The Hole Within

CHAPTER 20

I was still restricting my food as a means of control. I allowed myself half a banana in the morning and ate the other half at night. My weight began to drastically drop. I was delighted as my clothes became too big for me. The anorexia was physically taking its toll. I was increasingly incoherent, leaving off words of sentences, trailing off before I completed a thought. I did not well, all signs of a starved brain. Lynn found it difficult to hold sessions with me and recommended I go inpatient for treatment.

My first visit to Utah Valley Medical Center was a two week stay in the eating disorder unit. It served as an instructional in how to be a better anorexic. I was twenty. Nancy was a blonde hair blue-eyed beauty who I idolized. She had a cool detached demeanor. She did not want or need anything or anyone. She ripped out her feeding tube frequently. She had extraordinary control over everything and was the unit's unofficial leader. I learned that drinking warm water all day kept hunger at bay. Drinking that much water also made it easier to throw up anything I might eat. My therapist was a guy named Kim. He was cynical and hard. Not at all like the patient and kind Lynn.

After two months home, my second admission to the hospital was longer and more intense. I refused to eat and refused to drink the Ensure they provided with every meal. I was threatened with an naso-gastric (NG) tube. I think I secretly wanted this. It was a status symbol in our sick way of thinking. It meant you were hardcore. It meant you were in control. It meant you were s who gave in. I was taking a shower one day when I passed out. Hearing my body hit the floor, the nurse supervising the showers rushed in. I woke to her standing over me with a towel in her hand. That morning they inserted the NG tube. The small tube is threaded up your nose, you are told to swallow against all reflex to gag, helping the thin tube travel down to your stomach. It was a very uncomfortable procedure.

There was a woman in the unit that was in her twenties who looked like a child. She was Italian and had a dark complexion over her emaciated frame. She had an NG tube that she pulled out daily, sometimes several times a day. They would escort her kicking and screaming to her room to drop another tube. Through the closed door, we could hear her shouting curses at the nurses as she fought them. SHE was hardcore. I was not willing to put myself through that unpleasantness on a daily basis. Days were filled with various forms of group therapy and individual sessions. Everyone got prescribed medication. Reglan to move food through our system, Doucalax for the chronic constipation, anti-depressants for depression and sleeping pills for insomnia. This proved to be a problem one night when a man dressed as a nurse came into my room that I shared with three other girls. Systemically he went each of our beds in turn and, finding us heavily drugged, proceeded to molest us. I remember trying to push hands away as he touched and probed. The next morning someone started talking about the nightmare they had. Quickly we realized that we had all had similar memories of the night's activities. Renee, the fiery Italian, was not as heavily drugged as the rest of us. She gave details including what the man looked like. We told the nurse who told her supervisor and soon we each gave statements to the detective who came to the hospital. We were outraged that none of the staff claimed to see him. That there were no security cameras. We spent the next several days in group and private sessions processing our victimization.

***

Having no drugs or alcohol to numb the pain, my anxiety was acute. I felt as if I were vibrating inside, my legs jiggled constantly throughout group and individual sessions. I was highly aware of my surroundings. It was like a Klieg light was turned on everything I looked at. Noises were too loud, lights too bright, my feelings too intense. The psychiatrist I would see was an old and stupid man. Dr. Chris had a white hair and long sagging jowls. He spoke slowly and never seemed to really listen. He tried various antidepressants, as I was still very depressed. He tried a number of anti-anxiety medications to calm me but none seem to touch the motor revving inside. Finally, he tried antipsychotics which I was terrified of. Being a heavy user of pills of every variety, I had purchased a used copy of the Physicians' Desk Reference (PDR). I would study the book looking up medications I was investigating.

I had worked as a house cleaner for a fire plug of a woman. Short and stout she had no discernable body shape, just a thick wrap of fat from chin to ankles. It was a fortunate occupation for a drug seeker, as I always made sure that I cleaned the bathrooms. I was the best at scrubbing them clean, in more ways than one. I found a treasure trove of prescriptions in peoples' medicine cabinets. You would be surprised how many people have narcotics and depressants in stock. Sometimes I would steal the whole bottle, if the date was old, and with others I would pour out handfuls of pills and stash them in my pants pocket. To this day, I can easily discern a Percocet from a Tylenol 3 from a Vicodin, etc., simply by looking at the pills.

I found that the PDR was a wonderful book. Not only did it have every pill and its effect affects, uses and side effects, it has page after page of glossy photos of every medication's size, color and shape. I spent many evenings committing them to memory. Because of my extensive research in pharmacopoeia I knew the potential negative effects of antipsychotics. It was Tardive I feared. Involuntary movement of the tongue, lips, face, and extremities that you can't control and was irreversible. It was "irreversible" that got my attention.

I first took , an anti-psychotic, and its effect immediate. I felt drugged but not in a good way. My limbs were slow to read my sluggish brain's signal. I was finally calm but the sedated feeling was not pleasant. If I refused the medication I would be seen as non-compliant with my treatment. The nursing staff would be forced to administer it another way. I knew that this could result in injections of Thorazine, a powerful anti-psychotic I feared even more. I learned to tuck the pill between my upper cheek and back teeth, as they only looked for it under the tongue and then the lower sides of the mouth. But I knew my anxious body would betray me.

I feared that Dr. Chris would be told of no improvement and move on to liquid Thorazine. I began to petition for a change in psychiatrist. The unit had a newly employed a French-Canadian, Dr. Bevans. Luckily, I was granted a change. In this unit, patients still had rights, unlike the locked unit at the end of the hall, where, I later learned, one's rights were left at the door. Dr. Bevans was younger and seemed to really listen which felt encouraging. He was known for trying new medication combinations. He started me on Xanax for my anxiety and Halcion for sleep. It calmed my anxiety as I was put on a high dose of ten milligrams a day. I loved those little bars and freedom. Xanax provided a dreamy state, much like the high I sought.

What does this mean?

Either remove the letter a, or fill in a better ____ than the others.

What are these pills prescribed for? Us non medical people have no idea what you are talking about.

Prescribed for what?