Table in the Darkness by Lee Wolfe Blum

Author:Lee Wolfe Blum [Blum, Lee Wolfe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780830871865
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2013-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

16

menninger

I sat slumped in the passenger seat while Mom drove in silence. On the left we passed Lawrence, my college town. Brick buildings hovered over the graduates and the families of graduates that would descend on campus in a few weeks. I wouldn’t be at the graduation. I slid lower in my seat. Me, all fragile and weak and cold. Them with heads held high, receiving their diplomas. I wouldn’t be there. I would be taking little pills and learning how to eat. Mom drove the car. I sat in silent shame.

We arrived in Topeka, Kansas, at a hospital called Menninger.

Dad informed me earlier on the phone that day, “They specialize in eating disorders.” The doctor had a different explanation: “It is a locked unit. They can help you.” Gee, thanks, I wanted to say. Did I want help? Did I really care anymore to be helped? The doctors on Unit 6 said I was doing this to myself, and that I was the one causing the pain, and, “Gosh, if you would just eat.” Oh, and I couldn’t forget the financial burden it was for my family. While Chris was aching for me to return to my life in Minnesota. Shouldn’t I have wanted that?

Large, black wrought-iron gates greeted us. I pretended we were going to visit friends in a British castle while we drove up the winding road. Imagining this helped keep me from jumping out of the moving car. The idea of a locked ward gave me images of witchlike nurses with long needles and straitjackets. The tallest building had an enormous, old clock on it. Beautiful, yet the place sent a sharp shiver up my spine. The exterior was like that of an Ivy League college campus, but inside I knew. It was a hospital for crazy people like me.

EDU, the eating disorders unit, is where I was going. A nurse on Unit 6 had said to me, “You don’t have fight left in you anymore, and the eating disorder voice is too strong. When that happens, you need someone to do it for you. To fight for you until you get your voice back.”

Walking through the enormous glass doors that clicked loudly behind me, I knew she was right. I surrendered to it. Sort of.

Mom and I sat across from each other at a small, round table in a little room. Her eyes soft and gentle. I was weak and tired. I saw in those eyes the parts of the mother I loved, the same mother that looked down at me and said, “Yes, Sunshine, I know.” Those eyes told me she loved me, that despite our differences she would do anything for me—would do anything to see me get well again. Then choose it, the voice said. Choose to get well. Why can’t you just eat? Why can’t you get motivated and sit at that darn table and put that food in your mouth? I looked down at the floor, the carpet all ragged. What was wrong with me? This human need, yet I couldn’t do it.

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