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5:25 p.m. - 08/21/02
[[it still smarts like::it was four- minutes ago[|
Maybe I will call Rogers tonight. I know all logic has been adamantly against it, but I just spoke with Sara, and I started to think that maybe I can articulate this, especially if it's to Brea, which it often is on Wednesday. And if it isn't Brea, I can do my ever-so-mature instant hang-up. If I got through this morning, I can probably get through the pain of hearing a voice I don't know, or a voice I'm not ready for, right? I still haven't decided. I almost always go with my emotions over logic, but I've put myself through such an emotional wringer today that I feel a little guilty stepping into another minefield this way. Then again, I've already had a crazy day, and maybe a little more craziness, at a time when I can pretty much just wind down and go to bed afterward wouldn't be so bad. Maybe talking to someone would actually be - good...

I think it would be good if I could say, "Hey, this is what I'm feeling about not being there" and not just "oh, by the way I'm eating, my weight's good, it's been a year since purging" and so forth. I always end up stressing my achievements and skimming over the difficulties when I talk with them, which is basically the opposite of how I am the rest of the time, or how I was when there. It's more difficult now because one of the difficulties *is* them, and how do I say, "my main problem now is that I love you and I can't turn back time, that you're the best home I've ever had and all I ever want to have again, and by the way if it were a year ago, Tracy would be there, too." I want to be able to talk about all the pain without giving them the impression that I've broken down because I *haven't*...but...not actively engaging in ED symptoms is not a decent barometer of my wellness. It's a decent barometer of how I'm doing with ED symptoms/ behaviors. That's all. I want to be able to tell them the whole truth, and even if I'm not ready to say, "you hurt me very very deeply when you sent me home" maybe I can say, "I miss you more than I'm meant to, more than I can feel good missing you." Maybe I can say, "I'm doing really well, and I owe so much of that to you, but I'm also really struggling with the *one* not-good thing you did, which was to send me home, or maybe just to send me home so early. I'm really struggling with having to live here, where I can't say, 'I'm really homesick today; I wish I were at Rogers.' I'm especially struggling with this because not only must I refrain from telling my parents I miss you, but I must- to some extent- refrain from telling you. Do you understand? Do you understand that I wasn't just upset about coming home, I was upset about leaving it? Do you understand that I haven't adjusted, and I cried as hard for you today as I did the day I discharged? Do you understand that I'm working to move through this, but at the same time the pain is so big I can't dismiss it as a silly mary-struggle? I said at my last check-in, 'All I want is to be able to stop time.' All I want now is to be able to turn it back. And I can't, and what's more I can hardly *say* that to anyone safely, including you, the people I miss so much, and that's so horrible. It's so awful to love someone so deeply there is pain, and not know how they'd feel if you were to simply say, 'I love you. YOU. And all the rest of them. Stirrings in my heart I can't explain.'" I want to say these things. One of them, at least. A version, an abridgment, summary. Anything so that I don't get off the phone and feel the worse for talking. If I can just say, "Brea, I'm not any less in love with RED, and it's been a year," maybe they will understand that it wasn't an adjustment to be made, it was truly wounding.

I won't say it's been a bad day, maybe rough. When I cried my tears today- the first set at least- I felt relief afterward, and that's as good a sign the day's worthwhile as any other I can think of. An achievement, a success of sorts, is one thing, but an anniversary is quite another. I guess it's a little like a wedding anniversary after a divorce. I feel such love for them, and such genuine thankfullness for the strides (or baby steps) I've made. But I also have to feel, I want to feel, the immense pain that is still there, the holes that are still there, the shadows and the craters and the crevices. I want to be able to say everything that social pressure and relational pressure keeps me from saying, everything from, "You want to know how I am who I am? I'm in recovery from an eating disorder" to "I love you, and the weight of it still hurts." I'm always amazed at how such tiny tears can release the pressure of such heavy pain. But when I cried today - the first time - I felt the lifting of the weight. I don't know that the pain went away, but all the anchors I had placed on top of it, trying to keep myself from grieving, from breaking down - those came loose and left me feeling freer. Every time I start to cry for Tracy I feel like I'll never be able to stop, and every time I stop, I hope I start again at some point. I hope these tears are not my last for her. It's like Paul Simon said, "Sometimes, even music can't substitute for tears."

I did manage, then, to tell the doc what today was, and what this week has been. So good, I said, until yesterday. So good, but now I'm overwhelmed. I told him that I hadn't purged in one year, that I was admitted one year ago to Rogers, and that Tracy disappeared 8 months ago today. He said, "When it rains..." and I knew he understood. He told me he wanted to jump up and clap, congratulate me, but that to do so would disregard the ambiguity surrounding my progress. I've taken steps forward, yes, but I've left things behind, and I'm not sure RED was worth giving up for health. And I would take my sickness on again to bring Tracy back to life.

(I know I shouldn't say that, that even thinking it must be terribly counterproductive and unhealthy, but to say, it wasn't worth losing her to come to where I've been is not enough. I don't know how I'd get out of ED behaviors again- knowing that is one way I stay away from them- but I'd take them on again all the same. I guess one of my worst pains is not having done anything, and wouldn't that be something. But nothing's quite enough...)

I didn't know which of the three topics we'd center on when I went in. I guess I assumed it would be the progress with purging, since that's what Tammy and I mostly discussed. If I'd thought about it more, I would have realized he'd go toward the pain. It's in his nature to pick up on all of what I'm feeling, and it's in his nature to give me a place where I can feel the unsafe ones. The ones my parents don't understand or don't want to hear spoken aloud. The ones that others find hurtful without realizing these also bring *me* pain.

But no. He asked how I was feeling and I told him that if the day was threefold, I was, too. That I was, truly, mostly glad to be without the behaviors. That was good. I told him, not being at Rogers was "not so good." And of course "the last one" was "just awful." Maybe that was it or maybe something else came, but he turned to me and said, "You look as if you've just fallen about ten notches" and in my head I thought "Only ten?" I was sinking in it. And we started to talk about her, about Tracy, and I was glad because of course that's what we should talk about. The progress is fine, and it's accounted for, and even somewhat, the pain over not being there is accounted for. It's known at least, even if it goes unsaid. But the one part of this that I haven't told anyone outside of him and this journal was that today is also the day that Tracy died. And this is one of the anniversaries where it feels like the first night. It's one of the first days again, when every moment the news replays in your head. Every moment you hear it, take it in, lose it again, and hear it over. Every moment in my mind she dies again, and I'm helpless. Or worse, I could do something and I don't.

I started to feel like I was seeing Harriet, not out of any action of his, just because it's been about that long since I cried this desperately for all of it. It's not so constantly I see him and cry that way. I broke down a few times while we talked, over the smallest words, over nothing at all, but it wouldn't go away. It's too bizarre. It's too horrible. She was here and now she's...? I met her, and suddenly- like everyone there- I'd known her my whole life. How was there only four months between the day I met her and the day she... How can I ever be ok without a conclusion to that thought?

He asked me what I think happens after death, and I knew I was cornered. I knew he'd figured it out- that I'm not sitting up nights imagining her in a shiny-happy Heaven taking harp lessons and having Wardrobe fit her for her wings. I told him I don't know, which sounded wrong because it's my cop-out answer when I don't want to talk, but here it's really true and really overwhelming. I. Don't. Know. I don't know where she is. I don't know if she's ok. I don't know if she's happy and wishes I would let her go. I don't know if she's happy and wishes I would keep her close. I don't know if she needs me to think about her constantly in order to feel loved. I don't know if there's a way that I could still get to her or if my refusing to surrender to the loss is keeping her in pain. I don't know, and I can't move forward, and I feel crazy, and weak, and sad. I feel all this pain and then even as I'm feeling it, I think, I barely knew her four months. I never really talked with her, not the way I should have, and who I am to be so lost without her? I told him I used to have faith, that seventh grade (when things got rough) was like, "Poof! Instant spirituality!" and now I no longer had any beliefs that transcended me. I no longer had the anchors of a loving universe or God, of things working out for the best, of "All manner of things are well." I now felt quite the opposite, that everything around me was a time bomb waiting to explode, and I was the one with the combinations, the detonations, I was the one who, if I could only move between them fast enough, if I would only overlook myself long enough to do what was needed of me, could stop them from exploding. I was the one who had to keep it safe or live with the guilt of never doing so.

He told me that sounded terrifying and asked how I coped with it. Distraction, mostly, I said. You can't cope with anything like that; you try to not pay full attention to the feeling. He asked what "ok" would look like if people really were ok. I'd never thought about it, so maybe it was a trick question, maybe it's was rhetorical, and I was supposed to realize, "Oh, they'll never be ok" or "How they are is ok" but I didn't. I said, "Ok is...alive. Able to take care of themselves and get the help they need. And I don't know, having some...hope..." That sounded ok to me. Then even in their darkest moment they would know they were safe and would feel better again. I didn't have that when I almost killed myself, and obviously Tracy didn't have that to stop her, so why why why am I supposed to belive that things will work out when they *didn't*...when for all I know, she's gone?

I think he understood my version of ok. As who he is, and as a therapist, he has to feel it on some level, too. He has to look at people and know that they will have a hard week and get through it, or that he needs to ask them to check in. He has to notice who has hope, who doesn't, who can stay safe, and who is already too far from it. He asked me if I could trust that my very presence was in some way therapeutic, that my simply being there to listen, was comfort and gift enough. I told him I could, but with condition. I *could* believe that, of course I could, but only when I knew they'd be ok. Only when it was clear to me that they'd get through this, and I just had to hang in there, the way *they* just have to hang in there. But not knowing, of course I run around and try to figure out how to fix it. Of course I try to help them desperately.

I can't imagine faith right now. I know I've had it, I told him I have, and I described what I used to believe and how I used to feel. Even when things were hard, I used to feel more safe and less alone. This was long before Rogers, this was long before I could see any reason to hope, but I still *had* hope all the same. I trusted that I was a part of something greater, that in the greatest of scheme of things, I was always safe, accounted for, cared for, loved. I trusted that pain would mature into wisdom and people would end up the better for their struggles. But that was when I always so the end of them. That was when I saw the wisdom growing. Now, I look at Tracy's story, Tracy's struggle and there's this horrible, abrupt break that I can't see past. And I don't know if that's the end. If she really did miss out on the wisdom, if her pain did consume her, if she's gone...or if she grew through it in a way ultimately marvelous that I just can't comprehend. I don't know. How do I feel safe, how do I trust that the people I love and the people I don't even know will be ok, when I no longer have a world-view where people always are. If I knew she was alright, of course I could believe they would be. If *she* was alright, of course everyone else would be ok. And then, maybe, I would be ok, too.

I used to take comfort in that dream I had of her just after it happened, where she was so calm, and peaceful, and healthy-looking in a way I never saw her. I used to think she must be that way now, that glowing, that alive. But this last dream I had she was almost the opposite, it was horrible, and how can I say to myself, "That first dream reflects how she really is, and this last one has nothing to do with it"? How can I take comfort in one dream without being flogged by the other?

Sometimes I worry that I want her to be alive more than I want her to be ok. That that's what the second dream was saying. I've been desperately wishing that she was still alive because then *I* could be ok, *I* could have some home, but obviously, she wasn't ok when she was alive, and maybe that's why she's not anymore, maybe she's gone from me because she wasn't ok. The pills finally worked, even when she tried to stop them, even when she wanted out, because whatever is greater than us understood. Took her back. Held her again, let her feel safe again. Sometimes I worry that I'm more concerned with knowing how she is so *I* can be ok, than with letting her be where she needs to be. But that implies she's somewhere, which is of course, more than I know.

I want to curl up in a ball and have them pet me into sleeping.

When I got home, Dave was on the machine. Dave. He was utterly casual, for not having spoken with us in over nine months. He said, "Hey, Jane, this is Dave. You can call me back at [#]. I'lll be here til five. Thanks, Jane." I was dumbfounded. I asked my mom if he'd ever called before, and she said no, and for a moment, I thought, "how nice; they're calling to wish me a happy anniversary" and then I thought how awful because I couldn't talk to them. But before I could even feel that my mom was explaining that she'd called him yesterday to tell him what today was for me, and I was too speechless to even continue talking in my head. I went away for a few minutes and said to myself how awful that was of her. How it was *my* news, and odd enough she'd tell her coworkers, but she had no right to tell *my* people, and what's more, my family. She had no right to contact them, without even telling me.

She asked me if she'd messed up, if I was upset; I told her yes. She apologized, explained how she felt the need to say some thank yous, and I was glad she was finally giving them credit, but I explained that it was my news to give or not give, and they were mine. My territory. She had no right to call them and tell them anything because they were mine. Always. And even though I can't take back what happened when Dave was on my answering machine, when he was saying, "I'll be there till 5" and I was thinking of all the nights he was really there till 7, and all the times he talked with one of us during check-in, or the first Friday when he sat with me while I ate my dinner, alone, upstairs. I'll be there till 5 means so much more than that. And so when she left, I started crying, and talking about what she'd done. And then I started talking to Dave, the way I can't *really* talk to Dave, where I was able to tell him every aspect of how I was doing and able to say, "And...Dave...how are you?" I said, "I mean...I remember what you were like with Tracy. I remember sitting there watching you sit with her on the couch, eat a snack *with* her. I remember that day she had Doritoes and she couldn't get them down, and you sat with her, it must have been an hour in the afternoon...so, God...how can you be...are you ok?" I want so terribly to be with people who understand, who know me as I really am, and who can say to me, "Mary. It's ok that you love her. And it's ok that you love us. And it's ok that you're grieving." Because I don't know those things. I must not be supposed to love them if I'm not supposed to grieve. And I must not be supposed to love her, having known her for such little time. Being so different from her in such obvious ways.

It rains down in my head again and again. All my fault, all my fault, all my fault. Like everything, not loving her enough, not saving her, and grieving now, are all transgressions. Like even my tears are unfair to continue. But at the same time, how could I not cry for her? And how could I be ok? It's not like I'd feel any less guilt if I *weren't* crying like this for her. And still. It goes.

"Isn't that a bear?" he said, and while I ruminated over the fact that he'd actually used *that expression* he continued- "To know perfectly well that what you're doing- for instance, trying to fix things for your friends- isn't helping them, in fact it's making it harder for you to help them, and it isn't helping you, and still you can't stop doing it?" Yes. My life right now is complete confusion. How can I want to go back to a time when I was sick? And how can I not want to go back to a time when I was safe, and loved, and had friends, real intimacy, and a girl now so far away it maybe equals gone? How- can- I- make sense of this?

I don't think it's by calling tonight. I want to really badly because I love Brea, and maybe six months ago I would have said, "I'll just call and talk about happy things" but that will just make me feel worse about what's going on that I'm not saying. Time is a horrible thing in reference to what's timeless. Three months at Rogers was like years. Three months with Tracy was a lifetime. To say it's been four times the length of time I was there snice I was admitted is insane. I think they ran their clocks on different numbers. They're seconds were slowed down, were spectacular.

There are parts of my life I love now, and parts of myself even, that I love now, some of them more recent than my discharge. There are people I have met since who I adore or am starting to. And yes, it is beautiful to have my father bring home roses, or have Shannon send me all the words I needed, phrased more simply than I could ever have imagined them. It's beautiful, I'm grateful, I feel love. But there is also such vast pain.

Like Sara said, "And can I say - happy anniversary, even though I know that happy isn't exactly the right word" before advising me to "just be. Just sit and feel the feelings." Or like the doctor said, as he took my one hand, damp with tears, into his two, "My sincerest congratulations and condolences..."

I'm grateful, truly, but I'm grieving, too.

chord

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