Somebody That I Used To Know

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"What are you in for today?" Mr. Olsen asks. "Molly is here."

"I need... help." Tom whispers.

"Help? Okay, what specifically can I do for you?"

"He's having trouble with his eating disorder again." Molly says.

"Okay, that's alright. Can you tell me what's going on?"

"I'm not eating. I don't even get hungry."

"You're not eating. Is there anything else? What about throwing up?"

"On an empty stomach."

"Molly," Dr. Olsen softly smiles. "I know this is a couple's session but I'd like to ask Tom these questions because it's his illness. I appreciate your feedback though and I will be asking to hear from you in a little bit. So, Tom, you've been throwing up on an empty stomach? That's not trying to rid of food because you know there's no food in there."

"I like the feeling. I mean, I don't like the feeling but..."

"It's addicting?"

"Exactly." Tom whispers.

"Are you looking to do inpatient, outpatient, or a bit of both?"

"I want to avoid inpatient the most I can."

"We can try that, for sure. You do understand that if that doesn't work, I have the authority to send you to a hospital for help? You'll still be under my care but I have the authority to send you to inpatient."

"I understand."

"Good. So a coping mechanism that might help is to get a bottle of water. Keep one in your car, at work, bedroom, wherever you are the most. When you feel like you need to do it, I want you to take that water and swish it around in your mouth. You can gurgle, swish, just hold it there, whatever you want. Do that for about 5 minutes. If it takes longer than 5 minutes or you're done before, that's fine. Keep it there until it's more than uncomfortable. When you start to panic, the feeling in your stomach rises that you have to get it out, spit. You can do it forcefully if you want, that might help, whatever works for you. I've had patients use food coloring to make the water look like stomach contents, it helps them."

"So I should have a few?" Tom asks.

"Wherever you think you need one." Dr. Olsen replies. "Now, if you have to do it 12 times the first day, do it. It's okay to do it a lot because you need to try and fight that urge. About there days in, if you're still doing it more than 7 times a day, cut back. Just breathe and know that you're strong enough, you can do it. It'll get easier. About three more days later, if you haven't cut back from 7, do 5. Keep going down by 2s. Honestly, if you have a really bad day and you need to do it 8 times when you're limited to three, do it. It's better than actual throwing up, you know that."

"Mhm."

"If you slip up, I don't want to say that it's okay but, it's okay. Just call me and we'll talk about it. Now, if this becomes a regular thing you know that's not good. But if you haven't done it in two weeks and the water isn't helping and you unconsciously do it, I'm not mad. I'm only going to file a report for an institution if you don't try. If you try and I see some progress, that's what matters to me. I'd rather you call me for a mistake than me get a call because you hurt yourself. Do you understand?"

"Mhm, thank you, Dr." Tom says.

"You're welcome. Now, I wanted to ask you how much Lillian knows about your illness?"

"She had to play nurse the other day." Molly interrupts. "I know I'm supposed to shut up but he passed out while I was away."

"Is that true?"

"I didn't mean to-"

"I know. No one is upset with you or anything, I just need to know. So do you recognize the emotional trauma that children with mentally ill parents have?"

"Please, I just-"

"Tom," Dr. Olsen smiles. "I'm just talking to you, I'm not mad, am I?"

"N-no."

"Correct. Don't worry about it, okay? I'm just saying that it might be helpful for Lillian to see a therapist."

"What? You think so?"

"I do. She's going through a lot right now. Although she's a kid, she's not stupid. She understands a lot more than she leads on. If Molly makes a comment about your eating disorder and she recognizes that you're sick looking or not eating correctly, she'll connect them. Children's minds are, in a way, much smarter than ours. Their vast imagination makes the real world not too hard to figure out. When you're met with such a large trauma at a young age, you mature much quicker."

"What are you saying? That I'm messing up my daughter?"

"No, no, this isn't directly your fault. This is an illness that you have. It's just important to remember that you're not the only one who this is effecting. It's hard because you think that you're the only one who this is effecting and so it shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks, but that's not the case. Your wife and daughter are very heavily effected by it everyday."

"That's what Molly keeps telling me. I just feel so alone."

"I know it's hard to shake that feeling but... there are so many people who are there for you."

"I feel horrible because I almost... resent her for it."

"Me?" Molly says.

"You couldn't help me."

"I looked for days-"

"It's not your fault, none of it is. It's just that marriage is supposed to be an agreement to help each other, always and you couldn't. I know you tried but I feel so alone."

Molly sighs and looks down at her hands. "There was nothing I could do."

"Molly, I'm not blaming you." Tom says.

"You kind of are. You resent me because I couldn't save you."

"I've always known that I'm not the most manly of men out there, you know I'd rather see Shakespeare than a soccer game... but I've always thought that I was strong. That I could face whatever came to me. Of course I didn't think it's be anything like this, but... I would've thought it'd be easy. Actually, no, I would've thought that somehow I could ride above and save myself from it like I'm supposed to. I'm not supposed to need a savior, I'm the savior, that's what biology is. It seems that I was wrong. You ask me ten years ago if I had depression and an eating disorder, I'd tell you that you're nuts. It's... it's like a lion."

"A lion?"

"A lion. When a lion invades another pride, it's the male's job to defend his family. You can either be the lion that successfully saves their family... or the lion that gets slaughtered along with his cubs. I'm the latter."

"No you're not." Dr. Olsen says. "You survived. You went through so much suffering and-"

"I survived, Dr. Olsen, I didn't live."

"Tom-"

"There's a difference." he whispers.

"I'm going to let you go for today. I want you to please follow the water bottle method and call me if you slip up. Molly, openly listen to him. I know you try and it gets frustrating, but you're a team, you love each other, that's what matters. Okay?"

"Okay."