.:Chapter 27:.
The Fifth Journal Entry
Aka
Ready, Set, Go
February 25
I've been here in this hospital for about nine days. Almost two weeks and it's still a hard transition for me. When I first arrived, I had a lot of regulations put on me. The weirdest one is that I'm allowed to have privacy in the bathroom and showers, but I have to count aloud while I'm in there. It's so bizarre. I actually have to count out loud for each second I'm in there. Apparently it's to make sure that I'm not trying to off myself or that I'm not throwing up. With the way things are around here I think I'd be better offing myself than anything else.
So I guess you want to know how everything worked out that I got here.
I was in the hospital back in Boston for a couple of days while they figured out with Mom and Dad what they should do with me. My doctors were saying that I was underweight, wayyy too underweight and that I needed to get close treatment, like I was going to die if I didn't go and get the treatment. Mom was hesitant about it, I'm sure she didn't want me to be so far away and to be so…excluded from them. I'm not allowed to have a lot of interaction with my family and friends while I'm inside, so that way I can make sure I focus on the life I'm going to have rather than the one I had before. Or something like that. Dad was all for it, not that he wanted to get rid of me, but because he wants to see me get better. I could see the shock and fear on his face when he saw me lying in the hospital bed. He said to me that it was like when I was little and I had been sick with the flu. I was weak and didn't want to do anything. But this was worse.
My body actually hurt if I moved the wrong way. I don't know how I didn't notice it before. I guess I just chalked it up to being sore from practice. I had been playing as hard as ever….that's something they told me that I have to stop doing. I have to stop making excuse for everything and take responsibility for my actions. I was the one that was jealous of my brother. I was the one that hated the attention he was getting, like I usually was. I was the one that decided that going on a diet and would make me a better basketball player. And I was the one that decided to ignore all of the signs that I was doing something very wrong and that it was hurting me more than it was helping me.
I'm still getting used to completely taking all of that responsibility but I'm getting there.
I can say the words out loud. I can write them down. But it's taking me a while to be able to believe the words in my heart.
Anyway, Mom and Dad talked to me and Cody for a while and I talked to my friends a little bit, telling them all I wasn't going back to school for a while. I don't know how long I'm going to be here, but long enough so that I can really get better. Maybe being by myself for a while, without the pressures of school and…and everything else around me will help make things easier. Cody and I spent every minute we could together before I left, acting like nothing was wrong. We did the same things we used to do for fun; play pranks on Moseby, crawled around the ducts in the Tipton—which was a tighter squeeze that I remember, snuck some candy from the candy counter, hung out with Esteban and Arwin, and I even went to the day care to hang out with the little kids one more time. Cody even admitted he was impressed with the way I had handled the kids as they all swarmed around me, wanting my attention.
There was a girl there that I had gotten to know, Lindsay, who was always excited whenever I came to the day care. She hurried over to me and flung her arms around my legs before reaching her arms up to me. She never liked it when I put her down; she always wanted to be carried. Maddie jokes that she has a crush on me and it wouldn't surprise me. I just thought in my scary state the kids would have wanted to stay away. They treat a snot dripping kid like he had the plague but me coming in, the human skeleton, and they don't say anything about it. So Cody and I took turns reading to the kids before we answered as many questions as we could about being twins. Of course they wanted to know if they hurt me or Cody if the other one would feel it.
I had a good time pretending to wince in pain and making sounds of surprise each time they would smack Cody on the arm or poke him in the side. Cody even went as far as to pretend to hit me on the side and then act surprised when he 'felt' the pain himself. He's just as good with kids as I am, he'd do a good job at the day care too. But he had too much work to do with Christian and his internship so that's cool I guess.
I had my favorite dinner that night and…it really sucked when I couldn't eat any of it. I really couldn't. I sat there and stared at it and when I put a few pieces in my mouth, my stomach really hurt. It felt like my stomach was going to explode. After only a few bites of baked potato I had to push my plate away. Mom started to cry a little and I could only sit there and continue to stare at my plate, mentally telling myself to eat it. But I couldn't. That was the biggest wake up call for me. I had gotten so used to not beating that my stomach couldn't handle anything anymore. Now I knew what Rhu meant, telling me not to do anything stupid.
She told me about her anorexia too. I was able to get a chance to talk with her. It was kind of weird to be talking about something so intimate, because as I said before, she was more of Cody's friend than mine and while we did have some things in common and we did hang out, it was never really there. But then there she was, sitting on the end of my bed, answering any question I had.
"How long did yours last before you were caught?" I asked.
"A couple of months." She said it so simply. So matter-of-fact.
"Why did you start?"
"It was the only thing, at the time, that I had any control over."
"So no one really pushed you to it?"
Rhuben had paused for a long moment at that one. I had only asked the question because I really wanted to know if she had ever blamed Cody about her anorexia. I mean, she had developed it about the same time they started going out. Then he said they broke up because there were things that she needed to deal with that he couldn't help her with because he didn't know how. That's what he told me anyway, I wasn't sure it was the truth until she confirmed it for me.
"No," She said. She brought a hand up and ran it through her hair. "Something that people don't get is that depression, anorexia, mental illness, stuff like that; it's more of a selfish thing that other people think. There's no person that ever says 'I'm going to make you have anorexia'. It's your own actions and your own mental process that decides what you do."
I took in what she said, wondering if that really applied to what I went through. Yeah, I guess she was right. It really is a selfish thing. It's the person that's going through it and everyone else around really has nothing to do with it. Yes, there may be some added pressure, but it ultimately falls onto you.
"How'd you stop?"
"My brothers and sister all found out about the same time, I guess after a while I wasn't as careful as I thought I was and they forced me into treatment. It really didn't take long for me to know what I was doing was bad for me; I had even had those thoughts early in my disease. I wasn't in treatment long but that's because I had a great amount of support at home."
"Are you recovered?"
"Mostly. I'm recovered, meaning I haven't thrown up in ages, but that doesn't mean there aren't any times where I don't have trouble eating my food or where I feel like I've eaten too much." Rhuben then reached out and grabbed onto my knee, shaking it. "It's going to take some time to get through this, but I know you'll come good."
I nodded.
I believe that I will get better but it's going to take some time. A lot of time, actually. I know that now.
So here's the part where I explain what checking in was like. First, you need to know that the treatment center I'm at is in DC. Cody was making jokes on the way up that it would be a good excuse to go and visit some of the monuments while they were out there—especially after he that whole fiasco when he had dyed his hair bright red. I'm sure the memory is still tainted from that—while I was in treatment. Mom and Dad didn't think it was that funny but Cody and I cracked up at it. We told jokes on the way up and when we arrived I was surprised to find that the hospital actually looked like a hospital. I was expecting a dorm building or something. I was going to be an inpatient and the place wasn't only for people like me, I knew that now.
Checking in, I could see some other people who were saying goodbye to their families. They all looked so normal, I guess I looked normal too but these people didn't appear there was anything wrong with them. They all looked like the kinds of people I'd see around school. But they were there for the same reasons I am if not other ones. I learned that later as well. I was taken to my room…and there's not much in there. There's a bed, a desk, a closet, a dresser, and a small TV. That's it. There were some regulations as well, as there were people who were suicidal and needed to be under surveillance. Which brought up the whole counting out loud while in the shower or bathroom; and our rooms where checked every now and then to be sure we were doing anything wrong.
I'm limited from exercise. I can do it a little bit every few days to stay fit, but I'm not allowed to extensively do it. And like I have been doing before, they want me to write down all the food I eat. This time they want to get me back to the point where I can eat a normal day's worth of food. When I heard that I felt my stomach drop to my feet. But that's the point of being here right? I'm also scheduled for therapy sessions, to talk out my problems and my feelings while I'm in there. Or I guess here.
I have to remember that I'm not living in Boston for now. I hope to be back home soon. It's going to take some time but I will be. Mom and Dad were ok to say goodbye to. It was Cody that was hard. We hadn't been away from each other in….forever. Just looking at his face when we hugged to say goodbye I knew it was going to be hard for him too, if not harder. He was the one that had to go back to school and deal with the questions and rumors and I was able to just go and hide away and not worry about any of that until I got back.
It was so hard to let go.
Now I'm back in my room after having therapy for today and I'm starting to notice a shift in my thoughts. They're not as bad as they used to be, but there are still times where they come creeping back and I can tell my progress is going to go shooting back to rock bottom.
I just have to remember that it's all supposed to help me in the long run. I'm taking the help that's being offered though I know I still have to work on asking for it. That's one of my assignments apparently. That's what's going to be the hardest thing to deal with, my therapist pointed out. I like to do things on my own and deal with them on my own rather than break down and ask for help. I've always been like that.
Good luck getting me to change now.
I have to get ready to go to bed soon. Yeah, we have curfew here, too. It's earlier than the one that Mom gave me and Cody. It was hard to get used to at first, but the fact that it goes with my now normal routine kind of helps.
I have therapy tomorrow morning then I'm able to go to the gym a little bit. Its visitation day and Mom, Dad, and Cody are coming down. I think my friends are too, Cody had mentioned it in one of our online chats. He quickly changed the subject afterwards so I don't think I was supposed to know. I don't care. I'm glad to be able to see all of my friends. I hope they're proud of the progress I made.
I hope they're proud of me.
-Zack
A/N: I had originally intended this to be a chapter about Riley and showing what she's going through that'll be brought up in the sequel but decided to do this instead. I thought having another journal entry would be good to see into Zack's mind a few days after he was put into treatment. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter.
Cheers,
-Riles
