Letting Ana Go (23 page)

Jack: I love you just the way you are. Doesn’t that count for anything?

All I could do was shrug. He shook his head and took a step backward.

Jack: I don’t understand how that doesn’t make everything better. I keep thinking if I love you hard enough, or well enough, that you’ll learn how to love yourself the way I do.

He turned to walk into the school building, then stopped and looked back.

Jack: I’m not giving up on you. Don’t you give up on me.

Weight:
121

When Dad started crying, something in me snapped.

Jack called Mom. Dr. Crane called Mom. Dr. Nash called Mom. Mom called Dad.

Mom found me organizing all the clothing in my closet by color at 2 a.m. this morning. She woke up to go to the bathroom and saw the light on in my room. She took one look and knew the obsessive-compulsive part of this was back in full swing.

Today when I got home from school, she and Dad were sitting in the living room. Dad had a pamphlet and a website pulled up on his iPad. It’s not the place Jill went to. That place is a gazillion dollars per day, but this place looks nice enough. It’s here in town and Dr. Crane recommended it. Our insurance will cover it for twenty-two days.

At first I told them no way. I told them I was doing just fine. Then Dad asked if he could see my phone. He pulled out my laptop. He clicked to the website Jill had shown me. He’d found it in the history. I’d just posted a screen shot last night from CalorTrack. It showed that I’d done a cardio routine twice and run three miles after I got home from group. It also showed I’d only eaten 1,200 calories—most of which I’d burned off from overexercise.

I opened my mouth to defend myself. I was going to yell at him for snooping on my computer. When I looked up at him, there were tears running down his face.

I’ve never seen my dad cry before. Even when he was here and miserable and leaving Mom. Even when his dad died when
I was in sixth grade. Something inside me decided not to fight him.

I check into Hope House the day after Christmas next week.

Weight:
119

Dad came over this morning to open presents with me. He and Mom have figured out how to be nice to each other for my sake, I guess. Dad made pancakes for us and made sure I ate one. I mainly cut it up in little pieces and scooted it around in the syrup until it fell apart.

He’s coming back tomorrow to help Mom take me to Hope House. Mom is visibly relieved that I’m going. She’s probably glad not to have to feel like she’s checking up on me every waking moment.

I woke up really early this morning and did my cardio routine twice. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. No matter how hard I tried, I knew I’d have to eat something really fattening today and if I didn’t want to lose my mind, I had to get a jump on the calories.

I tried to get excited about Christmas presents this morning. I put on my biggest smile and squealed at the appropriate times
when I opened my gifts. Dad went all out. I got a new iPad and a ton of gift certificates. Mom and Grandma went back to Bloomingdale’s and got a bunch of the clothes I’d tried on there. By anyone’s estimation, today was a success as far as loot goes, but the best thing I got was from Jack. He went with Susan and James to Arizona so they could spend Christmas with Jill, and then bring her back home in a couple of days. Mom usually crams my stocking full of lip balm and socks and candy. This morning, after I dumped out all of the usual stuff, I felt a heavy lump in the toe and pulled out a little blue box. It was a silver locket in the shape of a heart, and on the inside he’d engraved four words:

Just like you are.

I slipped it around my neck and for the first time I decided maybe I could face going to this treatment center. I logged on to the forum as weigh2go and there in the middle of all the posts about staying strong against Christmas candy and how not eating was the best gift you could give yourself, I wrote:

Going to get help tomorrow. I want to get better.

I clicked send, and as I did a new picture popped up at the top of the forum. It was posted under Jill’s username, and it was a snapshot of the two of us at the pool back in seventh grade. We were tan and covered in freckles. My hair was frizzy, and hers was
wet. We still had the round chubby cheeks of elementary school students, and we were laughing so hard our eyes were tiny slits. Neither one of us would have passed for “skinny” in this picture, but underneath it, Jill had typed a single word:

Beautiful.

Weight:
122

Getting moved in was sad and exhausting. I’m sharing a room with a girl named Patricia who keeps to herself. We talked for a little while last night, and she said she’s been here for a week. She’s a bulimic and says she can’t stop throwing up her meals. She’s having major dental problems because the constant stomach acid in her mouth has eaten the enamel off her teeth. She’s missing a tooth and the rest are a weird yellow color.

This morning we all had breakfast together. Everyone has to eat everything on their plate, no questions asked. My heart was racing as I shoveled in the eggs and oatmeal. I felt bloated by the time I stood up from the table. We all have chores assigned to us, and mine is to help wash dishes in the kitchen. I felt like a cow shuffling around the kitchen taking plates and glasses out of the dish dryer and putting them away.

After that I had my first appointment with my new therapist. It’s a woman this time. She told me to call her Sharon. I like her, but I miss Dr. Crane. I talked about him and it turns out Sharon knows him. When I asked her how, she smiled.

Sharon: I’m here to help girls like you who are struggling with anorexia because I struggled with it too. Dr. Crane saved my life.

Me: You were an anorexic?

Sharon: Still am. But I’ve been recovered for over ten years now.

This startled me.

Me: So . . . you mean . . . I’ll never get over this? I’ll have to deal with it for the rest of my life?

Sharon: Anorexia is a disease. You can keep it in remission if you do the right things, but there is no cure. There’s a line that you cross with any compulsive behavior. Once you cross that line, there’s no going back. If you work hard, you can recover, but you’ll always have to stay on your guard.

This scared me. I thought about the picture Jill had posted of us online a couple days ago. I wanted to go back. I wanted to have a rewind/erase button on the last year of my life. I wanted to never have crossed the line into this disease.

Me: How do I start?

Sharon: You start by using your
words
to tell me what’s
wrong. Right now you’re using your body. I’m going to ask you to use your
words
to tell me about what you’re feeling instead.

This made sense to me—it was like a lightbulb clicked on in my head. Dr. Crane and I had talked a lot about what I was feeling, but he’d never put it like this. Or maybe he had, and I just hadn’t heard him.

We talked for a long time during my session about what I was feeling about my dad, my mom, Jack, Jill, Vanessa. It wasn’t so much about food or eating or how I looked on the outside. It was a conversation about how I felt on the inside.

When time was up, Sharon smiled and told me I was doing great.

Sharon: Remember, not eating, starving yourself, overexercise, those things aren’t the problem. Those things are a
symptom
of the real problem. That’s what you’re here to figure out. What is the real problem? Once you know, we’ll find other ways for you to deal with it that don’t involve hurting yourself.

I had to come right back to my room to write that down. It sounded so exciting to hear her say it like that. When I was talking to Sharon I remembered back to a time when I wasn’t all worried about the way I looked around Jack or other boys. Even just last summer at the pool I wasn’t so focused on my weight. I think if I can find that place again, I’ll be able to beat this. Hearing Sharon lay out a plan for finding the real problem
made me feel so relieved. Like there’s hope—a light at the end of the tunnel.

For the first time tonight, I feel like maybe I can win.

Weight:
124

I got called into Sharon’s office this morning, and when I walked in, Mom was standing there. Turns out the insurance company reversed the preauthorization for my stay here at Hope House. Mom and Dad can’t afford to keep me here, even though it’s not as expensive as some of the other places.

Sharon and Mom and I had a session and talked about the issues I’ve been going over with Sharon every day in our individual sessions and sharing about on a group level. It was really hard to talk about how I blamed Mom for not staying slim enough and I blamed Dad for leaving. I could tell that it was killing Mom to take me out of this place, but on the way home, we talked about it, and I feel like I understand how my brain was tricking me into hurting myself.

Mom and I made a plan. I’m going back to the outpatient program with Dr. Crane and the group therapy meetings with Kim. I texted Kim as soon as I was in the car, and she called me and I told her what happened. Kim told me I could call her
anytime and that she’d see me at group on Thursday.

When Mom and I got home, we headed straight to my room. We threw out all of my old fashion magazines. I used to keep every issue neatly stacked under my bed, and I’d look at the pictures and obsess about how I wasn’t as skinny as the models. We hung sheets over the mirror in my room so I’m not tempted to obsess about how I look every time I walk past it.

Then Mom suggested we go get manicures, and on the way to our usual salon, she made a wrong turn.

Me: Where are we going?

Mom: Thought it would be fun for Jill to come with us.

I was nervous until I saw Jill. She was tan and smiling and had gained about twelve pounds while she was gone. She looked like a different person—one that I remembered from a long time ago.

She came running down the front walk, and I jumped out of the car and gave her a big hug. Jack wasn’t far behind her. Soon I was squeezed in his big arms.

Me: Thank you for the locket.

Jack: Every time you think about not eating, I want you to read that.

I smiled. Jill was already in the backseat.

Jill: I’m sorry, but that’s all the time we have for this episode
of canoodling on the driveway. Tune in next time when we’re back with beautiful nail enamel.

And just like that, everything seemed like it was going to be okay. Jack blew us a kiss as Mom pulled out of the driveway.

Weight:
126

I can’t believe how much fun school was today. It was like the old gang was back together. Jill and I have been hanging out all the time again, and last weekend, Geoff and Vanessa joined us for a movie. This time when Rob and Jack ordered concessions Jill got popcorn and I got a hot dog. We even made Jack share his Junior Mints. It’s sort of like I’ve been remembering myself—the old me who wasn’t obsessed with food.

I’ve been sharing about all of this in group, and Dr. Crane even asked me to tell everybody in my own words about what I’d learned with Sharon at Hope House. Kim had a big smile on her face as I talked about how my anorexia was a symptom, not the problem, and by the time I was done sharing, there were tears in her eyes—and mine.

Sharon told me before I left Hope House that it was a good
thing to journal whenever I had feelings come up—especially hard ones—but that she wanted to make sure I wasn’t tracking my weight or my food too obsessively, so I think this might be my last entry for a while. I’m still going to go to group, and I’m still going to be seeing Dr. Crane, but as I think about everything this food diary was supposed to be in the beginning and what it became later, it seems like a good idea to take a break. Writing in this journal has been all about calories and weight and food and restriction.

I feel like I’m walking into a new chapter of my life now—one that isn’t restricted at all. It’s a place where I feel free to love myself exactly the way I am.

Weight:
126

So much for not keeping track anymore.

Misty Jenkins stopped by our lunch table at school today. She took one look at Jill, sitting there all tan and happy, and couldn’t stop herself.

Misty: Hey, Jill! Wow! You look so . . . tan.

It sounded nice, but it wasn’t. The word “tan” was delivered instead of the word “heavy,” which is what Misty was thinking.

Jack: Hey, twinkle toes. Get lost.

Rob: Yeah, don’t you have some fairies to wrangle or sugarplums to eat or something?

Misty’s smile was sickly sweet.

Misty: You guys are so funny. No fairies this spring. Just swans. Didn’t Jill tell you we’re doing
Swan Lake
?

Vanessa didn’t get what was happening and took the bait.

Vanessa: No! Really? Oh, that’s so exciting! I love that ballet.

Misty: Glad your ankle is better, Jill. Too bad about everything else. You’re way too heavy to be a lead now.

Jack jumped up so fast his chair skidded into the wall of the cafeteria.

Jack: Get out of here. Now.

Misty smirked and glanced down at me.

Misty: Sure thing, Jack. If you ever get tired of being seen with that little scarecrow girl, give me a call.

I thought I would throw up. I left everything on the table, grabbed my purse, and ran into the bathroom. I locked a stall door and sat there crying.

When I got home tonight, I took the sheet off the mirror, got undressed, and really looked at myself in the mirror for the first time in several weeks. What I saw horrified me.

Misty is right: I
am
a scarecrow girl. My hair is like straw,
and my body looks stuffed and ragged. I have lumpy curves in all the wrong places. Why has everyone been lying to me? Maybe Misty is mean, but at least she’s telling the truth.