4-30-13

Writing, writing, writing. That’s all I do these days. And watch movies and documentaries. I have been watching the ABC show “Hopkins” on youtube the last couple nights. I remember when it was originally on the air I watched a little of it too. It’s absolutely amazing to see what goes on in such a giant hospital like that. It’s also pretty incredible to see the lives of the Residents and Nurses that work the long hours that they do. They still have somewhat of a life though. I don’t think that’s what I want to do though. Way too much stress and it has already been known that I don’t do well with massive amounts of stress. The show was taped in 2008 I believe, during the time which I was a patient actually in the hospital. Ha!

So it was my freshman year and I had landed myself right back in the hospital; at least I had managed to stay out for a whole year though (or very close to it). I arrived at the unit with a scowl on my face. Nothing at all had changed about that dingy unit, even the same old uncomfortable waiting room like chairs were there. I was genuinely missing Sheppard Pratt Hospital at this point. My parents had built up a dislike for Sheppard Pratt though, and a keen trust for Johns Hopkins and the all-powerful mistress in charge of the program. I was so done with it all though. I had changed a little bit since my last admission. There was also a completely different population of patients which was nice (or was it)? There was still that one or two persons that I had probably seen my entire treatment length though, also known as the “professional patient” or “lifer”.

In a sick zealous way I looked up to these older “chronic” anorexics. My first meal this admission was dinner (it usually was). I was sitting at the end of the table closest to the staff member who was keeping a profound nurses’ eye on me (they probably remembered my sly behaviors from previous times). I was eating slow and but cooperating because by this time I knew better that it was better to just cooperate instead of throw adult like fits. All of a sudden a girl at the table completely freaked out the hell out. She went completely ape shit. Apparently someone had made a crude comment about her “bread pudding” referring it to something of a gross nature. She didn’t think it was funny and in fact she flipped the hell out like I said. I was completely taken aback; it had been almost a year since I had been around a bunch of other loons. I smirked a bit, and reminded myself where I was. This kind of thing was normal on a ward with a bunch of lunatics of one form or the other.

 This admission I was actually put in a room with one of the mood disorder patients. The nurses and probably my psychiatrist had remembered from my previous times that I would stay up and talk eating disorder crap with my other eating disordered roommate. Or maybe it was just because they didn’t have an open room with another ED (eating disorder) patient. Either way I didn’t care. My roommate was older than me and she was really nice. Something that myself and the other eating disorder patients were always not finding fair was the fact that we had to stay out in the “day room” all day long. We couldn’t go to our rooms because we would have exercised/thrown-up whatever. The Bipolar and Depressive patients were pretty much allowed to do whatever they wanted though, as long as they weren’t killing themselves or someone else.

 

I would go into my room at 10:00pm when I was finally allowed to go to bed and my roommate had been sleeping all day. She was also allowed to have food and diet soda in the room. This pissed me off but I never said anything. She was a very nice person and we talked a lot. She tried to understand why I felt fat and I tried to understand why she carved words into her arm and wanted to die. She always looked extremely tired I am pretty sure she was drugged up as hell. I also became familiar Electro Convulsive Therapy. I never had it, but I would watch as every other day as the Depressed, Manic, and Catatonic patients would get into a gurney and be wheeled down stairs. Half an hour later, they would come back up looking tired and confused. Electroconvulsive Therapy did help people though. I saw it with my own eyes. Even some of my fellow eating disorder patients got it.

 

Johns Hopkins takes the sickest patients in the world. That includes their department of psychiatry. The treatment for severe Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and Depression in some cases is ECT. I am not sure if my roommate got ECT, I am sure she did. Every afternoon was Interpersonal Group Therapy. My Social Worker led this group. She was dead set on getting me to talk. She did say that I seemed to have matured a lot since my last admission, which was probably the first positive comment I heard from her. Oh this Social Worker was so strict. She sat with one leg resting on the other, and anytime one of us (specifically me) was shaking out leg she was hiss our name Marissa! And give her foot a double slap. This met stop shaking your leg, you are burning a calorie or two. Once a week, I believe on Monday we had Interpersonal Group led by one of the attending physicians, usually my Psychiatrist, the Director of the program. This group was massive. All day hospital and inpatients, as well as Social Work interns, the Psychiatry Residents, and all led by the Director of the Program. The Residents took notes the entire time. It was really funny; they watched and listened to everything my Psychiatrist said. She was their boss and their teacher. The Residents would get a chance to ask us questions and co-lead group for a few minutes, and they would watch anxiously as my Psychiatrist judged and watched everything they said. When the occasional one or two patients would be sleeping in their chair, neck and head bent back, the Residents would try to ignore it until they started snoring. Then it was time to wake up.

 

I had been getting my work sent up to me this entire time, and every morning from 10am-11am I would go downstairs (off the unit!) and do my work. I learned a few things but it was not the same as being in school. And I was certainly not helping my social situation at all. For the most part I cooperated this entire time the program. I still had a few sarcastic comments for people here and there, but I had eaten and gotten to my “goal weight”. Another issue I have with this program is that they don’t let you see your weight. So I had no idea what I weighed. I felt like a doe ball though. However, one day my charming Psychiatrist just decided to tell me my weight after I had reached my goal weight. I freaked! I believe I had the right to freak out. I was hysterical. It was the “most I had ever been”, at the time and I was just unhappy. Well the Psychiatrist probably said something like “your acting like animal” (again) and that was that. She gets the gold medal for blunt hard ass comments, and rude almost unprofessional ways of saying things.

Back to day hospital! This time my mom and I stayed in a hotel though. The Children’s House didn’t have room. So we commuted from a hotel. It amazes me the amount of money my parents spent on that day hospital. At the time my insurance didn’t cover day hospital. However being professionals they were, my Social Worker and the Psychiatrist guilt trapped my parents into spending thousands of dollars on that damned day hospital. I later found out that my Social Worker said this to my parents “It will be your fault if Marissa dies”. I have a major issue with that. That is one of the most insensitive comments I have ever heard. First of all, it would have been my entire fault and only my fault if I died. I was dead set on being anorexic and living (or dying) the way I wanted. There was nothing my parents could or could not have done. They definitely helped me, but I do not understand the use of such words. My mom also told me they decided to tell them that were going to have to stop paying for my day hospital. The Social Workers response “You know, we have some parents who have to take out a second mortgage or sell their house”. I think that’s crap that the Social Worker said that. I am however grateful for my time in day hospital, because it is extremely hard to go from inpatient straight home.

 I was in the Day Hospital program until April or May, I honestly do not remember. It was time for me to return home. I remember sitting in the courtyard at Johns Hopkins (probably working on a contract) with my Social Worker and my Mom. My Social Worker did throw in a few positive words. I think she actually believed I could get better. She had been following my case for a while and I think she did care about me. The insensitive things she said to my parents were probably something she thought she just had to say. As I walked out of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in April/May 2008 that was the last time I would ever be an inpatient or day hospital patient. I have not returned since. I did go back to see my Psychiatrist for a while but eventually I stopped seeing her too. My eating disorder was far from over though. The destruction and new symptoms and worse crises were on the rise.

 

I returned home and things just felt awkward. It’s always weird when you return to your home environment 20-25 lbs. heavier. I tried to find routine once again though. I dreaded going back to school and facing the questions and stereotypes I knew would come because I had faced them before. I tried so nonchalant to just walk the halls and do normal things. The first day back I was sitting in the cafeteria with some completely random people I did not know and I was eating a salad and a diet coke. I saw my guidance counselor from across the lunch room and she was just staring at me. Holy Shit! Right then and there I knew what was happening. I promise you I am not paranoid. My parents had sent this woman to spy on me and to see what I was eating. And I was absolutely right. When I got home that day my parents just looked at me arms crossed and eyes furrowed. “Marissa what did you have lunch”.

“Umm I had a sandwich and some soup” Oh crap did I just say that!

“No you didn’t, you only had a little bit of salad”…

Busted!!

I absolutely could not believe what was going on. My parents had sent someone to spy at me during lunch! They were recruiting people! Why couldn’t I do it though? I had just gotten out of the hospital and immediately gone back to my bad traditions. Maybe if I had gotten therapy while at Johns Hopkins things would have been different. Something horrible was about to happen though. It didn’t even have to do with me or my eating disorder for once though.

Back in 2006 the last time I saw my Nana (grandmother), she had flown home to Michigan after seeing a sick anorexic me. The last time I saw her was when I was waving goodbye as I was being driven to Sheppard Pratt. The day my Nana got home she had to have Emergency surgery because she got a stomach bleed. While I was in Johns Hopkins (in 2008) the most recent time, she had suffered a stroke. I was just hearing bits and pieces of this while I was at Johns Hopkins. Now that I was home I was hearing that she was in a rehabilitation center. She was still pretty sick though. This was heartbreaking to me because I loved my Nana. All of a sudden one day after school I hear that she got really sick and started vomiting blood. They took her to the hospital and things were supposed to get better - but they didn’t. The next thing I hear is that she is admitted to the hospital on a medical unit. My uncle who lives in Michigan was called to see her. Apparently she was in great pain and just cried out for “it to just end”, my Uncle said it was something he never wanted to see. Apparently my Nana’s brain had been deprived of blood and oxygen so she went brain dead. She went into a coma, and she was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit. My mom flew up to Michigan to see her, and I wanted to go too, but she didn’t want me to. When she came back she said things looked really bad. My nana was on mechanical ventilator which was breathing for her, and she had all sorts of other devices. My mom said she was all puffy and blown up like a balloon, and that her fingers had already started to curl in like a corpse. This was too much for me. This was so sad. How could God let this happen to the best family member outside of my immediate family? A few days later my mom got the call that my Nana was dead. It didn’t make sense, I couldn’t comprehend it. This was my Nana. This was my Nana who had taken a ship from England to America to start her new life 50 years ago, this was my Nana who stopped smoking so she could be around me when I was born, this was my Nana who played Miss Mary Mack with me when I was a baby, this was my Nana who visited us in California, Puerto Rico, and Virginia- the only family member who visited us in all the places we lived. This was my Nana we sent me Beanie babies on my birthdays and sent me money at every holiday even Easter and Halloween. This was my Nana who smelled like Roses and cotton, my Nana who did crosswords and read murder mysteries like I use Facebook. And now she was gone, and I only got to see her for the first 13 years of my life. And the last God damn memory and picture in her mind of me, was that of a starving 13 year old who had been taken over by an acute sense of madness.

Usually when someone as dear and loved as my Nana dies, people cry. I didn’t cry right away. My mom went upstairs to cry. I stayed downstairs and paced for a little while. Then I picked up a small knife and cut myself a little bit on the arm. It was not a huge cute at all, but that night marked the start of a new sense of madness. All I had known before was starvation and weight loss but this was different. This was immediate release. Some say I picked it up from my roommate Johns Hopkins. I might have, but not solely from her. I would have started regardless. The loss of my Nana was too much; it marked the start of a new thing. The monster now had two heads.