BARELY BREATHING

Falling.

Failing.

I’ve been in this latest round of treatment for my eating disorder for two weeks now and to say I’m struggling is an understatement. It’s been hell. An inherent part of any such program is the loss of independence. Clearly, if I could do things on my own, I wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. But my eating disorder always spikes when I feel a loss of control. It’s a messed up coping mechanism, but it’s what I know. And now, with all this discomfort, I can’t lean into it; instead, it’s actively being prevented.

I resist and resent everything. I got into a tense exchange with the dietitian who holds all the cards with respect to my meal plan and my exercise protocol. I’ve completely fallen apart with my psychologist. I’ve been confronted with intense feelings of hopelessness and despair, desperately battling a seeming need to go to Emergency where they may lock me up in a psych ward for a third stint. There are no early signs of progress; I only feel more defective.

And more isolated. Not an easy feat when I’m thrust in a group home and a program with seven other people. Individually, they’re all very nice. Collectively, they’re much too much. It’s my fault, my problem. I’m an extreme introvert who, at 54, is long past the stage of having roommates. Outside of treatment and on long-term disability, days can go by when I speak to no one other than the cursory exchanges with whoever handles my coffee order at the local cafes where I write. I’m out of practice with social chitchat. Forced to eat meals as a group, I can’t keep up with the conversation. I don’t even want to. Not only is it just noise, it’s painful. I crave quiet time to help me cope with eating food I do not want at times when I’m not at all hungry. The prescribed meal is enough to make me feel different. The corresponding conversation takes things to another level. I’m fucked up. I don’t fit in. Hell, I never will. Somehow my low self-esteem plummets further.

I am lucky enough to live close to the group home, my condo only two subway stops away. I get to retreat to my cave once a day, sometimes for only fifteen minutes, other times for a couple of hours. It’s never enough. Momentarily restored, the sense of dread comes rushing back as I walk to the subway. Despair and agitation are fully back by the time I turn onto the pretty residential street where the group home is.

I’m barely hanging on, head down, chunking each day into tinier bits to help me cope. I do what I can to block out the fact that I’m in this until mid-October. After the third week, there’s a little more freedom—more time at home on weekends, a few unsupervised snacks on my own. A nod to independence, an extension of much-needed quiet time.

For now I just have to do what I can to tune out the things I can’t tolerate and remember to breathe.