A Sticky Situation

A Story by tzippibird

creative nonfiction piece about absurdities in ED inpatient

This is a funny story. Truly, I swear, although it’s set within a melodrama with drippings of tragedy and gobs of horror laced throughout. I hope it’ll have a happy ending.

Ah, well, such are the times we inhabit.

I was initially saving this tale for a rainy day. Perhaps to weave into a broader narrative, a story of myself and countless others. I’d publish it, and maybe it’d become a bestseller, and all who had wronged us in this life would recognize themselves under the identity cloaking and feel the prickling of secret shame (any relation to persons living or dead is completely intentional). More likely, it would go stuffed into over packed bookshops, free bins in libraries, part of the decomposing detritus of print and ink, in a world shrugging like Atlas from the compounding influx of information. The 21st century is in its teens, struggling with the burdens of a new and uncomfortable adulthood.

Such is the world we inhabit.

Now to zero in. This story takes place in an institution. A hospital? No, Inpatient. No, not a psych ward. Mental health clinic? No, a “residential facility,” known more colloquially to the occupants as “Res.’”

When I was first being admitted there, I clung to the hope of relief, the idea that it would be a safe haven for me. An isolated sanctuary for myself, like something out of The Secret Garden.A place where I could find refuge, for my frenetic ailing body and mind.

Well, at least I had been expecting isolation from the outside world. The microcosm was set in direct contrast to the monstrous macrocosm of the 21st century. A walled fortress against the outer world. At least, save for our 15 minutes of computer time per week.

To clarify, it was for our own good we were isolated�" I can concede that much. The objective of such a setting is to shelter us, to protect us, to help us remove the obstacles of our own minds in functioning in the world. And it makes sense, given the types of information we might access�" what was euphemistically termed “numbers,” as well as “cleansing” and “detox” techniques, the chatter of diet culture which many of us had committed to memory�" would do us harm. It was the equivalent of sterilizing an operating room.

But such an artificial environment, the intense cocooning, was stifling. The hours of free time were oppressive, and the me of those days crackled with pent up energy and frustration.

May was about �" of the way completed for the year. Monday. For me, about a week away from discharge.

It was also the infamous “Syrup day,” in the breakfast rotation schedule. Each week, on Monday, we had pancakes, or waffles or french toast sticks. And on those days, we were expected to dip them in syrup, to prove that we could eat like normal people, the average American diet.

Ihate syrup.

I received my tray, obediently motioning the counselor supervising breakfast that day so she could check me off, officially declaring that I had taken the amount of food as prescribed in my meal plan, as ordered by my Dietitian.

On my tray, I had 2 mini waffles, a banana, a tablespoon of walnuts, and a half cup cottage cheese. In addition, I had an Ensure Plus (“chocolate” flavoured) to promote weight restoration�" the required gain was two to four pounds per week, a rate which, even for those underweight, would have a doctor investigating for tumor should it occur at such a pace in the “real,” world.

Such was the pace determined by health insurance. Failure to do so, and you were labeled non-compliant, a lost cause, and you would be cut off, and most could not afford treatment otherwise. Of course, if you were “stable,” even if you were not yet ready, you would also be cut off�" as happened to several of my friends.

One of whom would be dead within six months.

But this is a funny story. We struggled, but aside from our woes stemming from trauma and distortion and self-loathing, we could laugh.

I sat down amidst my friends: Jess, a petite gnomish figure with carroty red hair and the freckles to match. Across from us sat Jo, judicious and full-figured, with artfully applied makeup, as was customary.

I grimaced at my breakfast. Bad enough to force feed oneself, worse to hate the provisions.

I emptied the packet of syrup, as clumsily as I could get away with�" I wanted as little of the cloying substance as possible, but also knew that our behaviour was being scrutinized closely, and that excess deviation, hiding food, pacing, etc. would be documented, and I’d hear consequences later. I had a week left, and my father had counselled me to be a model patient, gruffly reminding me “don’t back yourself into a corner.” I had to keep in mind my longer-term hopes.

I stirred my food, trying to stall, playing with it. I cut the waffles into pieces, some finely, some less so, separating the soggy portion from the edible, mixing the nuts into the cottage cheese and slicing the banana. Alternating bites between the glutinous mass and the fruit and cheese, which I preferred.

Meanwhile, we complained amongst ourselves. Kvetching is the medium of release, for those without tangible agency. Technically, we weren’t supposed to speak about food, and our knowledge of daily news was restricted (for me, something of a blessing in disguise), but we could gossip covertly about some of the nursing staff, who held us in contempt, and some of the more arbitrary mainstays, and the myriad minor inconveniences:

About our lack of ability to shave�"razors were restricted until “sharps day,” (aka Thursday) and some of us (including myself) were prohibited from using them even then. So our legs and pits grew shaggy�"of course, we couldn’t go anywhere, so who cared? �"and we giggled about the coarseness. Jo turned to our friend, Ruth, who braided my hair:

“...Can you do me next?”

Then, without breaking eye contact, lifted her elbow and biceps, so we could clearly see the inches of hair that had sprouted.

Ruth, in her quietly poised manner replied:

“F**k you.”

The girl who was me then had dark eyes that were anxious: wide and darting, rimmed with thick “camel,” lashes and topped with full dark brows perpetually arched in alertness. Her hair was thick but dry and perpetually tangled, dark curls a thicket reminiscent of a bird’s nest entwined in grapevines. She was sallow, but some healthy colour was starting to return to her face, no longer the pale, sunken-eyed corpse who had entered, but still very clearly volatile.

Anorexia Nervosa is not a disease which allows for a great deal of levity. How can it, when by its nature, it drives its victims to strip away any perceived excess? It’s a frenetic march to which there is no end�" well, only one end�" and from which there is no relief, until the last nail is in the coffin. It’s a deadly serious matter, and there is zero space for anything besides the barest minimum. The anorexic who wins, the anorexic who lets up, who rests, is the anorexic who dies.

True to form, that girl who was me only laughed ruefully. She rarely smiled until she found something intrinsic, beyond compliance.

But at that time, I was still struggling to get that starch sodden with fructose down my throat.

Jess beside me raised her “menu,” the checklist of items which she placed upon her tray, in accordance to her meal plan. The counselor scanned the paper, checked my friend’s napkins, and marked her as having completed her meal.

Moments later, I triumphantly swallowed my last forkful, chasing it with water and the anticipation of coffee (one cup post meal completion).

I raised my menu.

A separate counselor meandered over. She glowered over my shoulder, surveying my tray with stern irritation.

“You gotta finish that syrup. It’s parta the meal.”

My heart fell into my stomach. I had pushed myself to complete, and I had done so. I was shedding the identity Anorexia provided me, denying the guilt that it instilled in me several times per day. Mutely, I hung my head, letting wispy ends tangle with my eyelashes. Fidgeting, trying to disguise the stinging�" I couldn’t be crying about this.

The counselor bustled away self-importantly, indifferent to my reaction to her sentence.

My friend glanced from her tray, to mine, the puddle of syrup spreading only somewhat larger than her own.

She turned to me.

In a conspirator’s whisper, she spoke at last:

“The first place she’ll check will be your napkin.”

I nodded, bristling with frustration. I knew the routine�" I had been there almost the longest of us.

She continued, “But I’ve already been checked off.”

I stared at her, comprehension, and then hope dripping into me like the liquid from the tube to which I had been nearly hooked up.

Jo nodded, barely perceptibly, tacitly agreeing to act as look-out.

Jess passed me a napkin. I struggled to breathe steadily, alternately trying to exaggeratedly disguise my movements to trying to move as imperceptibly as possible.

At one point, Jo cleared her throat, eliciting a hoarse “she’s coming” from Jess. False alarm.

We resumed, I painstakingly sopping up the syrup with the napkin�"capillary action stretching time excruciatingly�" and passing it back, where Jess stuffed it with the remainder of the refuse on the tray.

Despite our anxiety, the glee of the miscreant is intoxicating. As we completed the task, we giggled.

Jess grinned “I don’t feel guilty about this�"it isn’t as if I am helping you restrict, I’m merely ensuring that you don’t have to drink straight syrup,”

She turned, rising to dispose of her trash, and the evidence.

I exhaled in relief, and with trembling fingers, raised my menu.

Thankfully, the counselor who had checked Jess off came over to me.

In addition to syrup, I also hate Aesops. Morality, from my opinionated perspective, is implicit, and wisdom is acquired. Having someone tell you a story and then spoon-feeding what they want you to think it means is preachy and lacks subtlety in pushing an agenda.

However.

I would be a total numbskull if I failed to recognize how Res taught me several broader lessons, more applicable than how to hide one’s syrup.

It taught me that sickness likes to romanticize destruction. No matter the cost.

It taught me true camaraderie.

It taught me how to take my fear, my anger, and grief, and invert it. To milk a few laughs�" to flip the definition of the adjective of “hysterical,” from distraught and overwrought to riotous hilarity. Humor is subversive, a chuckle is a sob transmuted, and this is a funny story. So here, take my woes, my absurdity, my anger, my trivialities, and my pain. And please. Just laugh.