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I arrive at Better Horizons, the treatment center where Dad dropped me off twenty-six years ago. In some ways, it feels like ten lifetimes ago. I became a psychologist. Dad died. I got married. I relapsed. I miscarried. Time is devious, the way it silently accumulates before bearing down all at once.
I’m standing in the entryway underneath the same sign that greeted me when I was fifteen years old:Free of Judgment.
I didn’t understand what it meant until years after I’d left here, when I was more recovered and the pain of whatI’d put Dad through began to sink in. The shame and self-loathing of how I’d treated him when I was in the thick of anorexia have been painful to grapple with.
Being in an environment—like my recovery group—that is free of judgment, proved vital in helping me own my behavior and forgive myself. In the group, we’ve talked about how making amends should be part of eating disorder recovery the way it is in twelve-step recovery programs for alcohol and drug addiction.
I’m so thankful that I had the chance to seek Dad’s forgiveness before he died. I told him how sorry I was for everything I’d put him through, and he assured me that he knew my behavior was due to the disease and not me.
I approach a red-headed receptionist sitting behind a desk at the entrance. A group of teenage girls is behind her in the cavernous living room, sitting and writing in their journals.
I remember when Dr. Larsen, the psychologist I met with daily during my stay here, handed me a journal for the first time. I defiantly laughed in her face, but she patiently smiled at me and said, “It’s nice to meet you, Beatrice.”
“Do you have an appointment for a tour?” the receptionist asks me. She probably thinks I’m here for my child.
“I’m not here for a tour,” I let her know. “I was a patient here twenty-six years ago.”
“Wow!” she exclaims. She doesn’t look much older than twenty-six herself.
“I’m wondering if any of the same people still work here, like Dr. Larsen,” I say.
“She died last year,” she says.
The words hit harder than I expect. I feel sudden, deep regret for not coming sooner to thank Dr. Larsen for everything she did for me.
“Don’t be sad,” the receptionist says. “She was old.”
That provides little comfort.
Suddenly one of the girls in the living room runs toward the fireplace. She starts tapping the top of the mantel repeatedly, alternating with each of her hands, engaging in a repetitive OCD ritual.
Psychiatrists consider obsessive-compulsive disorder, delusional disorder, and anorexia the most difficult mental illnesses to treat, and anorexia has features of the first two. It also has the second-highest mortality rate of any mental illness, more lethal than depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, only outranked by opioid use disorder due to the deadliness of fentanyl. In the field, overcoming anorexia is likened to “slaying the dragon.”
A counselor walks over to the girl and intervenes, moving her hands away from the fireplace mantel, trying to talk her through it.
“I don’t think anyone’s here from twenty-six years ago,” the receptionist tells me. “That was alongtime ago.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Wait,” she says, scrunching her nose, looking up at the ceiling like she’s thinking really hard. “Was Joan here when you were here?”
“Joan?” I ask.
“The riding instructor,” she says.
I’d forgotten about her. “Yes, she was,” I say.
“She’s at the stable,” she says. “You can talk to her if you want.”
“Thanks,” I say.
I exit the ranch and walk next door to the red barn. As soon as the smell of horses hits me, I feel nauseous.
I think I hated the horses more than anything about this place, apart from having to eat. Their smell always made me want to gag. The other girls loved being around them because they were animals, but I found them too large to form any attachment to. All they did was make me miss Rascal at home.
When I step inside the barn, I find Joan brushing one of the horse’s manes. She must be near seventy and has gone entirely gray since I last saw her.
“Joan?” I say.
