There is an interesting phenomenon I (Olivia) noticed that involves the basic trust of others (deserved or not) when to believe that something more sinister is happening is the alternative. This was the scenario that ensued after my first (
two in the same 24 hour period) hospitalizations due to an overdose of my perscription medication, combined with excessive alcohol intake and a lack of food.
It was easy to avoid talking about what happened because in reality, no one really wanted to believe that someone they cared about was struggling so desperately that they would take such drastic measures. This early in my struggle with disclosing my disease, I was able to continue with my life as it was, with painful confliction about coming clean so I could start to heal, and the desire to stay tucked under the safety of Olivia's promises to deliver the comfort and confidence I sought, if only I remained complicit with her in my effort to take up less space, to become small in stature, thereby achieving heavy-weight respect and admiration from others.
There was also the promise that by depriving myself of nourishment and thus, a physical appearance that would attract the desires of men, that I would now be safe. I would be protected from the pain that comes from succumbing to coercive advances from men with abhorrent motives.
So I continued to work in a job that fueled my self-loathing for being a bad mother, recalling that once, I was the mom who was home with all of the kids on a snow-day, making cookies and precious memories, and now I was constantly apologizing to my daughter for missing most of her soccer games and to my oldest daughter for not being able to drive the 5 hour round trip for a long-overdue visit, because of a job that I chose for its ability to afford me the means to be financially independent from another person.
This job required the comittment and work-hours that a young, childless, single person would struggle with. I was trying to maintain my position as successor to the owner of the firm, involved, single mother, caring partner and serious CPA student, all at the expense of my health and well-being.
Olivia thrived.
My daily schedule involved little or no food, purging whatever was eaten, excessive, multiple, daily workouts, early morning and late evening studying and 14 hour study sessions on both Saturdays and Sundays, in order to get it all done. Perfectly.
I was not present for anything that was happening in my life. Yet I hid behind a comforting and shielding veneer of happiness and contentment, barricading interference by my caring and concerned friends and family.
By design.
It was all too painful because I couldn't do any of it well. The more this became my reality, the more Olivia would lord it over me that I was weak (eating too many carrots or too large a serving of non-fat yogurt), that I was lazy, (running only 6 miles in the morning...compelling me to run another 6 in the evening), that I was a failure at school (because I earned an A- on a test instead of a perfect A+), that I was a terrible mother because Summer had to get a ride home from someone else when I was working late, that I was not enough in my relationship so that my partner would seek out the comfort of another.
"You are weak...you are not worthy of all that you have in your life...you do not deserve this good work, you do not deserve this partner, you are a terrible mother when you miss the first half of a game or you spend each weekend studying rather than playing soccer with or visiting your daughters."
Every single minute of every single day, Olivia was there to take away anything that was good in my life, convincing me that I didn't deserve it, that I wasn't worthy of the love of my daughters or my partner. That she knew what was best for me. If only I would do as she demanded.
"
Restrict more. Exercise more. Lose more. Disappear. They are all better off without you."
So as everyone returned to their normal, everyday lives and the events of a few short months before became a part of the backdrop, I was spiraling quickly out of control, breaking all of my "rules" that once afforded me some small semblances of normalcy.
I was purging at work, risking getting caught as clients could walk through the doors unannounced at any moment.
Worse, I would stuff my daily lot of carrots and hummus in wildly, when I couldn't stand the hunger any longer, in the 10 minutes that my co-worker would go on the mail errand, so I could purge it before she returned, and get a set of push-ups in if I was lucky and she had extra duties to fulfill.
I was drinking again, convincing my partner that it was safe for me to drink if I was with him, because he would be able to help if I needed it (he still didn't realize or understand at that time, that the drinking wasn't the problem, that the fact I had not been eating anything all day before drinking, and that my body weight was dipping dangerously and that Olivia had a firmer grip of my reality than I did were the real issues).
I was desperate to change what was happening in my life. I actually tried to do so at one point on my own.
I confronted my boss, explaining that I was falling asleep in the mornings while driving to work on a regular basis. That I was making mistakes on tax returns that I easily would have been able to catch if I was more rested (which was actually more related to the fogginess of being malnourished at that point). I asked if we could please reduce the pace at which I was working while trying to complete the battery of coursework I needed before I could sit for the first part of the CPA exam, which was looming near.
I left that meeting somehow, with an accelerated schedule for completion, more rigorous and impossible than what I had before.
"
How dare you ask for a slower pace in the schedule. You are such a failure! Your boss now knows that you are weak and that you can't keep up the pace. Now he knows that you are a failure too. Agree to his schedule! Tell him that you can do the work and that you will double up on the exams you are preparing for and take two at a time instead of just one. If you don't, he is going to fire you and you will never be successful! He will know that you aren't perfect and you will never be able to purchase the firm and provide for your family what they deserve."
And that is exactly what happened. Now I was studying for two exams of the four that comprise the CPA exam, while working full-time (plus) and trying to fit all of the other commitments into my life that I had, while trying to do the one thing that brought me the most joy in life, being a good mom.
(As a side note, the national average for passing each individual part of the CPA exam is somewhere around 43%-52% depending on the exam. You can take the exams as often as you like. That pass rate is true for all attempts. And I was being encouraged to take two of them at the same time.)
It was with all of this brewing inside of me, being suppressed with the facade of a smile and lies that I had it all under control, that led me to once again, try and make it stop, to give it to someone else to help handle it all (without telling them).
It was November and I was spending the evening with my partner as we were due to attend an early Thanksgiving celebration with his family, before his parents moved to Florida for the Winter.
I cannot to this day, recall what precipitated the events that follow, other than the previous four and a half years of living with my eating disorder in silence, the mounting pressure by my employer to move faster towards our goal of my taking over the firm, unresolved issues between my partner and me, and my complete deterioration of health and well-being which included lower and lower body weight, hazy-at-best mental capacity and the insatiable pounding in my head by Olivia to become numb to it all, whatever the cost.
This night, I convinced my partner that I could drink wine with him because he was there with me and I would be safe. What he didn't know is that I was still harboring questions and uncertainty about our relationship (some based on actual circumstances, some stemming from Olivia's continual campaign to rid my life of anything good in my life). What he didn't know is that I wasn't just sipping wine like we normally did. Each time he left the room, I was commanded by Olivia to "
numb the pain...make it stop...we can't handle this...drink more...drink fast..." So I did. Downing one or two glasses of wine in the time it took for him to return.
Eventually, as often would happen before my partner fully understood all the aforementioned forces behind the scenes that colluded to bring me emotionally to my knees and unable to cope with even the simplest of adversities, I began to succumb to Olivia's forceful voice.
They were her words that began to flow from my own mouth. Overcoming me like a solar eclipse, I didn't exist any longer in those moments.
Olivia had command and since my partner still cared for me, he was public enemy number one and regrettably, took the brunt of her assaults.
I don't recall the words, or the circumstances of this particular evening, that led me to the familiar and impulsive instinct to attenuate the surge of emotions too volatile for my ability to cope.
This time, having lambasted him in aggressive and illogical words, hurling insults and accusations leaving no space for rebuttal or explanation, like the arm of a pitching machine, when Ken went into another room (surely to escape the brutal onslaught), I sat scared and alone with Olivia. Her words, loud and demanding, encouraged me to make the pain stop. End all of the pain I was causing others in my life.
"Take the pills in your bag. He won't know you are taking them. He won't know that you did and you can die quietly and make all of this just stop. You can't keep going like this. Your family would be better without you. You keep causing them pain. Ken would be better without you, you keep making him miserable and causing him to choose between his own health and yours. He doesn't want you anyway. He wants someone else. You are never going to pass the CPA exam. You are never going to be the mother your girls deserve. You are only good at exercising and restricting. You should die now. "
Like the first time, I remember that I didn't want to die in spite of Olivia's persistent urging. I wanted someone else to help me fight this fucking tyrant inside my head whom I could never please. Whom I could never shut up. Whom I could never, ever live up to. Whom I couldn't fight on my own any longer.
I wanted it all to stop. I just wanted to sleep. (Not die).
So I took the pills. I remember opening the bottle quickly and putting as many in my hand as I could fit, spilling some onto the floor, washing them down with the wine in my cup.
It was the same, familiar urgency I ate the (ridiculously minuscule amounts of) food Olivia allowed me, knowing I would propel it from my body with a force that brought calm over me like the silent falling of snow on a windless evening.
Ken emerged from the bathroom none-the-wiser, until I started to quickly deteriorate. I began to weaken and collapsed to the floor, muttering only fragments of the words that Olivia wanted me to say, unintelligible and trailing off.
I remember him being incensed. "WHAT DID YOU DO!? DID YOU TAKE SOMETHING?!" Until this time I had never heard him raise his voice to me, ever. I remember he began to frantically pick up the pills I had dropped onto the floor and lined them up on the counter, so as to count them.
When he bent down for more, I swiped them off the counter and swallowed them quickly.
Determined. Desperate.
"SPIT THEM OUT!!"
I had already swallowed them.
"THROW THEM UP NOW!"
Somehow I told him that I couldn't without a toothbrush. (He later filled in these blanks for me).
He ran upstairs and got one for me, brought it down and held it up for me to take.
At this point, I really cannot remember all of what transpired and in what order it went down. Only fragments of time. Like polaroids burned into my brain that for many months later, re-visited in full color during the night when I tried to sleep.
I remember him getting me into his truck. I remember it was cold. I remember my head smashing against the window every time we went over a bump and Ken trying to hold me back while driving, to mitigate the damage to my head.
The next thing I can remember is that I woke up in a johnny, in the ER, with a DR. telling me he was going to put some pads on my body that contained wires to check my heart.
I remember the fear. I remember looking at Ken and begging him to do it instead, knowing he understood why, knowing he also knew how to do it because he is a paramedic.
I don't know who actually did it.
Then I remember getting an ultimatum, later in the evening, or maybe it was morning, to drink liquid charcoal to neutralize the drugs in my system or have my stomach pumped.
Ken encouraged me to drink the charcoal.
I remember that it tasted exactly like the thick, dark night it resembled. I remember that it made me sick. I remember assuring Ken that I wasn't trying to purge it for the calories.
I must have slept at this point. Ken never left. I believe it was morning and he told me that he needed to go home and check that his young teenage daughter was still sleeping and safe.
He was conflicted about leaving. I didn't know it then, but he later told me that he wanted to give up at that point. That he didn't think I was ever going to be OK after that.
He wanted to leave me at the Hospital intake and never come back. I don't blame him.
(Please understand that at this point, he really had NO idea what was truly happening. That I was sick. That it was going to get much worse before it started to get better).
Some hours later, Ken came back to my bedside. He told me that his daughter was being cared for and that he had called his family to tell them he was feeling ill and that we wouldn't be making the Thanksgiving celebration.
Selfishly deep into my sickness at that moment, I didn't realize until this writing, that I made him miss the last Thanksgiving he could have celebrated with both his parents, since his step-father passed later that winter.
That is the worst part of Anorexia for me, looking back to when I was at my sickest. The lack of presence in everyday life that occurs because of the obsessive thoughts and behavior, due to lack of nutrition and in my case, excessive exercise, that steals compassion and empathy and life. Eventually draining me of any capacity for empathy or insight into others' sacrifices and caring for me.
I wasn't in there.
As with my first hospitalizations, I was once again visited by the staff Psychologist, to determine my level of safety, and to assess my need for further psychiatric treatment or hospitalization.
Maybe it was divine intervention. Maybe it was simply a coincidence. But Ken brought me to Mercy Hospital, rather than the closer, Maine Medical Ctr., so that he (understandably) wouldn't have to answer to co-workers about what was occurring.
The on-call psych evaluator that night was a woman who also works in the New England Eating Disorder program upstairs from where I was. Her supervisor for the evening was the head psychiatrist in the NEED Program.
This was fortuitous for me. I don't believe in any way, that it was a coincidence.
During our "interview", I was unaware of the Attending's affiliation with the NEED program. I answered all of her questions honestly, feeling the lucidity return as the morning turned into day.
Finally, she announced that the evaluation was complete and that she needed to consult with her supervisor regarding a disposition for me.
At this point, the moment she left the room, Olivia was already back at it.
I was begging Ken to please just let me go home. That he knew the real reason I was there and that I didn't need anything further from the hospital or from a psychiatrist. I just wanted to go home to be with Summer. I needed to be her mom.
It took a number of months before Ken understood how detached I could become from the severity of my actions. It is part of the coping of Anorexia.
Minimize your actions. Protect your disorder. Don't let anyone interfere with the process. Guard it at any cost. Even (especially) my own health.
The Psychologist returned with her recommendations.
Based on the fact that I had been hospitalized for over-doses on two occasions now, in two short months, they would settle for nothing but an extended evaluation in a psychiatric hospital.
In a moment of panic, I blurted out (finally....after holding it in for almost 5 years) that my problem was not depression. That it was Anorexia.
Threatened with the idea that I would spend time in another hospital, knowing that I had not confessed what my real demons were, compelled me to finally give up my secret before Olivia could reach her forceable hand to stifle my confession.
In that brief moment, I probably believed that I DID want help for my eating disorder. But in all honesty, that fleeting desire quickly succumbed to Olivia's redoubled efforts to gain back control.
I begged her not to go through with the recommendation. I pleaded.
Ken stood up from my side. In tears. (I had never seen him cry before now). He offered that he knew I was telling the truth. That I had just disclosed recently, the same thing to him and that he had been watching my weight dip lower and lower over the past months.
He offered to sign me out to his care. That he would be sure to supervise me closely until I could be admitted into a program that addressed my eating disorder.
What he didn't know at this time (nor did I, really) was that he too, was under the control of Olivia at some level, shielding me from consequences that may or may not have improved my chances at recovery at that time.
He was doing what he thought was right. He always did. It's the kind of man he is. Propelled into action by the deceitful and persuasive urgings of Olivia, to rescue me from what I had gotten myself into.
After a few more consults with her supervisor, the attending Psychologist came through with her recommendation for discharge, informing me that she and the head of the NEED program both agreed that I should be set up for intake at the earliest opening.
She allowed me to be released to Ken's care until that time.
I wish that I could write at this point in the story, that this series of events represented the "bottom" for me. That I had become aware of all I stood to lose at this point because of my disease.
The truth is, I was very, very sick still.
I quickly began to minimize what had happened and tried to convince Ken almost immediately, that I didn't really need to go to the NEED program intake.
Lucky for me, he didn't believe a word of it.
He took his task of keeping me safe seriously, ultimately delivering me (literally) to the door of my first intake and eventual admittance to Mercy Hospital's New England Eating Disorder Program, after safe-guarding me and my family, to a large extent, at the expense of his own.
Fully-encompassed by Olivia's safe-haven of armor against anyone or anything attempting to penetrate her grip over my soul, I failed miserably at treatment and continued to become even more sick in the months to come...
“I wanted to kill the me underneath. That fact haunted my days and nights. When you realize you hate yourself so much, when you realize that you cannot stand who you are, and this deep spite has been the motivation behind your behavior for many years, your brain can’t quite deal with it. It will try very hard to avoid that realization; it will try, in a last-ditch effort to keep your remaining parts alive, to remake the rest of you. This is, I believe, different from the suicidal wish of those who are in so much pain that death feels like relief, different from the suicide I would later attempt, trying to escape that pain. This is a wish to murder yourself; the connotation of kill is too mild. This is a belief that you deserve slow torture, violent death.”
― Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
