Mealtimes and Milestones by Constance Barter Read Free Book Online Page B

done in
the quiet room for safety. Even so, Enlive tends to get splattered around the walls and other members of the young people’s group are quite annoyed about it, because the quiet room is
supposed to be a place where you can go and just be calm, but when someone’s in there being tubed it’s not tranquil, and even if you go in there afterwards you can’t be tranquil
because you get a real sense of someone’s pain, struggle and distress, which isn’t at all comforting.
    In Community Meeting 21 we talked about why four people were on the tube. I feel quite cross, though, because I was the only one of the four who spoke, and
I’m not even one of the people who struggles or retaliates. Someone asked me why I felt I needed to be on a tube, and I replied, ‘Because it is a way of punishing myself. I don’t
deserve to drink and nourish myself because I hate myself so much, everything about me.’ I then started to cry.
    I was upset for three reasons:
1.
I felt guilty about being honest because I don’t really want people to know what I had just said. I feel very exposed and vulnerable. I
     don’t want people to understand my thoughts because I don’t want to accept their help.
2.
I was upset for feeling so bad about myself and don’t understand why I just can’t like myself. I’m too scared to envisage
     and dream about a future where I’m not ill, because I know that I’m never going to get to that paradise. I just have to accept that there is no hope.
3.
I am also fed up with this stupid illness. They try and encourage you to talk about your feelings, but now I have done that, I actually feel
     worse. I want anorexia to leave me alone, but then again I don’t want it to abandon me. I’m so confused about what I want.
    This evening, though, I found out that my friend is coming to see me at the weekend, which has made me so excited! However, this excitement is clouded by anorexia. I hate
anorexia. It isn’t an attention-seeking act. It isn’t a faddy diet. It is a desperate cry for help. People outside don’t understand. If I didn’t have to go through this I
wouldn’t. I just want it to go away. I want the voice to stop talking – but it won’t. It won’t leave me alone.
    Friday 14 September
    In the third part of Friday Group, one of the therapists said how courageous I was in sharing how I felt in Community Meeting, and how heartbreaking it was that I feel the
need to punish myself. I didn’t think about it much at the time, but during snacks I began to cry. I was still upset and frustrated with the illness. I want to move on but don’t know
how to. I guess I am also a tiny bit proud that someone has acknowledged how challenging, and what an important step, it was for me to expose my genuine feelings – and maybe because I feel
proud, I don’t know how to cope with that feeling, because I haven’t felt that in such a long time. It was the most minuscule amount, but even so the non-deserving-guilt feeling seemed
to come rushing back to me.
    Saturday 15 September
    In the afternoon with my parents we went to a nearby city. The first place we visited was the cathedral. It was really beautiful, and it felt quite important for me to be
there because I missed church last week, and I’m going to miss it tomorrow too. There was a board in the cathedral where people could write up their own prayers, and Mum wrote a prayer for
all the staff in the unit, saying, ‘May they protect and surround all the children with love and support.’
    We then went into a beautiful park. I just loved being in such a wide open space, because I often feel quite confined being in hospital the whole time.
    Next, we went to a museum. While we were there Dad and I built an arch out of foam bricks. It was really great to have a bit of a laugh with my dad, just playing and having some fun, because I
think that he often feels a bit left out.
    The only hard thing was when we were walking back through the park there