Faerie (6 page)

Part Three:

Metamorphosis

12
. Phase Zero

All psychiatry patients are put into Phase One upon admission. They graduate phases until they reach Phase Four when they are discharged and released back into the world and into their roles and routines, the offices and households from which their damaged selves were plucked. In each phase, there is a set of rules that patients must abide by.

All patients, upon admission, are put into Phase One—except for me. My mental disorder was determined to be unusually unyielding. It was triggered not by brain chemicals or a genetic condition. My madness was simply the pure and irrational urge to undo nature. For me, a special Phase was created—Phase Zero. These Phase rules were tailored just for me here at PACU:

      
PHASE ZERO:
Bed rest. Solitary confinement. Door closed except for meal times. No visitors, no phone calls. No reading or writing materials. No TV or radio. No bathroom privileges. Bedpan use in room only. Showers permitted ninety minutes after meals.

      
PHASE ONE:
Solitary confinement. Door can remain open. No visitors. No reading or writing materials. Access to PACU lounge once daily for ten minutes. Two phone calls weekly, maximum ten minutes. No bathroom privileges.
Bedpan use in room only. Showers permitted ninety minutes after meals.

      
PHASE TWO:
Visitors permitted once a week. No reading or writing materials. Access to PACU lounge twice daily for fifteen minutes. Four phone calls a week, maximum fifteen minutes each. Limited bathroom access. Showers permitted ninety minutes after meals.

      
PHASE THREE:
Bathroom and PACU lounge access. Showers permitted at anytime. Reading and writing materials permitted. Unlimited phone calls and visitors allowed.

         
Daily caloric intake: 3,000 calories (3 daily meals + 2 cans of Ensure)

         
3 pound weight gain on weight day: Graduate a phase

         
Less than 3 pound weight gain on weight day: Lose a phase

I had been in the PACU for four weeks. My weight gain hovered between 1.2 and 2.2 pounds at every weight day, so I was still in Phase Zero. I now weighed 71.21 pounds.

The only therapy offered to me was with Dr Messer during rounds and with my nurse, who sat with me for a few minutes each day so she could have something to report, then call it a day. Fortunately, after a month, I was no longer obliged to attend weekly group therapy sessions with other patients on the fourth floor. In the last session I'd attended, a patient pointed at me, called me “skinny bitch,” accused me of taking up a valuable bed, and said I was starving myself just for attention.

Being in solitary confinement suited me just fine. I used those forty-five minutes a week no longer wasted in group therapy to plot ways to get rid of as many calories I could. I had been secretly hoarding away food, stocking it up under the mattress and furniture and floor tiles. Thanks to my regular routine of secretly hiding food and emptying all light-coloured liquids into the bedpan, I had been doing away with thousands of calories. There was probably enough food in my room to feed the entire floor. Most mornings, during my late-morning shower, I could manage to sneak out only a few items—a few slices of toast, a muffin—which I concealed in my skimpy towel and buried in the deep and ample bathroom garbage bin. I calculated that I had been doing away with 1,500 calories daily, making my total intake exactly that: 1,500. This fifty-percent balance somehow reassured me that Dr Messer and I were even; we were head to head. It was a truce. For now at least.

“Good afternoon!” Nurse Personality didn't bother to knock. I wouldn't earn that privilege until I was off bed rest and had graduated from the currency of three added pounds. I sat upright, forced my eyes open. She was looking more pregnant each day. She opened the blinds and let the sun flash into my eyes.

“I want my camera,” I blurted.

“Get to Phase Three, then you'll get the camera.” She dropped the tray of food onto my tray table. “They didn't have green salad, so I got you carrot and raisin salad instead,” she said.

What gall, replacing an innocent green salad with that greasy, sugar-laden dessert they called salad, then expecting me to swallow it without objection.

“I don't want the carrot and raisin salad.” I crossed my arms over my chest. The feel of my ribs pleased me. I was proud of the work, time, and effort it took me to develop that bone and eliminate the breast.

“If you don't eat the salad, you'll have to make it up somewhere else. If you don't, it will go on your record. You didn't make three pounds last weight day, Lila, so you'd better think about this.”

“There is a difference of eighty calories between green salad and carrot salad.”

“There will be no negotiating,” she told me.

“I'll have a Melba toast.”

“There will be no negotiating.”

“I'll have apple juice instead of the salad.”

We argued more heatedly until she gave me an ultimatum. “I'm going to call Dr Messer.”

I agreed to eat the salad.

Exhausted and angry, I nibbled away. Feeling sick, I shivered as my lips touched the oily, cloying sweetness of the grated carrots. I chewed, swallowed, and cringed as numerous horrid button-sized raisins scratched against the back of my throat. I hated them; I hated those useless pieces of desiccated grapes that I'd spent hours of my life plucking out of muffins and cereals.

Nurse Personality stood watching me as I ate. I had the uncanny feeling that she got a thrill from seeing me fattened up before her eyes, especially as her once-slim figure thickened from her pregnancy. I saw her tugging at her tightening belt, perhaps in a moment's recognition that her body was swelling up and there
was absolutely nothing that she could do about it. I seemed to be more loathsome to her as that baby grew inside of her. The rest of the staff was just as hypocritical, always comparing dieting tips and secrets and exercise trends, always competing in some contest of self-control as they encouraged me to put on weight.

When I'd finished the carrot and raisin salad, she took my tray and walked out. What followed was a silent tidal storm within me. Within half an hour, as I lay on my back with a full belly, a nightmarish torrent of guilt ensued and lasted a gruelling eighteen hours. I spent the day in a corner of my room—one the nurses couldn't see unless they came in—unrelentingly running, skipping, and burning off that four-ounce salad.

Tomorrow was weight day. I was afraid to gain. I was afraid to lose. I was stuck in an irreconcilable middle. Between the fear of gaining weight and falling short, I faced the possibility of tougher restrictions or reliving the onslaught of guilt and anguish all over again. Which was worse? Dr Messer had warned me that if I didn't gain on the next weight day, I'd be force-fed another 1,000 calories daily with a feeding tube and sedated until I had put on fifty pounds. Fifty!

At night I lay awake. I was not permitted to have a clock or watch in my room, but considering the turbulent relationship I had with time, it was just as well. After lights out, I could recognize the regular pulse of reverberating sounds in the hospital corridors and neighbouring rooms—cascading water within the walls from running taps and flushing toilets, the murmuring of staff and sleepwalking patients. Like a ball tossed into the air, at the zenith of its ascent, there was complete blissful stillness
for a moment before it began its inevitable descent. The window then seemed to grow when dawn filled it with light. The hum of distant buses and trains rose as the world geared up for rush hour. Doors opened and closed, and the hallways echoed with the shuffling of soft shoes and low murmurs as the tired night guard exited, replaced with a rested one. The clicking of heels became incrementally louder, sharper. A brief pause at the door, then, “Lila, it's weight day.”

I made the three-pound gain. I was relieved. I was devastated. I had gained exactly 3.21 pounds, making my total weight 74.21 pounds. Nearly seventy-five. Less than I had weighed in grade five, more than I could support at eighteen. Despite the relief that came from not having to be tube fed, the shock of having gained so much weight, even on 1,500 calories a day, brought on my usual guilt and desperation. I was paralyzed physically and psychically drained.

Ninety minutes after breakfast, I was permitted to shower. I didn't want to disrobe and see my bloated nakedness, but I had to get rid of the hoarded food, which was already creating an odour in my room. I was worried that the cleaning staff might have wondered about it. I neatly crammed as much food as I could into two rolled-up towels, tucked tightly under one arm, made my way to the bathroom, and locked the door. I dumped the food into the garbage can and covered it up with a thick layer of scrunched-up paper towels. Then I ran the shower and dabbed some water onto my hair so that it would look as if I'd showered.

I graduated to Phase One. I had earned the privilege of leaving my bed without repercussion. I could roam my cell and scrutinize
each floor tile and try to distract myself, if only temporarily, from my fanatical obsession with calories, food, and weight. I counted exactly 134 tiles in my room. The north-east corner tile was particularly yellow, and water damage had created an unusual mosaic of deformed faces on it. I stood dead centre on tile number fifty-six, and in six minutes, lunch would arrive. I was so lonely and scared I could die.

Finally, after three weeks of isolation in the hospital, I was about to speak to my mother for the first time. I was allowed a ten-minute phone call. I sat in the cold nursing station and felt my hot breath against the receiver as I began to dial. My own phone number became entangled in my mind with the digits pin-balling around in my mental library of calories. I hung up and crossed my arms, then tried again.

“How have you been, Lila? Dr Messer tells me you have gained a little weight—”

“Yeah,” I interrupted her. “I also went up a phase.”

“Ooooh!” Mother exhaled like she'd been holding her breath for months. “You see, you can do this, Lila. I know you can.”

My body melted in my chair.

“Did you go to the bathroom? Are you pooping alright?”

“Yes, Mother. I haven't pooped like this my whole life.”

“What did you eat?”

“A lot. I ate carrot and raisin salad. It was awful.”

“You see? If you were home you would be eating proper food.”

Then I heard Dad's voice.

“Hello, hello. How are you? Did you gain, then?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Excellent!” Then a beat of silence. “Okay, then. So when can we come to visit?”

“When I get to Phase Two.”

“Good.” More silence. “Have you been taking pictures?”

“No, I'm I not allowed to have my camera.”

“Why not?”

I twisted the phone cord around my finger. “That's Phase Three.”

Suddenly, a burly patient threw himself over the nursing station counter, jerking a peace sign with his yellow fingers. He was due for his cigarette. Nurses collected around him, then an orderly and a nurse's aide arrived and escorted him away.

“Lila? Are you there?”

I missed what my father had said. Nurse Personality tapped her watch and spread her hand, signalling five. Mother took the phone back from Dad and crammed in as much as she could as we counted down to zero minutes.

Four: “Do you need any clothes from home? Are you warm enough?”

Three: “Are you getting enough sleep?”

Two: “I'm sure that the worst part is over, Lila. You will get better now. We'll have you home in no time.”

One: “Yes, yes,” I replied dutifully, soaking up the sensation of her soothing voice.

Zero: “Come home soon.” My ten minutes were up.

13
. Hard Lessons

My weight gain stalled around the seventy-five-pound mark. The subject of my weight became a great concern to staff who knew nothing of my secret hoarding schemes. Surely I should be packing on the pounds on a 3,000-calorie-a-day diet. I was either up to no good, or my body had defied science.

No one confronted me, but I received more frequent inspections and got the feeling that they were plotting a set of tougher rules and regulations, perhaps an increase in calories and a decrease in freedom. To prevent this, I wanted my weight to nudge up a tenth of a pound at least.

During the changing of the guard, when the staff convened for reports, there was a delicious window of opportunity when I could safely do a rigorous workout and burn up to 200 calories. My senses were hyper-vigilant while I continued my secretive regimen, which had become stressfully elaborate. I'd been waking up at two a.m. and jogging in place. I would then do 300 jumping jacks followed by 500 sit-ups. This had been my routine for weeks now, along with hiding and hoarding food. I was burning roughly the calories that I imagined a healthy, vivacious girl my age would on a Canada Food Guide diet.

But unexpectedly, my weight dropped to 69.6 pounds. The staff was alarmed. I had tempted fate and taken things too far. Dr Messer retaliated by putting me on a diet of more solid food.
My darling clear juices, destined for the bedpan, were replaced with fruits and yogurt. I had to eat more carbs and more protein. But he didn't suspect that I had anything to do with this weight loss. How on earth could a girl stripped of everything and confined to a room and bed lose weight?

Special physicians came and went who poked, prodded, and palpated (but did not poke under my mattress). They took a CT scan, robbed my blood and urine, and came back with a report: No cancerous cells, no tumours, no disease (other than madness). No plague to report back to my poor dear mother.

Then there was silence. I didn't hear a word from the staff for days. No more specialists came to visit the expert anorexic. In the meantime, the effect of the solid food diet began producing the most stinky gas and unbearable throbbing cramps in my intestines. I hadn't been to the bathroom for four days, and with each day that passed, the discomfort grew. I was given Colace, a stool softener, and prune juice (containing ninety-two unwanted calories), and then Metamucil, which bloated me further. By the fifth day, my stomach was rock-hard and grotesquely inflated. My body was unaccustomed to real food after my steadfast regime of diluted variations and substitutes empty of calories and nutrients, all of which glided through my indifferent intestines. On the seventh day, I was in agony. I sat on my bedpan in the shameful dark, and for over an hour I pushed and forced and struggled with a hardened little nugget in my anus that jabbed against my skin until I bled. I cried and then gave up.

For the remainder of the afternoon, I sobbed silently, curled up in bed. I had, after all, only myself to blame. As I lay there,
Dr Messer's words echoed through the mental clamour of self-pity: “You can't stand yourself.” I couldn't absorb the words any more than my intestines could digest solid food, yet those words continued to ring during moments of stillness when I was most helpless and silent. I didn't want to gain weight. How could I let go of the ecstasy, the rush of accomplishment that came from doing away with flesh and fat and the burden of bulk?

“Hello?” Nurse Personality knocked against the opened door with a manicured hand. She stood in my doorway, forming a long, sleek shadow into my room. “It's only eight o'clock. What are you doing in bed already?”

Out of curmudgeonly annoyance, I turned away without answering, but she marched over to the bed, felt my pulse, and checked my vital signs. Sitting down next to me, she said quietly, “Didn't manage a bowel movement, did you?”

After a moment, I turned and looked up at her. For no reason that I could explain, I cupped both hands over my face and began to weep. Then, with an unexpected tenderness, she pulled me against her and brought my floppy head to her lap.

“Oh, honey, hard poop is a hard lesson, isn't it? But nothing to cry about!”

I laughed, thrown off by her playful sympathy. I could feel her belly against the back of my head, pressing against me.

“You see what you've done to yourself? I'll bring a clean bedpan, and you can try again tomorrow. We'll make it alright.” She began to stroke my hair. “When I was your age, I wanted to be perfect. I thought I could be. But if I had known that life was going to set me straight, no matter what, I wouldn't have made
myself so miserable trying to be in control all the time.” She bent to look at my face. “See what I'm saying?”

I looked up. Nurse Personality's voice registered, but the words slipped through me like air. Her golden hair had lost its lustre, her complexion seemed bloated and tired, and her movements had become lethargic and heavy. She slowly stroked my hair, wrapping it behind my ear, and I didn't want her to stop. I didn't want her to stop being kind to me. I fell under the hypnosis of her touch, and that night I rested and had a dreamless sleep.

The following day, Patricia (I had stopped calling her Nurse Personality in the night) had no choice but to get into her latex gloves and wrangle out the hardened faeces from my sore rectum. To my surprise, this repulsive exercise was one that she approached with dignified professionalism. She came in, shut the door, and got down to business. At this point, I was ready to tolerate any pain, discomfort, or humiliation to find even the mildest relief. I got necessarily naked and on all fours on my bed. Through the window I saw what appeared to be a dead body encased in white sheets being placed into the mortuary van in the inner courtyard. I dropped my head and thought,
This is not how I imagined my life at eighteen
.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I looked back at her and nodded. Then I prepared for the worst.

“Okay, now. Take a deep breath, then exhale and push as hard as you can.” I followed her instructions, she gave me a few reassuring words, and within minutes the job was done.

“There. You'll start feeling better now.” Sloth-like, I cleaned up
and slipped back into my clothes. I wanted more than anything to thank her. I watched while she picked up and collected everything and waited for the right moment to say a few heartfelt words. But with hardly a glance at me, she made a quick exit. I sat frozen on my bed for a moment, puzzled and disappointed. Replaying the event in my mind, I wondered if I'd done or said anything to upset or trouble her. But then I just assumed that she was preoccupied and had a busy day ahead. It made me sad to think that I was just another patient to tend to, a chore to accomplish, and was no more special than anyone else.

I got up and lumbered slowly to the door, my bottom sore, and went cautiously into the lounge. It was empty. Inching my way to the nursing station, I heard a strange noise from inside. I peeked through the main door. From behind a filing cabinet, I glanced down the hall and into the nurse's bathroom. The door stood slightly ajar. I saw Patricia's back shaking in spasms as she coughed. Morning sickness, I told myself. That explained why she'd left abruptly. She stood upright, turned swiftly, and caught me looking at her. Tears streamed down her cheeks. I jumped back and returned quickly to my room.

By midday, when lunch arrived, I was served by another nurse. “Patricia had other business to tend to,” I was told. I asked if she was sick, but she shrugged. I shifted my focus and spent the rest of the day as I usually did: registering calories, burning the ones I digested, and disposing of the rest—and making dead certain no one noticed.

“Lila, Lila.” The bed boat rocked and the sky opened onto another strange realm where a flock of numerical digits flew over the horizon and a sea nurse called my name. “Lila. It's snack time.”

The biscuity odour pulled me from my watery dream. There was Nurse Patricia, who I was delighted to see. I sat up, realizing that I had been napping for an hour; my diet of solid food and cocktail of antidepressants had made me tired. I calculated the caloric difference that an hour made between being awake and burning calories and drifting in the make-believe sea of excess calories, and I decided to do jumping jacks for an extra seven minutes once staff met for report. I had it all figured out before I was fully awake.

Patricia lingered for a bit. “How are you?” she asked. “Have you been to the bathroom?” Her manner was cool again. I told her that the Colace was working.

“Good,” she replied without meeting my eyes, and began walking to the door.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Why, yes,” she said with exaggerated surprise. She could see from my sidelong glance that I didn't believe her. She came back and sat down next to me.

“The other day when I had to, you know, relieve you of your pain …” She paused and lowered her voice. “I got quite upset.”

She told me that she became physically sick from seeing my body, my emaciated buttocks, throbbing blue veins, the dark bruises on my lower spine (from innumerable sit-ups), my bleeding anus. All the parts of me that I had become blind to had made her sick.

For the rest of the day, I thought about what she'd told me, and her words troubled me in ways that I struggled to understand. This was the effect that my appearance had on a professional who I thought would be desensitized to the sometimes gross physical signs of patients' illness. But I also felt a strange satisfaction that my body could provoke such a reaction. I had succeeded in creating a body that was so skinny that it was hideous enough to drive people away.

Why did I feel that way? Why was I half living? I was teetering over a dangerous chasm, between life and death, between those two universes, and I didn't want to belong to either. But at some point, I would fall one way or the other.