"Studies cited by the American Association of Suicidology (Holm-Denoma et al, 2008; Kaye, 2008; Keel et al., 2003) indicate that the suicide mortality rate of people with anorexia is one of the highest of all psychiatric illnesses. "
"Holm-Denoma et al. found that when individuals with anorexia decide to end their life, they typically use highly lethal methods, including jumping in front of moving trains, ingesting household chemicals, and self-immolation, indicating they truly wish to kill themselves and aren’t just sending out a cry for help."
"You knew this was going to happen. You are not smart enough or pretty enough or interesting enough."
"Stop trying to believe that you are enough for him. For anyone. Men only want you for sex and then they leave. You don't deserve any more than that, you ruined your family".
"It's all your fault. You were weak and selfish. You deserve to be punished."
"You will never be enough for anyone. They will always leave you like you deserve. Once they get to know you and what you did and then about me, no one will ever love you. You aren't lovable at all."
"I am the only one who loves you. I am the only one who will protect you from being rejected by others. Just keep doing what I tell you and people will think you are special."
"You can disappear. Then no one can hurt you ever again."
"FAT! UGLY! WEAK! YOU TAKE UP TOO MUCH SPACE! YOU AREN'T ENOUGH FOR HIM! YOU NEVER WERE BUT IT JUST TOOK HIM AWHLE TO FIGURE IT OUT! HE DOESN'T WANT YOU! YOU DON'T DESERVE LOVE! YOU DESERVE TO BE LIED TO! YOU DESERVE TO BE HURT! YOU DESERVE TO BE ALONE!"
After a dreadfully drunken phone-call that I can't even recall the slightest details from, I stumbled down the stairs whaling and desperate to make Olivia stop telling me what I already knew. What I had just learned from my then-partner, whom I had been having relationship difficulties with both real and perceived.
Not being able to tolerate even the slightest distress in my life, this was all too much to take. I couldn't digest it. I couldn't even come close to feeling the pain of rejection again.
I was at my weakest, having disclosed my eating disorder to a trusted soul for the first time ever in almost 4 years of hell, and all I wanted to do was make all of the noise and the pain and the regret and the shame and the feelings of failure... and Olivia's brutal and unyielding derision STOP.
Did I want to die? No. Honestly and truly, No. Not at this point.
I wanted to sleep. I wanted to avoid the pain of being rejected, of discovering that Olivia was right and that I wasn't worthy or able to be someone that another could love solely. Loyally. Completely.
It was at this moment that I gave in and believed her. It was this moment that I gave up the last shards of the healthy me who was sometimes able to emerge and save me from total self-destruction.
I stumbled down the stairs and filled my coffee cup with more wine. Then more. Then more. Then more, until the box (containing 4 750ml bottles) was nearly empty.
I don't remember sending the unintelligible text messages to my dear friends who mobilized right away and came to my rescue. I don't even know how I was able to send out the messages.
Someone. Something greater than Olivia and me took over and saved my life that night.
I do know that I had not eaten anything substantial in almost three days, upon receiving an intolerable blow to my confidence in my relationship at the time.
I do know that I did not tell a soul the pain I was in at that time, isolating and restricting, over-exercising and purging... drinking poison into a nutrient-deprived body, blocking my inability to calmly work out the bumps in my relationship that a clear-headed person would have been able to maneuver more gracefully.
Putting on the false, familiar face that told the world I didn't need any help. That everything was under control.
"FAT! UGLY! WEAK! YOU TAKE UP TOO MUCH SPACE! YOU AREN'T ENOUGH FOR HIM! YOU NEVER WERE BUT IT JUST TOOK HIM AWHLE TO FIGURE IT OUT! HE DOESN'T WANT YOU! YOU DON'T DESERVE LOVE! YOU DESERVE TO BE LIED TO! YOU DESERVE TO BE HURT! YOU DESERVE TO BE ALONE!"
I woke up in the ER, looking around at familiar, shell-shocked, concerned faces of the small army of support who left their own families in the middle of the night, to get me safely to care.
Stephen, Peter, Erin, Karen, Felicity. All there around my bed, as I faded in and out. Shivering uncontrollably, having no idea that I should be thanking them or even grateful for their efforts.
I had no idea where I was. Or why I was there.
I faded in and out. I don't remember who stayed and who left. I don't remember if I got there in an ambulance or a car.
I never asked. All I wanted was to sleep. To make the pain stop.
I do remember being driven home from the hospital in Erin's car. Backseat. Slumped over with my head in someone's lap. Still drunk and woozy from whatever antidote I was most assuredly given for the poison I guzzled into my body.
It was morning now. I was driven home in the daylight and I remember the buzz of voices in the car, planning the schedule of guards who would be sure that I was safe until I sobered-up.
None of them at this point, had any idea about Olivia or of the tumultuous events that were still to come.
They didn't know that with the half-hour gap that they left open between when one of them left for work and the other could arrive to sit with me, that Olivia was working behind the scenes... remembering that there was still a second stash of wine.
Yes it was 8am. It didn't matter.
"You are SO weak you can't even kill yourself properly! There is more wine in the broom closet that no one found. You can drink enough in a half hour to stop feeling this painful rejection. It is starting to come back now. You need to drink some more to make this pain stop. We can't tolerate it! You have to make it STOP!"
This I remember vividly. I knew Stephen had left and that I had at least a half hour before Erin was coming because I heard them talking. I wanted the pain to stop. It was coming back with my lucidity.
I walked~ no, I ran to the broom closet and moved the bags that were hiding the second box of wine and filled my cup twice while standing there, quickly emptying it into my body to feel the warm dulling of the sharpness that started to jab brutally again at my soul, as thoughts of the prior evening's conversation began to mockingly re-emerge. Remnants of the prior evening's self-destruction still flowing throughout my body, desperate to once again dutifully obey Olivia's orders to cure this life.
By the time Erin arrived, ready for her on-guard stint, most assuredly unable still to process what had happened the night before, I announced that I was going to take a shower.
Before she arrived, I had managed to move the box of wine to my clothing closet, trusting her desire to afford me the dignity of privacy (not understanding Olivia's presence) .
I filled my cup twice more (at least) before disappearing to the shower, purging the calories of the wine into the shower, understanding that the alcohol was already absorbed into my long-deprived body.
I emerged from the shower, and took my place, sitting on the kitchen floor while Erin dutifully absorbed herself into the task Olivia hurled at her to develop a list of things I could do in my "free time' to take care of myself.
At this point, my dear friend Erin was interested only in keeping me safe. Keeping me company...doing what normal people would do to help a friend sober up after an unusual mishap with a bota box.
I sat, dizzy, while she sat at the barstools writing on a yellow-pad, visibly relieved to have a task to distract the attention from what had gone on in the previous hours.
I remember this like a dream... as though it went on for hours but in reality, I believe I must have slept, or passed out again...
Karen arrived at some point. I don't remember when or how or why.
I remember remembering that there was more wine in my clothes closet. I remember the moment I remembered that I had a newly-percribed bottle of anti-anxiety medication and faster-acting Clonazepam in my bag that no one knew about except for Ken, who was at work in another town pretty far away and unaware of what was happening.
I remember taking two anti-anxiety pills then two Clonazepams at a time, washing them down with the coffee-cup filled with wine I had smuggled into the bathroom with me. Over and over and over.
I remember going into the kitchen and talking to Karen and Erin like it was a regular afternoon (I have no idea what time of day it was. I have no idea how much time passed between my shower and taking the pills).
I remember a moment of panic as the last moments of consciousness persuaded me to text Ken to tell him I had taken the pills. I didn't want to die. He had no idea of the happenings the night before. Yet he mobilized quickly to action.
He didn't even know at that point, that I had been in the ER the previous evening. Olivia is a master at concealing the ugliness of this disease.
I remember going back to the closet a number of times (I don't know how many) before Ken received the desperate texts from me, and somehow got in touch with Erin, telling her that I was taking pills.
This is where it goes blank. When I think about it, it is like what it must be to swim underwater for longer than one should. Slow motion. Unable to breathe. Eventually drowning in the warmth of the quiet stillness that lets one's soul float freely of pain, of regret, of shame.
I woke up shivering. Absolutely freezing under three heated blankets in the ER once again. Faces around me of my dearest friends...fading in and out. Is it daytime? Nighttime? Is this a dream? How did Ken get here so fast? Isn't he supposed to be working? I thought to myself??
I was in the ER again. For the second time in less than 24 hours.
After Ken arrived, I blacked out again.
I woke up in ICU later with Ken standing next to my bed in his paramedic uniform. The sun was out. Is it still today?
Is it tomorrow?
I have no idea how much time passed. An hour? A day? A week?
Ken urged me to eat the breakfast that was in front of me. I was shaking. I was still freezing. I was still drunk.
I drank some orange juice and a nurse came in to check my IV and my vitals.
I vividly remember the helpless, desperate look on Ken's face as I rejected the food brought to me.
He knew why. He didn't understand yet at this point, because who would? But he was the only one who knew that I had Anorexia.
When you land in the ICU as the result of what looks like two suicide attempts in less than 24 hours, the hospital sends in a crisis worker to assess your mental health.
Unfortunately, something I am extremely good at, is convincing others that I am safe and solid and stable.
I convinced the mental health worker (who would later become a pillar of support for me in the subsequent dark moments that ensued) that I was not suicidal. That I simply wanted to sleep and that I would be safe if released into the care of Ken.
Ken, at this point, had little idea of how very sick I was and sided with me, agreeing to take responsibility for me until I could secure an appointment with my counselor, who knew of my eating disorder and my lack of desire to address it. (I was the only one who knew that. Well, besides Olivia).
"If they send you to a hospital, they will make you gain weight and stop restricting. You CANNOT, under any circumstances, let that happen!".
"Tell Ken... tell everyone that you are FINE! Go back to work, keep studying for your CPA, and stop being so weak that you end up in a hospital again. You have come so far. Just keep listening to me and I will protect you from rejection. From pain.
That is exactly what I did.
I was dying inside. But I made everyone sure that I was just fine. that the other day was just a result of over-exhaustion from studying so much.
It was too easy. Not that people aren't astute or intelligent, but that they truly want to believe that those they care about are ok. It's not logical or rational or usual to act in such a way.
Everything went back to normal. Everyone (so I thought) went back to their usual lives (including me) believing that I was back on solid ground~ frightened of what I had done to the point that I gave my medication to Erin to dole out 7 pills at a time, giving up alcohol so that I could focus on therapy with my regular counselor, contrite and remorseful for the upheaval I had caused.
"Phew... that was close. You are SO pathetic that not only do you not deserve this relationship with Ken, but now your friends and daughters know that you are weak and sick."
"You can never be the partner that Ken wants."
"You can never be the mother that your daughters deserve".
"You will never be able to pass the CPA exam ."
"You are so fat and lazy, you only ran one time today. How will you ever make up for the carrots you ate today? There is no way you purged all of them."
"You don't deserve to go back to your life."
"You are worthless and a failure. You failed at being a wife. You failed at being a mother. You are going to fail at being a CPA. You failed at being able to be in a relationship with Ken. You didn't exercise enough today, you ate too many carrots today! You didn't purge all of the carrots you ate today! You are not enough....you are not enough... you are not enough....."
SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!
(to be continued)
"When the body weeps tears of blood, we need to wonder what terrible sorrows cannot be spoken. When food that had tasted good suddenly feels like poison and has to be purged from the body, we should wonder what traumatic experiences exist that cannot be contained, metabolized, and integrated. . . The body speaks of that which cannot be said in words, of secrets, lies, and trust that has been broken (Farber 2003, p.188)."
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