Chapter 12: Freedom
My Dad was teaching, and my brother was in school, so my Mom and I had a long drive just the two of us. “I promise I will never send you back there,” she said in earnest, and the rest of the weight floated away. We had a real heart-to-heart, and though fifteen-year-old me couldn’t fully appreciate what it must have been like from a mother’s perspective, I can appreciate it now. She and my father made a call, based on the information she had been given and in an effort to do what was best for me. In the end, she didn’t appreciate their methods but I think she felt just as trapped as I did.
I learned that the therapist had lied and told the hospital that I was a danger to myself. As in, I would harm myself if given the chance. The doctor had also prescribed me medication without my parents signing off on it.
We went to McDonald’s for lunch and I got to detox. I wasn’t a huge fan of pink, nor unicorns, but I kept the pink stuffed unicorn I got in my Happy Meal as a reminder of a fresh start. It was a happy memory. The first unblemished happy memory I had made in far too long.
It wasn’t easy returning to school after being away. I had started the year as one of the new kids, and then disappeared for several weeks. As if being a displaced Canadian wasn’t enough of a conversation starter. I was also already behind by New York’s standards, since Washington didn’t have Regents exams and so I hadn’t taken any Regents classes yet. In an effort to rectify this, my tenth grade work load consisted of several ninth grade classes, and only a few with my own tenth grade classmates. Christmas break allowed me an opportunity to catch up on what I hadn’t been able to do in the hospital, which was a mixed blessing.
Looking back on that dark time, I never think, “Wow, the hospital did such a great job!” Instead I think, “But for the grace of God.”
Without Him, I would have lost all hope. I may have had only a scrap of it left at one point, but it still remained. “Glory be to God who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of.” (Ephesians 3:20 TLB) The journals I kept were full of so much pain, but anytime I saw a glimmer of light, it was often followed by something God was showing me or a reminder to keep praying; or as I wrote K.U.P. aka Keep Up the Praying. I think acronyms were really big in the Christian youth scene of the time. I’m not certain if I came up with that dreadful one on my own or not, but the sentiment was solid.
Prayer was an essential part of my stay in the hospital. That blossoming relationship I was cultivating with God during that time made all the difference. Guzzling Nubasics may have eventually sorted out my weight issue, but the damage done to my fragile mental state could have left scars too deep to really heal from. It is not surprising so many of those poor girls ended up returning to that unit at some point in their lives. Of course, I already mentioned earlier that staff members, doctors and patients were repeating this notion enough that it stuck in my memory. The staff was jaded, and hardened to the person underneath the disease. There was a constant air of tension and every little thing you said or did was psychoanalyzed to death. Not liking a fruit that was served could mean you were subconsciously trying to sabotage your weight gain, and feared returning home. If you joined me in a heavy eye roll just now, thank you for recognizing how ludicrous that notion is. While it may seem like hyperbole, that example is awfully close to some of the nonsense that I was told while I was a patient.
There seemed to be no real hope. People flippantly spoke of death as just another thing that would happen, with someone even joking we’d all be fertilizer one day. It was a grim experience, with so little joy smattered in between. Everyone wanted to use the phones, to have guests, and to be allowed little freedoms that reminded them of their humanity and connected them with individuals who cared enough to take the time to reach out. Those necessities were certainly not provided for inside the unit. That is why my time at night, when I got to crack open my devotions and get a taste of what God had to say about the world around me, I was so profoundly changed. When the world around me was scary, and I felt there was no one I could trust, I had Him to lean on. It was the beginning of truly understanding what that looked like.
Some of the other patients expressed a desire to have a support system like mine, wishing they had that structure at home. Of course, that made me appreciate all the more the parents God had given me. I am sure I took their grace for granted at the time. My Mom came and collected my dirty laundry and washed it at home, and brought me clean clothes, so I didn’t have to contend with other patients for use of the single on-site washer and dryer. My grandparents, great-grandma, friends from school and parents, all spoke with me on the phone at some point. Teachers from school sent along words of encouragement and wanted me to know I was being prayed for. One of my teachers even came to visit. It was harder to see the prayers at work at the time, but I saw it clearly afterward. Though I was surrounded by people as broken as I was, the hopelessness did not win, Hope did.
During a group session one day I shared that I had found encouragement in my devotional the night before. The leader asked me if I would like to share it with the rest of the group, and unlocked my room so that I could retrieve the book. I’m not sure who else needed to hear that message but it was a moment that stood out in my mind because of the stark contrast to the rest of the grim rhetoric I was fed the rest of the time. Being allowed to share God’s Word during my hospital stay, and to even be used in such a small measure, became a humbling but blessed memory.
I wish I could say that after my hospital stay I miraculously got me back on my feet, that I left trusting God fully, eating without any qualms and kicking anxiety to curb. However, I obviously still had room to grow. I mean a lot of room to grow. God had shown me that when all else fails me, He was still with me. He was the solid rock I could firmly stand on. So, I kept those tiny feet planted and moving forward, whether I was too afraid to eat or was able to eat plenty, whether anxiety suffocated me or I felt a true calm, I was able to face either one with a greater assurance than before. For this simply profound fact, I remain immensely grateful.
Leave a Reply