I was summoned to dinner with a knock on my door. Ambling my way down to the community room I’m bombarded as I walk through the doorway with an outpouring of hellos. I’m told to find the tray with my name on it and bring it to the table. All the patients go around and introduce themselves. I scan the table, just looking at faces and not remembering any names. I don’t have much of an appetite and want to go to sleep because a wave of nausea has hit me. It’s only 5:00pm. There are still 5 ½ more hours until I can turn down for bed.

I go over to the wall that has our daily schedule broken down hour by hour for activities. The rest of the day was a blur to me. I was like a robot going through the motions. All evening I was wondering how much I would be made to eat each day.

There was a patient designated daily to wake everyone else up and my first day, I would be that person for the following morning. Needless to say that in between a restless night of crying and worrying the alarm wouldn’t go off, I got no sleep.

After being in and out of sleep all night I get up at 6:00am since wakeup call is at 6:30am. This morning I feel extremely fatigued and physically sick from no sleep and probably the wearing I’ve exuded on my body. I barely make it through the morning bible reading and then for breakfast. Trying to trick my body from fatigue to energy with lots of coffee, I take a cold shower.

After breakfast I have to go to group meeting and have to sit in a rigid chair for an hour. At the end of the hour my butt was numb and my back was screaming at me in pain. I was barely even able to talk from the lack of energy I had. I couldn’t wait until the clock had hit an hour so I could get a break and get some air.

The minute the counselor says “Break time,” I bolt for the outside. Slamming the door too hard against the wall as I step onto the grass I see half of a volleyball net laying on the ground. Excited to see a part of the old me around, I search for a volleyball. I walk to the back of the yard where I see the white ball lying and feel solace within myself as I bend to pick it up. Playing bump with myself for the first time in a long time I feel overwhelmed and completely thrilled at the same time. As I continue to bump the volleyball to myself, all these thoughts flow through my head about starting a volleyball team when I get out. Another patient comes to join me and we play a game of pepper (bump and spike the ball to each other) until it is time to go to a lecture.

I’m sitting in my best friend’s car on the way to Valley General Hospital in Monroe, Washington for a 21 day inpatient stay for my eating disorder, anorexia. My heart was racing and my pulse was beating. I wanted to turn the car around and go home, but that was not an option. Everyone in my life knew I was on my way to treatment and to turn back now would be cowardly and a sign of defeat. I had a knot in my stomach that felt like the size a boulder would be. I want to tell my friend that I was ok and I would eat if only she would take me home. Later I would come to find out how hard it would be to try to eat normally again.

Waiting in the lobby was horrifying to me. As I try to find a seat away from all the other patients I see what look like two drug addicts talking loudly and obnoxiously and I think, where am I and what did I get myself into? My understanding has always been that lower class people are the ones who need to seek help, so why am I here? I’m from an upper middle class educated family and shouldn’t have to be here. In the middle of my irrational thoughts I can hear a counselor calling my name. The counselor welcomes me to Valley General Hospital and there is some paperwork to go over before I can get admitted.

The whole time the counselor is talking to me I want to bolt out the door and run to the nearest pay phone to have someone pick me up and get me out of this hell hole. The counselor then gives me a TB test and says she’ll show me to my room, and I numbly follow her up to my oasis. The “super nice” counselor tells me I have an appointment with the hospital psychiatrist in a half an hour and to get settled then come downstairs for my evaluation with “Dr Nice-O!”

Sitting in the psychiatrist’s office, 30 minutes later for my evaluation was terrifying because I knew from this minute on I would be confronted with my worst fears.

Today at work there was a party. Parties aren’t uncommon at my doctor’s office. My office celebrates births, deaths, graduations, remissions, you name it and my clinic has a party for it. Usually at lunch I sit in my car reading or doing homework, but because of how cold it is getting outside I decided to sit in the lunchroom. Today the party was in celebration of remission for a co-worker with breast cancer. This co-worker is a dear friend of mine and upon seeing her in the staff lunchroom I felt obligated to eat something. There was cake, cookies, sandwiches, chips, sandwiches, pretzels, peanuts, and tons of other delicious fatty foods. My mouth was salivating. I wanted to eat a sandwich and chips, but due to my strict diet regime that would be a no.

Co-workers were urging me to eat as I usually never eat lunch. I finally said, “Ok I’ll take a sandwich to eat at school.” I said this just to shut them up. I watched as one by one people of all shapes and sizes came to gorge on the most un-nutritious foods. What I don’t get is we all work at a doctor’s office and are supposed to be promoting healthy eating when this crap food is in the break room and 3/4 of the nurses are overweight. I just disgusts me. How can people promote healthy living when they need to heed their own advice? My clinic is so hypocritical.

Maybe I’m anorexic because I will be a martyr in someone else’s life to help them when they had no one to turn to but me. I wish my mom understood. Her solution is to pay for me to go away for a long while to get help. Her solution is to always buy my love. She thinks if she lavishes me with gifts my problems will go away. That’s not it! I am not greedy and don’t need monetary goods to satisfy my illness. I need understanding and forgiveness.