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August 1 - August 14, 2022
Not until I got into recovery did I understand that my bulimia was a way to control the unending swells of anxiety, loneliness, anger, and grief that I had no idea how to release.
I didn’t yet know that therapy, like writing, relied on detail and specificity.
“It’s a metaphor. When you let the group in—take that first bite—only then will you feel how alone you’ve been.”
“How do I ‘let the group in’?” “You share with them every aspect of your life that deals with relationships—friendship, family, sex, dating, romance. All of it.” “Why?” “That’s how you let them in.”
“Wait, what’s going to happen to me when I start group?” “You’re going to feel lonelier than you ever have in your life.”
“If you’re serious about getting into intimate relationships—becoming a real person, as you said—you need to feel every feeling you’ve been stifling since you were a kid. The loneliness, the anxiety, the anger, the terror.”
“It might be, but keeping secrets for other people is more toxic than other people knowing your business. Holding on to secrets is a way to hold shame that doesn’t belong to you.”
What you hear here, when you leave here, stays here.
Years later, I’d watch new patients come in and refuse to hug anyone, especially Dr. Rosen, and my jaw would drop open, realizing it never once occurred to me not to hug him. I didn’t have that kind of no anywhere in my body.
The day I’d committed to joining a group, I stopped sleeping through the night.
There were disclosures. There was feedback. There was looking, seeing, and being seen. There were no answers.
I saw my five-year-old face twisted in horror in my childhood bedroom as I scratched past midnight. Horror that I didn’t know how to ask for help.
Most of all, horror that my body was a filthy problem, a problem that no one else had.
By the end of group, everyone had shared a butt story.
The silence made me feel exposed, antsy, and unproductive.
I’d already confessed that my eating was a hot steamy mess; now I admitted I couldn’t sleep. I was a newborn baby stuck in a twenty-seven-year-old’s body.
He always said, “I just can’t believe anyone is listening to me.”
“Congratulations.” “For what?” “When was the last time you made this much space for your feelings?”
Dr. Rosen wasn’t taking my distress seriously. He didn’t understand how it felt in my body. I was a window painted shut, a jar lid that wouldn’t budge no matter how much you banged it on the counter. I had to show him.
His shoes were still tied. Moving from a chaste ninety-second make-out session to intercourse made as much sense as robbing the 7-Eleven on the corner. But between us, we lacked the skills or desire to slow down and figure out what the hell was actually happening.
No, I couldn’t. I didn’t want to celebrate until I knew how much was left to do. The realization that there was no shortcut to the mental health I was working toward crushed my spirit.
Was my therapist a complete freak? Why did I take his advice on what to say to the Smoker? Why did I give that strange little man so much power?
I’ve revisited my sweaty head under that blanket thousands of times, always wondering why I felt bereft of choices, words, and the right to lift the blanket and take a breath. Or to not suck his dick in the first place. I did it because I wanted to be a good girlfriend and good girlfriends say yes.
It never occurred to me to say no,
“If you can’t say no in relationships, then you can’t be intimate,” Dr. Rosen said. “Say that again.” I held still so that each word would seep inside me, past my skin and muscle, and settle in my bones. “If you can’t say no, there can be no intimacy.”
People said no to me all the time, and I still loved them.
What I felt was relief. Intense, cascading, pure relief. No might belong to me too.
In stillness, the truth loomed,
“Can you try to act normal? Just try it. For us. Would you try to act normal? All this moping around, it’s not good for you—”
They wore custom-made suits with Italian leather shoes. I was a little girl with pinworms, a college student who almost died from self-induced vomiting, a young woman with an apple fetish barely in remission.
I told him the truth: “I hope to be moving toward partnership.” I didn’t mean firm partnership necessarily, but he didn’t know that.
My feet fell into a perfect staccato rhythm, and my spine was pillar straight. My stride was that of a woman who was first in her law school class. It might have been a second-tier school, but only one person had done it. The truth of that number—one—sizzled through my body, finally something more than abstraction or shame. It was energy, and it belonged to me.
Skadden was prestigious, and I didn’t know if I belonged, but my fear of not measuring up was suddenly not as strong as the propulsive yes in my chest. It seemed absurd to let insecurity and fear hold me back from all Skadden was offering. Plus, they would pay me enough that I could afford rent, student loans, and therapy.
When it came to anger, I swallowed, pretended, ignored, withdrew. I knew nothing about fighting.
“Don’t you know that once you start psychotherapy all your sex dreams are about your therapist?”
Resistance—to change, to pleasure, to a shorter commute—was what held us back from what we really wanted.
one part of intimacy is learning to express anger. You’ve made huge progress in the morning group. But another part of intimacy is learning to tolerate other people’s anger.
“I can be mad at you and still love you, you know.” No, actually, I didn’t know that. I had no idea.
I had none of my usual first-date stiffness, no impulse to hold any part of myself back.
Could it really be this easy? All I had to do was ask?
Whatever skills my siblings had that allowed them to pivot, readjust, and find joy in the detour, I lacked. I could only seethe in silence, swallowed up by my internal gale-force fury and disappointment. My family, unsure of how to reach me, eventually let me be. No one had any tools to offer me then, or later when I didn’t get ballet solos, or boyfriends broke up with me, or I didn’t get into the graduate program I wanted. All I’d ever done with anger was swallow it or throw it up. Now it was pouring out, messy and loud.
Believe me, buddy, I’m a lot of things, but brave comes well after desperate, foolish, lonely, depressed, sad, lost, humiliated, and starving.
The feedback from both of my groups was unanimous: “Concentrate on your new career.”
In my frenzy, I remained deaf to the one need he had expressed—to be left alone. Today, I have compassion for him and the illness that robbed him of joy and energy.
I had a single thought: I don’t want to be doing this.
I’d written him off as a smart-ass player, which he most definitely was, but underneath his relentless sexual swagger, he displayed a fascination with legal ethics and the contours of civil liberties.
Who was this guy who wanted to freebase pleasure and take me with him?
I’d said yes twice and now my life was filled with people who knew me well. Intimately. Rory knew about every drop of food I put into my mouth. Marty offered my nightly affirmations. My groups knew about the dirty dick I’d sucked, my pinworms, my temper tantrums. Wasn’t that what I’d always wanted? People to fully know me and all my stories while also sharing theirs with me. That was definitely part of it and now I wanted more. I wanted a family of my own, one like Marnie’s, Patrice’s, Rory’s, and Nan’s. I was grateful for what I had but new desires bloomed: To have a family of my own with a
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Dr. Rosen and my first two groups had taught me to eat, sleep, and have sex. I’d miss Dr. Rosen and his goofy-ass laugh. I’d miss my Tuesday-morning crew. The first session in the “advanced” group was not exactly life-altering, but I owed it to myself to give it some time.
“Do not cry alone. Be with your group members, as much as you can,” Dr. Rosen said. My gaze lingered on their shoes.
