a second chance - Hotchniss

Understand? [Alaska]

My mother's words just would not leave my mind. Did I need Jonas? For what? I knew that she was referring to the fact that he should help me to get better, but I didn't want to get better. I was fine. All I wanted was to get out of this hospital as soon as possible.

I raised my head as the door opened, my mother did the same. My father and a doctor entered the room. Dad had this worried look on his face, which I hated so much. I had seen it way too often already, mostly connected to the divorce or my "disorder". As I thought about the divorce, I remembered that I still wanted to ask them about it, but before I could open my mouth, the doctor spoke up: "Hello Alaska, my name is Dr. Adams. We hadn't had the chance to meet yet, I am executive chief physician which means that I am responsible for you treatment."

He looked at me like he was waiting for some kind of answer, but I remained silent, so he continued: "I am going to inform you about your condition and the following treatment, okay?"

Again, I didn't answer. I barely listened as he read out loud about my condition, the only thing that caught my attention was the periostitis in my leg. No more sports. Great. I would get fat even quicker. He got my attention when he turned to my parents and said: "I would like to talk to Alaska alone for a minute, is that okay?"

They nodded and left, holding hands. Both of them did not want to leave, I knew that. They just trusted Dr. Adams.

"Alaska", Dr. Adams began, but for the first time, I interrupted him.

"Please, stop it", I spoke up, yet a bit weakly. "Just tell me how I can prove that I don't have an eating disorder and let me go."

"There is no need to prove", he sighed. "You were officially diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa some time ago, and now, you were diagnosed again. You can prove it as much as you want, it won't change the fact that you are sick."

I furrowed my eyebrows. I didn't like this, I wasn't the one in control right then. He didn't even give me the chance to prove him wrong.

"Listen, we both know that you have an eating disorder. I don't know if you have even admitted that to yourself yet, but you have to understand that you need help. But we cannot help you if you don't want it, too. Understand?"

"I am not sick.", I repeated.

"I see you haven't admitted it to yourself yet", he sighed. "Okay. Let me tell you one thing: if you are going to continue like this, you will get weaker and weaker from day to day, no matter how much artificial nutrition we give you. You will get infected with illnesses way easier than others and one day, you won't wake up anymore. You may not care about yourself, but you should care about the people around you. Your family, your boyfriend, your friends. There are people who care about you, who need you, don't you see that?"

"They are all better off without me", I whispered, not looking at them. "I keep hurting them. Just look at them now."

"That's not true. They are just worried, because they care about you. They love you. They want you to get better. And if you don't want to fight against your demons for yourself, you should at least do it for them.", he said.

My eyes filled with tears and I raised my head to look at him. "I can't", I whispered.

"Why not?"

"Because she is not a demon", I sobbed. "She is a part of me and she is strong. Way too strong."

"She?", he asked.

"She keeps following me around, she tells me what to do and how to behave", I whispered and directly regretted it. Why was I telling him all this? How did he make me talk to him this quickly?

"We will get rid of her. You just have to let us help you. I'm not asking you to change right now, in this moment. I know that you need a lot of time and we will wait. All I need is to see that you are slowly understanding what she is doing to you and your body, also to your family and friends. She is not your friend, Alaska. And when you are ready, when you feel like you can finally get rid of her, just let me know. I am going to stop by every day. There will be days where you feel like this battle isn't worth to fight and you feel like listening to her is the right thing, but there will also be days where you will see how much better life is without her. I'm not gonna lie, it's not going to be easy. It's going to be hard. But there are many people who will always be there for you and support you. You just don't have to give up.", replied.

I was too surprised to say anything. I had already experienced many, many treatments, but never had a doctor been that honest. I just keep staring at him, not knowing whether he was right or if I could trust him; but I knew that he had been right with one thing: If I don't do it for myself, I should do it for them. For my parents, for Jonas, for my friends.

"Why are you like this?", I whispered. "Why do you know so much about this? Why do you care?"

He remained silent for some minutes, until he replied: "This department isn't the one I had actually been working in. Usually, I had been in trauma department."

"What happened?", I asked. "Why did you change it?"

"Two years ago, the doctors lost a girl to Anorexia Nervosa. It had been diagnosed quite late and her body was way too weak to recover completely. She never understood what she was doing to her body, neither that she was going to die. I saw them trying to help her every day, but there was nothing much they could do anymore. When I finally came up with a way to make her understand what was going on, she had already passed away.", he told me, looking down.

I knew that he wasn't lying or making things up, but I recognized that there was more. There had to be something about this girl that had made him change department.

"Who was she?", I asked quietly.

"My sister."

"Pain changes people." - Unknown