I climb onto the counter, reaching up to the ceiling. Somewhere on this property, is someone watching a recording of me stuffing calorie after calorie into my mouth? My hands tremble as they trace the ceiling.
“How long have you been watching me?”
“What?” She holds up her arms as though she thinks she can catch me if I lose my balance.
“You said you’d check on me twice a night, at two a.m. and five a.m. My very first day here, you lied to me.”
“I didn’t. Amelia, no one is watching you.”
“Then how do you know about the bingeing and purging?”
“Maurice noticed less food in the kitchen each morning. Izabela cleaned up after you in the bathroom.”
Maurice is standing at attention beside the stove, a soldier waiting for orders. One word from the doctor and he might grab me, restrain me, perhaps sedate me. Could it have been Maurice I saw in the woods the other night?
I fall into a crouch, swing myself onto the floor. I suppose there’s no need for cameras when you have spies.
“Please, Amelia.” Dr. Mackenzie sounds so reasonable. That’s another thing they must teach therapists in school: how to sound perfectly calm even when there’s legitimate cause for alarm so patients feel crazy when they’re simply having a normal human response. “Sit down. I want to talk to you.”
In the past twenty-four hours, the bingeing has gone from my secret to something known by Edward, Dr. Mackenzie, Maurice, and Izabela. (Though Maurice and Izabela have probably known for days.) I wrap the fingers of one hand around the opposite wrist and squeeze so tight it hurts.
Georgia was right: There’s a cleanliness to starvation, an order. Hunger is disorganized. Vomit is messy. I’mproudof my ability to starve. I started when I was so young, skipping breakfast before third grade to see what would happen. Then skipping lunch every day of fifth grade to prove that I didn’t need the kind of mother who remembered to cut the crusts off her daughter’s sandwiches.
I sit on the couch and Dr. Mackenzie settles into the chair across from me. “I don’t want to talk about the bulimia,” I say finally. I fell hook, line, and sinker for the stereotype of the bulimic as a failed anorexic, as though bulimia isn’t also a disease of extraordinary denial, as though it doesn’t take enormous discipline to do something as unnatural as sticking your fingers down your throat to rob your body of food.
“I don’t think you have bulimia,” Dr. Mackenzie answers, surprising me.
I fold my arms across my chest. “I’m bingeing and purging.”
“Yes, and those are the behaviors of bulimia, but I think it’s your anorexia manifesting in a new way.”
It’s the first time Dr. Mackenzie has said something that hasn’t been said, in some form, by one of the many doctors who came before her.
“It’s not only that you don’t know how to eat—you don’t know how to behungry. Your brain has tricked you into believing that hunger is all or nothing.”
Hungerisall or nothing. My bingeing is proof.
Dr. Mackenzie continues. “No one ever modeled hunger for you.”
Is she kidding? Georgia modeled nothing but hunger.
As though she can hear my thoughts, Dr. Mackenzie continues. “Your mother was an addict—you were raised in the chaos of her seemingly infinite hunger. Your grandmother was the polar opposite: keep everything tidy, orderly, don’t lose control. Between the two of them, you never saw moderation.”
Dr. Mackenzie adds, “Children of narcissists often struggle to find a middle ground between self-absorption and self-erasure. They don’t believe that they can do something as simple as celebrating their birthday without sucking all the air out of the room.”
I feel an unexpected lump in my throat. I’ve always hated my birthday.
“Amelia, are you willing to talk about any of this?” she asks. “If you can’t be open with me, then we’re not going to make much progress here.”
For years, doctors have remarked on myprogress. The ones who tried behavioral therapy, family therapy, IFS. They all said I would get better.
Slowly, like my head weighs a thousand pounds, I nod at my doctor.
Dr. Mackenzie’s gaze flickers to Maurice, and he walks toward us, abowl in his hand. As he approaches, I see that the bowl is filled with dry Cheerios. (More likely, some healthier, whole-grain, organic alternative.)
Therapists always start like this when initiating cognitive behavioral therapy. Cheerios, M&M’s, jelly beans. Something easy to count.
“I don’t want to force you to eat like the therapists you’ve had in the past,” Dr. Mackenzie says as Maurice puts the bowl down on the coffee table in front of me. “I want to teach you to eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full.”
