Yesterday, I visited a dear friend who has been admitted to an eating disorder treatment program and will remain there for 6 weeks. While she does not look the part, the skeleton in her closet is actively at work, starving and excessively exercising in hopes to be the real deal someday.
As I walked up to her building from the parking lot, there were a cluster of young girls on the path. They were literal stick figures. Hollowed faces and clothing barely hanging on their bones. I see why my friend is still comparing herself to those around her and shaking her head over and over: "I can't be that bad?"
It's a matter of perspective. As I see it, addiction is an inside-job. And so is recovery. When we let the outside inform our interior, we get confused, trying to make sense of what we see and then that influences how we feel.
My friend is at the wee beginnings of what I suspect will be an enormous shattering. She is without her 3x daily rigorous workout regimen. She is watched at every meal and if she refuses, then she is made to drink Ensure. She has no contact via cell phones or internet. It is just her and the 4 walls of her tiny room and tiny roommate and all the other tiny women trying to figure out if they can be full again.
I will admit that I couldn't wait to leave. Not to get away from my friend, no not that at all. It was the empty, vacant stares of the inhabitants of this place piercing through my heart. I became aware of the solidity of myself, much in the same way I feel the personal in impersonal space. I wanted to make space full. I had discomfort in the nothingness of what was here. Funny, this IS my work. But this is NOT the place.
I have another variety of skeletons in the closet I must face ...
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