STILL GOT IT

A year ago today, I checked into a group home, beginning a thirteen-week program alongside seven other people with eating disorders, hoping that I might finally end all the self-hatred about my body (and the rest of myself).

My meals were monitored, with portions measured out to make sure I was taking in enough of the right kinds of foods. The program strove to introduce me to a new way of looking at food, replacing four decades of fearing meals and restricting my intake. Through a reduced exercise regimen that permitted only five one-hour workouts per week, my body was supposed to recover from being constantly overworked, part of an endlessly desperate attempt to work off calories, love handles and an oversized belly that existed, I am told, more in my mind than in reality. While some people with eating disorders have bulimia and throw up foods they binge, exercise has been my way of purging anything that I considered to be harmful intake.

With the other residents, I attended a hospital program four days a week, a combination of individual sessions with a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a dietitian and group sessions led by a rotating team of professionals.

A year earlier, I’d belonged to an out-patient provincial eating disorders program, picking and choosing various courses and making absolutely no progress. I resisted everything. My eating disorder had become my way of coping with the uncertainties of life. I may not have been able to control external factors, but I’d mastered how to control my body. If I forfeited my eating disorder, I suppose the thinking was that I’d be left with chaos. Instead of forgiveness and self-acceptance, I would experience a spike in self-hatred. There was no chance I’d make progress in a casual program. I knew I was a complex piece of work and I begged to be admitted to the group home program.

I contend that my eating disordered thoughts and behaviors became deeply entrenched because it took so long for me to be diagnosed. I’m far from the prototype for an eating disorder. My body has only looked like what you’d see on an eating disorder poster a few times in my life. Usually, I feel certain that my body needs to lose weight and that it’s not just in my head...anybody would see that if I ever strayed from the baggy clothes styles that came into fashion in the ‘80s.

I’m male and men are under-diagnosed for eating disorders. I grew up seeing photos of emaciated teenage girls and knowing that Karen Carpenter died from an eating disorder. It was a feminized condition.

My family doctor missed it—even when I said outright, “I think I’m anorexic.” The doctors and psychiatrists in the psych ward missed it, even as nurses complained about me refusing to eat and doctors assigned me daily consultations with dietitians (whom I stressed out) and brought in a cardiologist due to abnormalities with my heart.

I was well beyond my teens when I was finally diagnosed; I was fifty-three. This was not part of some midlife crisis. My symptoms first appeared before I reached my teens. I offer this background information to illustrate why I’m still conflicted over my eating disorder diagnosis. I’m the “wrong” age, “wrong” gender and “wrong” weight.

While in programs, I glance at protruding collar bones and frail arms of young women sitting across from me and I have to fight the feeling that I’m an impostor. Most programs have wait lists and I feel I’m taking up a space that should be for someone with more urgent needs. I regularly share this with professionals and they always assure me that I belong. (Gee, is that a good thing?) In fact, they denied my repeated requests to be put on the wait list for the group home because the team felt I wasn’t ready. I would fail without first being admitted to a more intensive seven-week in-patient hospital program. That required another wait list. All along, I asserted that the hospital program was wrong for me and it was with a twisted sense of triumph that I went through that whole thing making zero progress.

Ha! Told you so.

As it turned out, the group home experience didn’t work out either. My mood crashed. I battled with the dietitian. (Taking away my cottage cheese and forcing me to eat peanut butter felt very threatening!) Just as in the hospital program, I lost any sense of independence, my writing routine—my life’s passion—almost disappeared and other immature, attention-seeking personalities in the house became a huge distraction. I made the decision to leave after five weeks.

And now, a year later, my eating disorder is on autopilot. My one slight victory was that, since the hospital admission ended in May 2019, I’d stuck to a slightly reduced exercise schedule—much more than allowed in the hospital or the group home, but a bit less than my prior standards. All that slipped away a few weeks ago. I’m relishing exercise, even as some injuries have popped up recently. Just do it, my brain says. (Thanks for that, Nike.)

All ties to the professionals at the hospital ended the day I withdrew from the group home. I attended one more course as part of the provincial out-patient program but, per protocol—largely due to funding, I presume—I was exited from all supports connected to that program last December. After a three-month “stepping out”, I was allowed to refer myself back into the program, but I didn’t do so because I’d planned to move out of province...until COVID-19 came along and sidelined all that.

With more than six months passing, I now require a completely new referral for any kind of support. I’ve decided to wait on that. I could still move so it doesn’t seem the right time to re-invest. Moreover, the services would like be through Zoom and, while convenient, I know I need to physically show up if I’m really going to commit.

And that’s the biggest issue. I’m not ready to commit again. I know I still need help but I’m not ready to change. Another program would only mean another failure and that would only be a win for the pesky eating disorder. More entrenchment. You can’t beat me!

As I write this, my stomach is calling for food. It’s not even a growl as my body has gotten used to prolonged periods of fasting. A meal is still hours away. A big run comes first. (Weirdly, when I exercise, all feelings of hunger disappear.)

One year later. No better, no worse. I could say I’m learning to live with this, but the truth is, I accomplished that ages ago. I hold out hope that the time will come when I am tired of all this—thought I’d reached that point by the beginning of 2019, but I was wrong.

Change is possible. Someday.

ISOLATION, THEN AND NOW

A year ago this week I entered a different type of social isolation. After sixteen months of various outpatient interventions that I mostly fought against, I was admitted to hospital for what was supposed to be a seven-week stay to deal with my decades-long eating disorder. From the outset, I’m not sure if I was committed. I didn’t tell them at the time, but I didn’t plan to stick around for the full term. I’d already booked a trip to Vegas and the Grand Canyon for the beginning of the seventh week. Anita Baker was on a farewell tour and Vegas was the closest stop to Vancouver. Eating disorder treatment be damned; I was going.

I knew prior to admission that the first week would be the toughest. I would be in Phase One of the program, a period during which I’d receive no passes. I’d be stuck in the hospital wing, one so small nurses barely had to raise their voices to call out “Snack time” from the dining area on one end to be heard deep in the activity room on the other end.

Yeesh. Just recalling snack time makes me cringe. Three times a day, in addition to three meals. It felt they were intent on fattening me up, something I’d clearly stated would be a no-go during several pre-admission meetings. I wasn’t a stereotypical skin-and-bone patient with an eating disorder. I just needed to tweak some “bad” habits involving food restriction and overexercising. I was a skeptic who’d given the people running the program a challenge: show me I can eat more regularly and exercise less without gaining weight. If I gained as much as two pounds, I’d decided I would check myself out. I had a foot out the door from Day One.

In fact, I almost packed up before I’d fully unpacked. On my first afternoon, there was some confusion about the number of times they would take my blood. To call it confusion is being kind; they’d flat out changed the rules. A blood lab technician came by and took my blood that morning, twenty minutes into my admission. I have a serious phobia about needles and blood and all things medical. I’d forewarned everyone. Four nurses stood around trying to distract me and ready to deal with my dead-weight body if I fainted. According to the “agreement” I’d made with my assigned psychiatrist, I’d forego the twice-a-day blood extraction routine and I wouldn’t be stabbed again (yes, that’s how I see it) for four days, and then only if something abnormal came up in my initial blood work.

Logically, there’d be a picture of a needle or taking 

blood here. I couldn’t do it. Started to feel 

light-headed Googling images. Honestly. When I 

experience medical trauma, I picture

 my schnauzers. Isn’t Hoover cute?

And yet, sometime around two in the afternoon, a technician with a blood cart strolled back into my room. I panicked. I made a stop sign with my hand. “Oh, no!” I said. “It’s not happening.” The poor technician’s eyes popped out—Drama queen, he probably thought. They don’t pay me enough. He and his little cart switched to reverse gear and I was alone again. It was a good kind of social isolation. I really didn’t need to chat about the weather or Easter with a stranger in a lab coat siphoning my blood. Five minutes later, my assigned nurse and the psychiatrist were pulling up chairs, intent on doing an intervention—Thou shalt give blood, again and again.

It’s exactly what I didn’t want. I had consented to treatment for an eating disorder. I knew frequent blood tests would be an overwhelming distraction, spiking my anxiety, bringing extremely negative associations to the whole program. Like an ornery child, I folded my arms and said, “No more blood or I’m leaving.”

Sometimes little brats get their way, even when they’re 6’1” and fifty-four years old.

I’d “won” but the tantrum took something out of me. I’d warned staff ahead of time that I might be a difficult patient. Having an “entrenched” eating disorder, as several professionals had called it, I knew I’d do a lot of resisting. I was also coming in with negative feelings—even trauma—from two past involuntary admissions to psych wards in the same hospital. I was a nice guy but this was definitely not my happy place. And so I spent most of my first day in self-imposed isolation, in my room, door barely ajar (I wasn’t allowed to shut it). Sometimes I’d sit in the old wooden chair that came with the minimalist décor, but most of my day was spent in bed, the thin blanket pulled all the way up to cover my body, my head turtled under the pillow I’d brought from home.

What have I done?

Do I really need to be here?

How can I put up with this for seven six weeks?

My anxiety triggered many more times that first day. The bathroom was public with two stalls and a nurse barged in during my first visit, telling me I wasn’t allowed to close the hall door. (I learned later that everyone felt she had a particularly abrupt manner.) It freaked me out that, while I was in one stall, a female patient used the second stall. From then on, I planned my bathroom times, counting flushes during prime times so that I knew I was the only one left.

No more water. Please!

The meals and snacks seemed too large and too frequent. My stomach hadn’t digested one before I was having to chew down another. We had to completely finish everything on our institutional food trays, with nurses checking to ensure we’d scraped out every bit from our butter and peanut butter packets (both “never” foods in my home). Even the amount of water I had to drink at every sitting caused stress. (We were forbidden from using the bathroom for the first hour after each meal or snack; hence, those built up prime times.) In the dining area, where I was assigned a seat that would remain my spot for the duration of my stay, I couldn’t keep track of the conversation from the seven other patients and the nurse assigned to supervise the meal. I found myself staring at a whiteboard completely covered with rules about eating. Too much to digest, indeed.

Couldn’t they fix her hair 

for the cover photo?

I combatted anxiety by falling into a depression. Sometimes I can avert this by asserting even greater control over my body, kicking food restriction up a notch (or more) and further increasing my exercise routines. Of course, these weren’t options in hospital. I stuck to my bed whenever possible, sometimes staring blankly at my newly purchased copy of Olivia Newton-John’s memoir, Don’t Stop Believin’, a guilty pleasure that, as it turned out, offered no pleasure. The only other distraction was a Sudoku book I’d packed. I urgently scribbled numbers in little boxes, attempting to blot out harsh self-criticism and a nagging inner voice telling me this program was futile.

In groups, I tried to be compliant or at least silent. I didn’t want my shit to bring down others who actively participated and seemed to be getting something out of this experience. In time, I came around. My mood lifted, my voice returned to normal volume instead of the faint whisper that comes when I’m at my lowest. I adjusted to the mundane aspects of being stuck in a tiny ward smaller that a “Big Brother” set, my discharge date seeming so far, far away. There was some sense of camaraderie that comes with being in a confined, alternate realty together, just the eight of us. “It’s like camp,” one patient said who had been through the program before. “You become besties in the bubble and then you get out and never see each other again.” True enough. We’re not even Facebook friends.

Just like I’m seeing today, confinement led to the creation of routines we never did in that world Beyond the Unit. One cluster took to jigsaw puzzles, imploring visitors to bring thousand-piece forest scenes instead of bunches of tulips. Others passed the time doing some crafty task called Diamond Dotz. A couple others paired up to do New York Times crosswords. With my laptop confiscated, I spent “free” time determined to be productive, revising printouts of aging manuscripts I’d never dared send to agents and publishers.

Pictured, clockwise from top left: 

Chris, Chris, Chris and Chris.

During the evenings, there was a regular Chip and Dale-style “battle” for viewing choices on the only TV screen on the ward. A year ago, hockey was deep into the NHL playoffs, while “Jeopardy” had a smug guy vying to break Ken Jennings’ records. Meanwhile, the younger twenty-somethings on the unit had a constant supply of DVDs from the library...always some new-ish romantic comedy with young actresses who didn’t seem the least bit memorable and one of those Chris actors (Pratt? Hemsworth? Evans? Pine?--could one of them at least have a different hair color?). My room was unfortunately adjacent to the TV lounge, but I holed up there and tried to tune everyone and everything out, revisiting a blog of mine about children’s books and slogging through Olivia’s knack for making anecdotes from the “Grease” set and the making of the “Physical” video as spicy as, well, Sandra Dee.

It was a constant challenge to stay busy, knowing that time continued to tick by in the real world beyond the locked door at the end of the hall. People had freedom to eat what and when they wanted. They could go wherever they wished. No one monitored their movements documenting everything in hefty binders. Imagine.

A year later, I’m back in some form of isolation. I see tweets every day from people struggling with boredom, with lack of human contact, with closed gyms, restaurants and salons. Pardon the food reference, but this is a cake walk. I find the current situation exponentially more tolerable than what I experienced for six weeks on a locked hospital ward. Sure, we have to socially distance ourselves and do without services we’ve always taken for granted but, as the saying goes, misery loves company. We’re in this together.

One of the many murals popping up in Vancouver’s 

Gastown as owners temporarily board up businesses.

The weirdness of the moment goes so far beyond a shared experience of eight patients whose damaged pasts have manifested themselves in tenacious eating disorders. In the present, I spend much more of my time appreciating what’s come of this coronavirus crackdown. I love how the streets of Vancouver are clearer and how bike trails are getting more usage. I am heartened when I see families on leisurely walks. (I smiled broadly yesterday while I biked along a forested path and passed a father flanked by four children, one in a Spiderman costume, all carrying big sticks to fend off pirates and whatnot. Memories.) My daily scroll through my Facebook feed lacks the typical travel photos, but I see fewer blatantly political posts being shared and many more memes spreading humor, kindness and a greater regard for our eldest citizens. I find myself being especially courteous to grocery clerks and it warms me that others are doing the same. I step out on my balcony at seven every night, a little too reserved and musically insecure to bang on my own pots and pans, but soaking in the din intended to express gratitude for health-care workers (and, just maybe, to let out some built-up steam).

Yes, I daresay, there’s much more to like about the present “isolation”. In some ways, I feel more connected to humanity than ever.