ended.  She went to college and I went to eighth grade and my parents.  I didn’t hear from her much.  Long distance phone calls were very expensive, so we had to send letters instead.  I kept these letters secret from everyone, and I still have every single one of them.  They came so rarely. High school was a very hard time for me, but I survived, and escaped, and ran off to college.

We kept touch for a number of years, and I’ve seen her on occasion.  Sometimes it’s been okay, sometimes it’s been a little strange.

Sometimes she lived in the city and sometimes she lived in the country.  Once, I went to see her in the city.  I don’t know exactly, but what I recall is that there was something, this drive in me…I needed to run out of the car and into her place to see her.  I didn’t lock up or bring everything in.  I had to see her right away.  There was this urgency.  She was at the window and I saw her, too.  I ran up the stairs and inside and she was there and we embraced and we were together and this was all that mattered.

We spent a long time together, lying there.   It had been dark out for hours.  Eventually, I went back outside to get the rest of my stuff.  It had been stolen out of the car.  We reported it, but it never got recovered.  Just an old, chewed-up pair of hiking boots and a vest inside a knapsack, that was all.  I guess I was lucky.  I guess I was the luckiest person in the world.

I don’t know how many years it’s been.  Ages.  Like, twenty years, maybe?  Has it been that long since I’ve heard from her, since her last letter?  More?  Dang!

What is she doing now?  Does she know I’m alive?  Does she ever think about me?  Where does she live?  Google, Facebook…how can I find her?

This afternoon, while I was walking to the bus, I was thinking that I must, must get in touch with this woman, that I was desperate to do so, to at least say hello or something.

Maybe she has already Googled me, and thinks I’m really weird.  Dunno.

Just have to find her.

Hermit Life

I can’t tell you how long it’s been that I’ve been holed up here at home, simply because I don’t want anyone to see my body.  I take the dog out and that’s it. I wear a gigantic down coat that covers everything from head to toe.  I don’t use the belt, just leave the coat as bulky and loose as possible.  It has a flap that I used to think was useless until I found that I can zip it up and flip it upwards to cover half my face, actually up to my eyes, and then I put a hat on down to my eyebrows.  I put on a pair of legwarmers to cover my bulging ankles (from edema).  I take Puzzle out, then we come in and that’s that.  Often, I keep the coat on indoors as well, cuz I’m scared some maintenance guy will show up at the door and barge in.  I’ve told you how those guys are.  I always feel better on weekends and off-hours.  I feel freer.  I can do whatever the heck I want and no one will bug me.  But I don’t get weekends off from being trapped in body dysmorphia.

When I showed up for therapy not last time, but the time before, with my face covered entirely in a scarf, and wouldn’t take it off for the entire session, my T looked so sad.  The corners of her mouth even turned down into a frown when I talked about how I felt about the chubbiness in my face.  I called this morning and told her I can’t bear to come in looking like this.  I can’t go on a bus today.  I can’t go into Boston today.  I told her I can’t bear the idea of her remembering me as a fat person.  I want her to remember me skinny.  When I was skinny, I went out all the time and didn’t worry about hiding my figure and didn’t change my clothes a zillion times because I was worried about covering up certain fat body parts.  I just threw on any ole thing.  The thing that concerned me most when I was skinny was what really should concern a person when they dress, in my opinion: the weather.

So I called my T.  She happened to pick up the phone.  I told her how I felt.  Like, crappy. She is so nice.  We rescheduled for tomorrow.

She said, “We have a lot to talk about.”  I wonder what that is.  I really don’t want any kind of pep talk concerning how good it is that I gained weight and how I’m still on the low side and have edema and how I should go have my weight checked, blah blah blah…Hmm…Maybe I shouldn’t show up if it’s going to be like that.  Another one of her lectures.

There is nothing more shameful than these “weekly weight checks.”  Trust me, nothing.  I am an adult now so leave me alone.

I wonder if she’s talked to anyone.  Like whom?  I wonder.  Maybe she’s plotted and schemed something to keep me in the system.  Day treatment or some other waste of time.  She’s definitely been talking to people.  Dang.

I need to go back to bed and wake up skinny again like I was before.  That will solve everything.  Everyone just bug off.

Human beings are two-faced liars

4am.  Pounding headache.  Half a painkiller tablet from a tooth extraction a year ago.  I gulp it down with a mugful of water. These interact with my antidepressant and make me sleepy.  Too sleepy.  This is so wonderful.  I must use these pills sparingly.  I don’t have many.  I will be asleep for at least three more hours.

If life isn’t going to be fun…if life is actually going to be nothing but hell…I might as well spend all my time sleeping, anyway.  Just stay in bed.

8:30 I am awake, and still despise humans like I did yesterday and every day since god knows when.

I fight and fight, but the people who are supposed to be behind me and encouraging me and supporting me, like my T, I don’t know…I don’t know what to think.  I told her all this stuff when I went in to see her yesterday, like about my ambitions, and how much better I was doing, but I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face, again and again by her and everyone else who is supposedly “treating” me.  They just put me down in every way they can.

Yesterday, she said if I starved myself one more time, she would put me in the state hospital.  One hell of a lot of sense that makes.  State hospital?  Great place to rot for the rest of my life.  I will rot at home, thank you.

No point in seeing my primary care doctor today.  She will only make me feel miserable.  She wants me in the state hospital, too.

If someone makes you a promise, if will be broken.

“I love you” is conditional.

“I want to get to know you” means “I want something from you” or “I want to control you or take over your life.”

“I will never leave you” is an outright lie.

Whatever a person says to your face, assume they are saying something quite different about you to another person behind your back.

Friendship is a scam.  Most of it is cheaply made and falls apart after brief use.  Don’t fall for this rip-off.

I have been in disguise.  Wearing everything I can to hide my body.  Scarves wrapped around most of my face, the bulkiest layers I can find.  This is the only way I can walk out my apartment door and feel okay.  Even answering the door or going to put out the trash.

People stare and laugh at me and I really don’t care.  There is no dress code in this country.   I sat on the bus and listened to people laugh and joke that I looked like a bank robber.  They didn’t realize I could hear them.

 

 

 

 

Happy 2012

I keep the landline and two aspirin by my bed at night.  A lot of people do that.  I go to bed not knowing and I’ve gone to bed not knowing every night this month just about.  I wake up lucky.  It’s not likely I’ll use the landline after the last experience I had with 911.

I had the session with my T.  I was completely out of my head.  I haven’t a clue what was wrong with me but whatever it was, I struggled to appear “normal” and I guess I pulled it off well enough to get in there, talk a while, and go home again but it was scary in the subway station.  Many people were staring at me and I was aware that I must have looked odd, probably psychotic or on drugs or something, but I couldn’t stop it because I was so scared standing there waiting for the train.  I don’t remember the session with my T too well, not what we talked about.  I remember telling myself the whole time to try my best to look and act normal so she wouldn’t guess anything was wrong.  I wasn’t okay again until late in the night last night, long after I’d gotten home.

Today I slept all day.  I will return to sleep shortly.  I am tired.

My request to anyone who rides a bus

This means you:

IF YOU ARE OCCUPYING A SEAT ON THE BUS, ESPECIALLY IN ONE OF THE FRONT ROWS, AND AN ELDERLY, PHYSICALLY DISABLED, OR BLIND PERSON ENTERS THE BUS, AND YOU ARE NOT YOURSELF ELDERLY, PHYSICALLY DISABLED, OR BLIND, I BEG OF YOU:

GET UP AND OFFER THIS PERSON YOUR SEAT.  DO IT NOW.

THIS WOULD INCLUDE OFFERING YOUR SEAT TO SOMEONE WHO IS CLEARLY HAVING DIFFICULTY STANDING ON THE BUS.  USE COMMON SENSE.

DON’T JUST SIT THERE PRETENDING YOU DON’T SEE THIS PERSON WHO OBVIOUSLY NEEDS YOUR SEAT MORE THAN YOU DO.

THERE ARE NO RESERVED SEATS.  I REPEAT: NO RESERVED SEATS.  YOU HAVE NO HOSEY ON YOUR SEAT.

JUST GET UP AND DO IT.

THIS DOES NOT GUARANTEE YOU A PLACE IN HEAVEN.  THIS DOES NOT EVEN GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL HAVE A GOOD DAY OR FEEL GOOD ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE.  THIS DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT THE PERSON WILL THANK YOU OR APPRECIATE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE FOR THEM, BUT PROBABLY THEY WILL, BECAUSE SO OFTEN PEOPLE WHO HAVE DIFFICULTY STANDING ON BUSES END UP NOT GETTING A SEAT BECAUSE OF THE INCONSIDERATENESS OF FELLOW PASSENGERS.

DON’T BE ONE OF THOSE INCONSIDERATE FELLOW PASSENGERS.

FROM NOW ON, DO IT AUTOMATICALLY.  YOU ARE NOT DOING THIS BECAUSE IT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH FAIRNESS.  IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO TREAT OTHERS WITH RESPECT.  FOR A PERSON WHO NEEDS YOUR SEAT, IT IS NOT A PRIVILEGE TO SIT BUT A RIGHT.

ENJOY YOUR BUS RIDE.  MAY YOU REACH YOUR DESTINATION SAFELY.

MBTA #71…wire problem as of 10:10am October 20, 2011 and how this relates to anorexia nervosa

I take that back.

I hate my anorexia nervosa.  There are certain things about it that I want to hold onto, too.  Do you think this means that there is something intrinsically “wrong” or “immoral” or “selfish” or “vain” about me?

When I started this insanity back in 1980, I had not once seen, I mean SEEN, a fashion magazine.

To this day, I have never read an article in a fashion magazine.  Yes, I have seen the covers when I have gone through the checkouts at the supermarket.

Boy, have I ever.

Now, that’s insanity.

You can get MBTA “alerts” about bus, subway, elevator service, etc sent to your cell phone, and how this relates to how I’m feeling today

Go to the mbta.com site, “rider tools” section and you’ll see the feature you can sign up for.  You can get these notifications–which have been refined according to rider requests–sent to your cell phone or pager, etc and/or your e-mail.  It’s not difficult to sign up.  I signed up for the  #70/70A routes and the #71 (these two routes I mentioned to you in previous posts as they come out of Watertown and were affected by the power line disaster in the square October 18).  I take these buses frequently, and it will be nice to know ahead of time if there are delays on either one.  This will influence my decision as to which route I’ll take to get to therapy.  I can take either.

Today, indeed, I am going to therapy.  But I have received no alerts.  This means smooth sailing on both routes, and I am free to choose either according to my whim.

Today is smooth sailing in my life as well.  Puzzle has gone to the vet and her sore will be okay.  She is taking two pills for it and the situation will be solved.  She is not in pain and she no longer finds the area irritating to her.  I am not pleased about the increased credit card balance due to the vet bill, though, but I am not going to worry about it.  So many people are a lot worse off than I am.  I have a roof over my head, after all, clothes to wear, and a dog.

In DBT, which stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, there is discussion of intense emotions.  Some people cannot handle intense emotions and they cope poorly with them by doing destructive things.  They react angrily, or do cutting, or their eating is affected adversely, or they lash out at others, or they gamble, or abuse substances, or otherwise make themselves miserable…a host of destructive reactions…instead of just letting the emotion go.  DBT teaches you how to cope properly with intense emotions.

My therapist and I are going through a DBT workbook right now.  I have mixed feelings about doing this workbook.  I sort of can’t relate to it. I have been looking back over recent times that I have felt intense emotions, and just about every time, I handled these emotions well.  I turned my feelings into constructive action.

It’s not what you think.  Let me explain.  Most the time when I felt angry, I did writing.   I poured my emotions out onto paper or keyboard.  When I felt intense positive emotions recently about my experience at church–wow, this was very, very intensely positive…I was so incredibly moved–I came home and sat and wrote.  There were other incidents…I wrote.

This is not my only way to cope.  The other way is through my tears.  I cry easily.  It’s not a bad thing, especially since about 75% of my tears are happy tears.

My eating disorder…emotions, or thoughts?  I told my therapist, not in our last session but a few sessions ago, that I think I do destructive ED behaviors, restricting and bingeing, because of very, very skewed thinking.  I cannot seem to stop these thoughts, cannot get them out of my head.  Thoughts are not the same as emotions.  These thoughts repeat themselves, not over and over like broken records, but enough to not make sense.  These thoughts are illogical to begin with and anorexia nervosa and eating disorders in general are incredibly illogical.  I learned at the hospital that alcoholism is also illogical.

As a person who has had anorexia on and off for many years, these thoughts have been stuck in my head just about the whole time for 31 years.  I must learn to cope with them and try to keep them from influencing my behavior.

Emotionally and mood-wise today, I feel smooth and okay.  No alerts.  I rolled out of bed on the correct okay side.  I have been operating efficiently.  I have been sleeping better lately….finally.  I worked on my Nano outline this morning.  I’m even thinking about names for my protagonist (these I’m still not willing to reveal).  I made an apology to someone for being inconsiderate and selfish.  It had been weighing on my mind that I had acted inappropriately.  It feels like I am–in a way–cleaning out my mental Inbox.  If only I’d clean out my e-mail Inbox!  It’s still got some stuff in it from September’s hospitalization that needs to be deleted.  I need to catch up on my life.

I have a lot of catching up to do, a lot of thinking.  I plan to do that today, alerts or not.  I need to pack my stuff for therapy, and I’ll be sure to remember my cell phone, just in case.

Head of the Charles Regatta to affect bus routes #1, #47, #57, #64, #69, and #70 this weekend according to MBTA

Route 1, 47,57,64,69 & 70 may experience significant delays due to
Head of The Charles Regatta

The Charles River signifies many things to folks here in Boston.  It is the path to the Atlantic Ocean.  For me, it has at times symbolized freedom and at times symbolized something less than freedom.  The Charles gets tangled up in towns and suburbs and in my memory along the way to the Atlantic.  I see the Charles nearly every day.  I cross it frequently on foot.  Sometimes, it is a very peaceful, contemplative river, but at other times, it swallows everything.

Delays today on the buses I often take in Watertown, the #70 (20 minutes) and #71

There is a disabled trackless trolley on the #71 route that I think is also holding up the #73 route and causing delays today.

The delays on the #70 route are due to traffic.

So saith the MBTA site.

I do not plan to travel on the buses today.  My original plan had been to go see Dr. K, my primary care physician, for my usual weekly check-up (I have anorexia nervosa and this is necessary) but I’ve had to move the appointment to Friday because Puzzle, my dog, has a bit of an emergency and needs to go to the vet.  She has a sore on her butt.  She’s been picking at it.  The groomer noticed it yesterday and pointed it out to me.  It’s much worse today than it was yesterday.  I kept her stool sample and will give it to the vet, though I don’t know if they’ll need it.

If I’d gone to see Dr. K, I would have taken the #73 and #71 buses, and stopped at the Star Market, where the two buses intersect, on the way home, to pick up a few things.  I also would have stopped at the CVS in Watertown Square, and then walked home from there.  In Watertown Square, I would have had a nice view of the site of yesterday’s calamity with the downed wires.

The last time I was at the vet’s with Puzzle, I weighed 80 pounds.   I wanted to make sure she got her necessary shots done before I died of starvation.  I wanted her taken care of.

She won’t need more shots until next July.

Today’s appointment will bring back some stuff.

Gotta run.  It’s time to get ready to go.  Wish Puzzle the best of health, everyone.

My second full day after leaving inpatient eating disorders treatment

Now, it feels like it was all a dream, being there.  I am back home and life is about the same, but oh so different.  The experience was so contained, like none of the actual events and people on the ward spilled out onto my present life.  But the memories, and what I learned, and the ways in which I was transformed and how I grew will stay with me even though I am no longer there.

My room was right across from the nurses’ station, Room 512.  I could stand in my doorway and not leave the room, and still catch the attention of the staff sitting at the desk. This was a comfort to me.  At the same time, the staff could keep a good watch on me, just by turning their heads.  If I didn’t want to deal with them, I just closed the door, but that didn’t work too well, because the door had a huge window in it for them to see through.  I got used to it.  Folks like me who spend lots of time in psych wards get accustomed to being watched an checked on all the time, and being asked the question, “Do you feel like hurting yourself or anyone else?”

I brushed my teeth about ten times a day while I was there, probably more.  I called it my “coping skill.”  They talked about coping skills a lot there.  I was supposed to learn new coping skills besides starving myself.

When I first got there, they gave me a notebook.  They told me to write in it.  I wrote all the time in the notebook they gave me.  I was known among the other patients as being a person who was constantly writing.  I admit, I frequently shooed people away if I was in the middle of a sentence or a thought.  The notebook had 100 pages in it.  I wrote on both sides of the page, and filled a notebook and a half.  That’s 300 pages.  A number of times, staff people told me I relied on my writing a little too much, and that perhaps I should spend more time interacting with other people.  I brought the notebooks home with me and I still write in the second one, the one that was half full.  Mostly, I write down what I have eaten and what I plan to eat, and what foods I need to purchase to make my meals.  Food is very complicated.  I guess it’s turned into kind of a food journal.  Or maybe I should call it a “food journey” at this point.  My therapists have always wanted me to write down my food.  I do it now because I find it fascinating.  I refuse to slap together the same sandwich day after day, or dump the same breakfast cereal into a bowl, turn on the TV, and watch the morning news while slurping down breakfast.

Right now, I’m sitting at my desk typing away, with a cup of herbal tea beside me, Celestial Seasonings Roastaroma.  Roastaroma and I go back a long, long way.  I was introduced to Roastaroma before I was introduced to dieting, back in the days when I really didn’t give a shit what my body size was, when the “Freshmen 10″ meant 10 first-year fools, not 10 bits of flesh.  I was introduced to Roastaroma around the same time that I was introduced to the bong, my favorite Joni Mitchell album, and all the goings-on at UMass/Amherst in 1975.  I didn’t develop my eating disorder until 1980.  That’s five years of Roastaroma when I dared to put honey into it without worrying about calories.

Calories.  What are they?  Units of heat, I’m told.  Mention “calories” and you see people act like children when you tell them about really bad swear word…the more calories, the worse the swear word, the more forbidden, and the more enticing.

When I was growing up, my parents had a copy of Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint lying around.  I don’t know if this is true, but we kids believed that there were a couple of pages in there that were truly filthy.  Naturally, we knew just how to find these pages in the book (when no adult was looking, of course) and read them to each other, awed by the profundities splattered on those two pages.  After a while, the book opened to  those pages automatically whenever we lifted it from the shelf.  Of course, we thought we were doing so in secret….

That which is forbidden is often more coveted than that which is allowed.  For the patients on the ward, the things that weren’t allowed were like gold.  Since this psychiatric ward is closely linked to the eating disorders ward “across the hall,” many things that are allowed on most psych wards weren’t allowed on this one, such as soft drinks, candy, gum, magazines, tank tops or short shorts…and the food was always, always, always kept locked up.  If a patient pocketed food, they got caught at it.  They were very strict about this.  At the eating disorders unit, patients aren’t allowed to wear anything with pockets to meals.  They can’t even wear hats  or hoods to meals.  Once, I put my pencils into my pocket, and I was told to show the staff person what I had pocketed, just to make sure I wasn’t taking anything off my tray.  Food became a coveted item among patients.  You didn’t have to be a hearty eater to want more.

Patients wanted more of a lot of things.  Mostly, they wanted more freedom. For many, it was a huge challenge to be on the ward and not be able to smoke for the entire time.  This puts a smoker under an incredible amount of stress.  I met a number of patients who wanted to transfer to other inpatient facilities–there are a slim few left–that allow smoking.  Others were bothered that they were in a “locked” facility and didn’t understand why the facility had to be “locked.”  I keep wondering the same thing myself sometimes.  I guess it’s for the sake of the minority of patients that need it.  The same goes for the bans on dental floss, shoelaces, pens (but not pencils), spiral-bound anything, and razors (well, duh).  If you wanted to be the exception to the rule, you had to get a doctor’s order for it.

There was this thing called “ED Protocol.”  In a nutshell–oh, I could go on and on, but I won’t right now because it’ll take all night–ED Protocol sucks.  Like the whole “one hour rule.”  I had to be out of my room for an hour after meals because it was a blanket rule for all the ED patients.  I don’t think for the entire time I was there I was able to get them to understand that I do not throw up.  I was kind of insulted that they didn’t believe me.  Actually, they didn’t ask me even.  They just assumed.

Don’t assume.  There are people of all sizes and shapes out there.  You do not know what is happening it their heads.  You can’t look at their bodies and measure their pain based on body size.  You don’t know the depth of the starvation in their hearts based on anything you see on the outside.

When I’m waiting for the bus, there’s this sign at some of the bus shelters that said, “Hunger is on this bus, too.”  Wow.  FELLOW PASSENGERS, BEWARE!  HUNGER IS IN OUR MIDST!

Hunger was on the bus, on the #71 bus, on September 1st, the day I took myself to the emergency room.  I was on the #71 bus on my way to therapy.  My stomach was far from empty and I was not hungry that way at all.  I was starving in the depths of my being.  In Watertown Square, at the CVS, I purchased a large package of Fig Newtons,which I gobbled up all the way to Harvard Square, right there in plain view of the other passengers.  I was the one who turned away from them, thinking that perhaps if I didn’t look at them, they’d be less likely to look at me.  I turned and looked out the window and saw nothing because my eyes were cold and numb.

At Harvard, we were all disembarking.  I hurriedly put the empty cookie package back into my knapsack and then walked forward to the rear door.   As I stepped off the bus, I stumbled and collapsed onto the concrete of the bus station. Luckily, I was able to get up quickly, and enter the subway station to get to my therapist’s office safely.

She was pissed at me.  Or shall I say, frustrated.  I was refusing all treatment.  I was refusing help.  I didn’t want to change.  I was engaging in more and more risky behavior. What was the statement I was trying to make? she asked.  Was I trying to stop her from going on vacation?  Or is this more like a huge Fuck You to the world?

Hunger is everywhere.  Hunger is on the bus.  Hunger is on the streets and in the projects and shelters and on the Boston Common every single day and night.  Hunger can be in a large or small family.  It can afflict an elderly person, and a person can be born into hunger.

I brought my hunger home with me from therapy.  I carried it carefully and didn’t fall off any more buses.  When I got home, I made some calls, one of them to my dog’s boarding place.  My mind was made up, and as soon as I brought my hunger to the ER and told them that my head was completely out of control, I felt one heck of a lot better.

I didn’t tell them half of it.  It didn’t matter though.  The other stuff came out after a while.  I had 26 days to talk about it all, to unwind the clutter in my mind, the insanity, the urge to starve, the urge toward gluttony.  The secrecy and the rituals of June and July that nearly killed me hadn’t stopped me, but now was the time to stop.

And I stopped.  I’m home now, dealing with the resulting practicalities and complications of that stuff called food–food, that I had pushed away from myself for so long–food, that was so forbidden that it was all the more enticing to me in my starved state.  Now, it fascinates me because of the sensations I get from it.  Everything is so new now.  I forgot how good food tastes.

I remember walking down the street with Puzzle in July of 2010, past a barbecue, and smelling the barbecue meat, which is one of the best food smells there is, unless you’re a vegetarian.  I began to salivate, and drool like a baby.  I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.  I could not stop the sudden outpouring of fluid.  Like tears.

When I got home from that walk, I knew I was at a really, really bad place with my starvation.  This year, it’s been 10 times worse.   I was going down, down by increments.  Let’s see just how much Julie can take before she can’t take any more.

And during my 26-day stay, I can truly say that I was supported every bit of the way, even as I realized that I could not go on in the capacity that I was in unless something gave.  I would either die or end up in a really bad place and there were no choices, no options, no way out of insanity.  It was the insanity of my eating disorder, and the insanity covered everything now.  The fog was so thick that I couldn’t have seen myself–as a fat person or thin–in any mirror at all, or seen more than a couple inches in front of me, a couple of seconds, not days or weeks…not even hours.

I didn’t see things in terms of “eat or die.”  If I had, the way out would have been much easier.  “Eat” is loaded with all sorts of other stuff.  That’s why it’s an eating disorder and not just “eat.”  I thought m brother’s theory of how to solve eating disorders wouldn’t work.  He says that all you have to do is “Cook food, then eat it.”

Or will it?

I am finding out that yes, it is that simple.  At least right now, anyway.  It’s a major challenge for me to do this.  A huge struggle.  I fight off the urge to throw in the towel, but the towel no longer matches what’s in the heap.  There’s no going back.  Yes, it is that simple, though, when you think about it.

I use this analogy all the time, and I’ll use it again: I’m on my own now with no training wheels to steady me.  This time, they took off the training wheels one at a time, just to make sure I’d be able to ride on my own okay.  We determined my discharge date a week before I actually left.  I had plenty of time to get ready for the big day.  And that was me, by the way, that you saw, kinda wobbly, but staying upright nonetheless, chasing the #71 bus all the way home.