Through the doors

Its been done. I’m here. Now it will just take some time for things to fall into place. Through the expected amount of stand-off-ishness the other girls (and one guy) have slowly extended tentative feelers of friendliness. There is a hesitance that lingers like mist around each attempt at outreach as we try to mask our individual fragility in not-so-subtle ways. personal experience has shown me that the act of normal conversation can require more effort than one might think possible, but we try. The toe-hold we have on common ground will get firmer with time. We are really not so different, them and I.

Promptly at noon, having already been tapped and drained of the necessary bodily fluids for analysis, I sat down to lunch with the group. The food arrives on hospital trays with the heated plates hidden beneath their thick plastic domed shells that have always reminded me of the top of R2D2’s head in Star Wars. We are each provided with a labeled list of the exact tray contents including portion sizes and the precise amount of pre-packaged condiments that have been deemed appropriate for the specific meal being served. Each is individualized in accordance with its intended’s needs. Mine is just the right size for someone who hasn’t been presented with a hot meal in longer than she can remember. Or at least hasn’t been accepting of a hot meal in that time. I surprise even myself at the speed with which I gobble it up. Not messily or chaotically, but it does make me reflect on post-war POW footage.

To me the menu was different for obvious reasons but apparently its items varried from the norm for the others as well. The main component was a grilled cheese sandwich on pumpernickel bread that was stuffed to the gills with red and green peppers, carrot slices, and onions. It wasn’t something I would have normally ordered on the “outside” but it wasn’t bad…even with the onions. The sandwich was accompanied by lentil soup, which I don’t remember ever having had before, and a small bowl of red grapes.

For the most part we chewed away in silent concentration, consciously aware of the rate/time/quantity ratio. Conversation was sparse and I was lightly peppered with the usual get-to-know-you Q and A.

After the meal we stayed where we were for whats known as “process group”. Its something that happens a few times a week and is basically what the title calls it. We process our feelings, thoughts, and questions about the previous meal. It is a lot like the other groups, in which what people contribute reflects the level of interest anyone would find in it.

General admission activities filled out the time block between lunch and dinner with required paperwork and doctoral meet-n-greets.

Eve of construction

It’s the first night of the rest of my life and the city slowly grows dark. I am in my closet of a hotel room at the YMCA with my minimally channeled TV, lack of enough light sockets to even plug-in my alarm clock, listening to horns out in the street and waiting for the new episode of Intervention to come on. Don’t think I’m complaining though – not at all! I see this as nothing less than an adventure. It’s honestly exhilarating in this minimalist environment whose hollow halls echo with more foreign languages than I can identify. This must be what my brother, Andy, felt like in his various youth hostels as he backpacked across Europe a few years ago as I looked on with a loving envy. This is my little taste. Alone in NY, nervous, anxious, excited, and eager to see what tomorrow will bring.

I have to be at Columbia University’s Psych Inst bright and early at 9 am tomorrow morning. It’s an oddly shaped building right on the Hudson river near the George Washington bridge. 1051 Riverside Drive will be my home for approximately the next 3 months. For the first night or two I will be bedding down in what is commonly known as the “quiet room” next to the nurses station in our skinny girls wing of the 2nd floor until a real bedroom complete with a real roommate opens up. It wont be long though, I’m promised.

First thing on the agenda when I deboarded the train was to catch a cab and haul myself, with my heavy bags in tow, out to the Inst for a brief tour and meeting with the women in charge of my intake process. I feel like I know them even before we meet face to face due to the lengthy screening that has been my main priority for the last few weeks.

The Inst is what it is. It’s a hospital essentially, not glamorous, not like Remuda, but it looks assuredly as though it will serve the purpose I am here for. It looks like its going to take things seriously and I know that is what I need. Time will tell and I am planning on taking as much from this experience as I can manage. It wont be easy but it will be right and, for that, I am excited.

In the beginning…

I couldn’t sleep last night. That simple fact alone is not unusual though since it seems that very much beyond the waking sandy-eyed drowsiness I almost exclusively feel all hours my eyes are open has become my norm. I hate it. These days to sleep beyond 4 am is a blessing and 6 am or later would denote a present paralleling the gift of world peace at Christmas.

I used to have nightmares when I was younger, I think they started sometime in Junior High, in which my daily horrifying activity was entirely made up of just trying to stay awake. In these nightmares I would be anywhere, scenes from my normal teenage life, and I would be struggling the whole time just to function in the most basic sense of the word. I would be dragging myself around, crawling through the halls at school, slapping myself in the face, and splashing cold water everywhere as waves of sleep threatened to steal my mind from me. There were no serial killers, no ghosts, no movie monsters in my dreams, just sleep. A state of unconsciousness was constant, persistent, and my sole enemy. I still don’t know where any of these fears originated although I’m now wondering if they were some sort of premonition into my future. I had these nightmares back when I didn’t truly know what it was like to be lacking so much in the human necessity of sleep. It seems now that my mind is robbing of one basic function as I slowly rob my body of another.

I have been told that malnourishment can be a cause of sleep deprivation and I have been anorexic for about 4 years now. Last night’s lack of shuteye and my 2:30 am wakeup had more to do with anxiety than side effects of my eating disorder though. At least not direct side effects. Today, right now, I am off to treatment.

I am on a train that is taking me to the next step in my life. It boarded in Virginia and my last stop is New York’s Penn station in my attempt to take care of this issue. I am headed to Columbia University for somewhere around 3 months in as a way of trying to gain some semblance of a happily satisfying existence. This misery of control run amok has stolen too much from me. I do not want to live like this anymore. I can’t.