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WE WERE ALLseated outside on the deck at Better Horizons. Girls who had eaten real food were allowed to take timed walks around the ranch. Even though I had started eating food, I still wasn’t allowed to walk because of my previous exercise compulsion.
I was seated on a bench next to Dr. Larsen. In an unexpected turn, ever since Emily’s death, she had become a touchstone of comfort for me.
“I wanted to let you know that we’re going out to eat tonight,” she told me.
I immediately felt anxiety starting to rise in my body. It had been hard enough to eat real food consistently, even though I knew I needed to if I wanted to avoid Emily’s fate, but the prospect of going to a restaurant felt like a bridge too far.
A bunch of ED thoughts began flooding my mind—the main one was that I needed to quickly come up with an excuse for why I couldn’t go. Maybe I was feeling sick or still struggling because of Emily’s death.
It was so exhausting living with ED’s voice in my head, which at times seemed to merge with mine, a voice I worriedwould one day completely take over, from which I might no longer be able to discern my own. Sometimes I even put my hands over my ears, trying to shut him out.
The anxiety kept rising. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Air was difficult to get into my lungs. I was having a panic attack when Dr. Larsen put her hand on my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” she asked me.
I nodded, even though I wasn’t.
“If it’s too difficult for you to eat at the restaurant tonight, just come with us and sit at the table,” she said. “That in itself will be a success.”
“I don’t think I can go,” I told her.
“I understand,” she said. “But remember, you won’t be alone.”
Her words gave me enough courage to go. But as soon as I got to the restaurant and the smells of pizza dough, fries, and burgers hit me, ED began his usual lies, telling me I was breathing in the calories and what a gigantic failure I was for even agreeing to go.
“What’ll it be?” a young waitress with two brown pigtails asked me.
“A slice of pepperoni pizza and a brownie,” I said.
“We don’t have brownies, but we’ve got chocolate lava cake,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
After all the girls had ordered, I began a countdown, waiting for the food to arrive, both exhilarated and terrified.
But when the slice of pizza finally arrived, I sat there paralyzed in fear, unable to eat it.
“I feel like such a failure,” I told Dr. Larsen, staring at the slice.
“You’re not a failure. You’re sitting in arestaurant, which is a major accomplishment. I’m proud of you,” she said, taking my hand.
With this small act of love and grace, I felt ED’s power over me loosen a bit in real time.
“Maybe try taking one bite instead of focusing on eating the entire thing,” she suggested.
I took a deep breath, picked up the slice, and took a small bite off its triangular end.
“I just imagined ED melting into a puddle of water,” Dr. Larsen said, smiling.
I smiled back.
Even though I didn’t finish the whole slice that night, and I didn’t eat any of the lava cake, it was the first time I had consciously stood up to ED during my stay at Better Horizons. I didn’t yet know that the more I did it, the less difficult it would become.
CHAPTER31
THE PLANE SPEEDSdown the runway as if it might never stop and then screeches to an abrupt halt. We taxi for a bit before parking at the gate. When the lights turn on, passengers begin to remove their luggage from overhead bins and line up in the aisle to disembark.
I drank two cups of black coffee during the flight and desperately need to use the restroom. An image suddenly flashes through my mind of being pinned inside an airport bathroom stall by whoever sent me the threatening text.
