This is Part 2. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, this piece won’t make sense… so check it out!
You see, I am Mary.
I’m not literally Mary. I mean, I don’t think I made Mary up in my memories because my memory of her and my rage at her simple existence were so visceral, so vivid. She stood out in the group like a bump on a log, a middle aged woman among girls.
(Oh hi — It’s me, Celeste… just a quick trigger warning. I get a little down and dirty this week on eating disorders (ED). If this makes you uncomfortable, please skip this post)
But last week I walked into the eating disorder treatment facility that will be my new hangout for the next six weeks, my first experience with IOP. To a new room for group therapy on the other side of the country, with a circle of soft mismatched sofas and loveseats in lieu of the cold metal foldouts in Boston. I sat down to a room of men and women, some young enough to be my children. And my thoughts immediately went to Mary.
Mary, who binged and purged between preparing bottles and scheduling naptime. Mary with the short posh hair and wisps of grays mixed in. Mary, whose complaints of a mortgage and childrearing or dreams of returning to work someday once felt bitter on my tongue.
Surely God has a sense of humor because I couldn’t make this up if I tried.
I found a spot on a burgundy couch next to a young woman and I tried not to look around, to diagnosis everyone else in the room, but even more fascinating was considering how the others must of thought of me. The Mary of their group.
How did I come full circle? How did I let 20 years creep up between those harsh Boston winters and now with no resolution? An eating disorder that lay dormant for years but finally burst at the seams this summer, kicking down the doors to scream I’M STILL HERE.
And yet, how very different this Celeste is from the Celeste of 20 years ago. A girl who once couldn’t get through a meal without contemplating the location of the nearest toilet. A girl so self-consumed and afraid, she didn’t have the strength or bandwidth to feel empathy or compassion towards those around her.
And here I sit now, wanting to hug every person in this room with me. Wishing I could hold their hands and settle their nerves, to share with them that things can get better. That they won’t always live from one meal to the next. I may have some skeletons in my closet to contend with, but I have lived countless lives since my days seated on that cold metal chair in Boston, and I’m strong enough to know now that I not only can do this, but I absolutely will and be stronger for it.
Today I met with my nutritionist and she told me a story of a young woman sitting at the bedside of her elderly grandmother. The grandmother was nearing the end, and her granddaughter was spoon-feeding her some ice cream.
“That’s enough,” the woman in bed said softly to her granddaughter as she pushed the spoon back from her face. “I don’t want to get fat.”
When the nutritionist told me that story I realized something I don’t think I ever understood until now. If we don’t treat and heal our disorders, they will follow us to our dying day. They will not fade away into the sunset. They will not ghost us one morning when we reach a certain age. They may come and go in our behavior, but without proper healing they will sit with us patiently as long as our heart keeps beating, always eager to reemerge and say hello.
I go to treatment now so I don’t have to go in five or ten years. I go now to fill in the blanks of what Celeste in her 20’s couldn’t yet understand. I go now because we are all recovering from something.
I am not a failure for needing a do-over in my recovery. I am not weak for seeking support in my midlife. I am not an embarrassment for being the only 40-something in the group circle. I am the strongest I’ve ever been BECAUSE I’m here. I won’t back down. I’ll never give up.
And to Mary, wherever you are… I’m sorry I thought so poorly of you those many years ago. I hope you are thriving in life right now. I hope you are living your best life.
I hope you are saying yes to more ice cream. And I have a feeling I will be soon, too.
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