a late 2011 post

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps." ~Proverbs 16:9

A year ago today, I certainly had a plan. In the next few minutes you will read my humble account of the destructive plans I made and the God who had others... the black holes I fell into and the mountaintops I ran across (both literally and figuratively)... the things I left behind (both good and bad) and the new things I stepped into head-on (again, both good and bad).

I started off the new year very, very sick, and I had no intentions to improve that. I intentionally declined to make a New Year's Resolution, because I instead desired to digress. Each day was planned around what food I was going to eat and how I was going to eat it. Consequently, I started getting more depressed, and I guess it showed. In mid-January, after one of the worst binge and purges I've ever had, I ended up in the emergency room, where they gave me a psychiatric evaluation and a bag of IV fluids. No more than a week later, I had plans to move in with my dad, leave the most interesting school I've ever gone to (LVPA), and begin attending Plumstead, and enter intensive outpatient treatment at Renfrew.

And so I did, relatively swiftly and smoothly. By February 1st I was an official sophomore student at Plumstead Christian School and ED-NOS patient at the Renfrew Center who was too out of it to realize she was out of it. I went to treatment and did my work mindlessly, just barely finishing meals and half-sleeping through most classes and groups. I continuously deteriorated - physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Quiet time with God was gradually thrown out the window, but I did occasionally scribble furious profanities in my journal during those 20-minute periods when my emotions began to thaw (it was a "positive coping skill," the shrinks told me). Each day, I literally did nothing, thought nothing, mostly slept. I was the closest non-comatose human being to a zombie you've ever seen, and I had no idea. I forgot completely what it was like to live, and subsequently, I wanted to die.

On March 23rd I was admitted to Horsham Clinic for the first time, on the basis that I'd forgotten what "feeling safe at home" meant. I welcomed the reprieve from the world while it lasted, only to be painfully confronted once again with the unfortunate horrors of the world upon discharge. Because I just hadn't had enough flirting with death yet, I was readmitted to the hospital a week later. It's only now that I can begin to imagine what my parents must have thought.

Now, because most people have misconceptions of what psychiatric hospitals are like (and those misconceptions are vast), let me paint a picture for you: they are uncannily similar to prisons, but with my audience, that probably won't help much.

You don't understand why you've suddenly been forced here as if some sort of "crisis" occurred, because in your mind, you've been this way your whole life.  Yesterday you were a sad girl people tried relentlessly to communicate with; now you a chart. You may come in at any time of the day or night, but they always take your vitals, as if they could be something out of the ordinary. You enter the unit guarded, and there is a woman at the nurse's station who looks like she ate rocks for breakfast. She nonchalantly whisks you into a small white room with two chairs in the corner and, pen and paper in hand, orders you to take your clothes off. Because you are scared she will eat you if you breathe wrong, you immediately do so, no matter how uncomfortable you feel. She inspects your naked body, taking note of each and every wound or scar and asking, "Is that self-inflicted?" as if she didn't know. She then searches your clothing and confiscates your jewelry, belt, scarf, cash, cigarettes, bobby pins, drawstrings, shoelaces, keys, tampons, and anything else that is deemed by her to be a safety hazard. She takes your bags - if you have any - and most likely returns items you can count on one hand back to you the next day. Where's my stuff? You can't have it, she says. Oh.

You are woken up every fifteen minutes in the night to the screech of you and your roommate's door and a dark figure standing next to your bed. "Just doin' rounds," he or she says. Needless to say, you get little to no sleep, but it doesn't matter because you are allowed to be a zombie here without anyone looking at you twice. You receive your meds through a window, and do the routine mouth checks afterward without thinking about it. You wear clothes that have been sitting in the back of your drawers for the past year because they are the only ones you are willing to have the strings cut out of. After every meal, you must prove to the nurse you didn't purge by letting her check your pupils, but if you know how to do it, you'll figure out a way to get your puke in. You want to punch every male staff member and patient because they think they have power over you and you are sick of being treated that way. You think, I needta get atta here, and cry when they tell you it won't be anytime soon.

Don't get me wrong; there are good parts to this penitentiary disguised as health care. There are the warm socks with rubber treads on the soles that you can get if you're good and ask nicely for them, and if you're lucky, they'll be the blue ones.  There are the velcro contraptions you can place on your pants so they don't fall down (since you don't have your belt and you've been losing weight rapidly for the past four months). There is the peaceful alone time you get in the shower three times a day because you have nothing better to do. You can color or write, but of course with only crayons and bare-butt pencils because you can get high off markers, give yourself eraser burns, or stab yourself with a pen. There are the daily visits you get from your parents, but in actuality that is the most dreaded part of your day. There is the at-least-daily entertainment you receive from a fellow patient throwing a temper tantrum and being thrown in the safe room, but that gets old very quickly.

Your schedule is as follows: wake up, meds, breakfast, ADL's, morning check in, school, group, lunch (which will either be on the unit or at the Manor House, depending on how good you've been), recreation (which will either be on the unit or at the gym, again, depending on how good you've been), group, quiet time (you always, always take a nap), evening check in, dinner at the Manor House or unit, recreation at the gym or unit, group, free time, bed. You have either one or two roommates, and if they're crazy, too bad. There are two or three beds, each with a small bedside table where you keep your books, an empty bathroom (as you are only given your ADL items in the morning, during quiet time, and at night) with a shower and no door, and cubbies along the wall where each patient may keep her clothes and towels. If you are near the end of the unit, you and your roommate(s) may hold your head up to the wall at night in hopes of hearing crazy people in the next unit, if you are up for it. If not, one roommate decides to have a meltdown for whatever reason (you can work out a rotation schedule if you'd like, but work that out amongst yourselves) and the other(s) comfort. That is pretty much the extent of your life, and when you get atta there, unknown to you, your existence will become much more miserable.

I spend so much time talking about this because those three weeks were the climactic point of my year, my life, even. Upon entrance to that place, I had hit the very lowest point of my downhill fall, and had nowhere to go afterwards but up. When I finally did "get atta there," I suddenly and miraculously awakened to my place in creation as a daughter of the Most High God. Almost immediately I began trudging through the book of Psalms, and after a visit with Gabrielle over Easter weekend, everything made sense again and I could breathe. I forgot about my eating disorder for a short while and simply allowed myself to experience life. I worshipped Jesus and shared the gospel. I loved like crazy and hurt a lot, but it was a refreshing hurt. I learned that the glory of God truly is man fully alive. I went on what I called then and still now the best mission trip of my life, on which I received my long-term call to service to the people of Barahona, Dominican Republic. (I could write a book on that trip. I guess I'll save that one for later.) I learned a lot. I reignited my passion for music, writing, and skating and never looked back.

Okay, I did look back, and I still do often. Over the summer and into the school year I purposely proved to myself that darkness wasn't worth it, yet I still end up believing the lie every once in a while (okay, more than every once in a while). Each day my mind changes from wanting to be skinny-bitchy and desperate to that old yet new desire to be the beautiful and fully alive woman that God designed me to be. Sometimes when I look at red velvet cupcakes and sushi my heart feels genuine joy and peace, but most of the time it's either in binge or avoidance mode. I'm learning. 

God never worked on my character in any other year as much as He did this one, and I have a deep hope that it shows. I met many amazing people this year, broke off relationships with some, and grew closer to others. I went to Lake Placid for the first time and had a babysitting job. I watched God work absolute wonders, and often I cried.

As for 2012? I don't know what this year holds, but I'd like to hope it will be one of growth, health, and healing. But, of course, God may have other plans.