Shout Her Lovely Name (2 page)

Remember, you were always there to listen to painful problems, to help. You kept your house purged of fashion magazines, quit buying the telephone-book-size September
Vogue
as soon as you gave birth to her. Only glanced at
People
in the dentist’s office. So why? How? How did this happen to your family?

Karen Carpenter, Mary-Kate Olsen, Oprah Winfrey, Anne Sexton, Paula Abdul, Sylvia Plath, Princess Diana, Jane Fonda, Audrey Hepburn, Margaux Hemingway, Sally Field, Anna Freud, Elton John, Richard Simmons, Franz Kafka, for Christ’s sake

You should never have paid Cinderella to enchant the girls at her fourth-birthday party. Cringe as you remember the shimmering blue acetate gown and the circle of mesmerized girls at Cinderella’s knees, their eyes softly closed, tender mouths slackened to moist Os. Cinderella hummed Cinderella’s love song; she caked iridescent blue eye shadow on each girl while they all fell in love with her and her particular fantasy. Know in your heart that even though you canceled cable and forbade Barbie to cross your threshold, you are responsible. You have failed her.

© Elizabeth M. Perham

After the doctor’s appointment, drive to your daughter’s favorite Thai restaurant while she weeps beside you and tells you she never imagined she’d be a person with an eating disorder. “If this could happen to me, anything can happen to anyone.”

Tell her, “Your light will shine. Live strong. We will come through this.” Vague affirmations are suddenly your specialty.

“I’m scared,” she tells you.

For the first time in months, you are not scared. You are calm. Your daughter seems pliable, reachable. During the entire car ride, the search for a parking space, and the walk into the restaurant you are filled with hope. And then you are seated for lunch and she studies the menu for eleven minutes, finally ordering only a green papaya salad. Hope flees and this is the moment you begin to eat like a role model. You too order a salad; you also order pho and salmon and custard and tea. Eat slowly, with false joy and frivolity. Show her how much fun eating can be! Look at me, ha-ha, dangling rice noodles from my chopsticks, tilting my head to get it all in my mouth. Yum! Delicious! Wow! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha!

October

Rejoice! Your daughter adds dry-roasted almonds to her approved-food list. She eats a handful every day. She also eats loaves of mother-grain bread from a vegan restaurant across the river. You gladly drive there in the rain, late at night. In the morning, she stands purple-lipped in front of the toaster, holding her hands up to it for warmth.

People with anorexia nervosa often complain of feeling cold because their body temperature drops. They may develop lanugo (a term used to describe the fine hair on a newborn) on their body.

Your daughter furiously gnashes a wad of gum. She read somewhere that gum stimulates digestion and she chomps nearly all day. You find clumps of gum in the laundry, in the dog’s bed, mashed into the carpet, stuck to sweaters. Seeing her aggressive chewing makes your skin crawl. Tell her how you feel.

“Why?” your husband demands. “How you feel is irrelevant.”

“Good for you,” your childless friend tells you. “Your daughter shouldn’t get away with railroading your family.”

“She's an angry girl.” The new therapist pinches a molecule of lint from her fashionable wool skirt.

“She called me pathetic-cunt-Munchausen-loser.” Where did your daughter learn this language? Your daughter has been replaced by a tweaking rapper pimp with a psychology degree. “What does she mean?” you ask.

The therapist, in her Prada boots and black cashmere sweater, speaks in a low voice. She has very short hair and good jewelry. Stylish, you think; your daughter will like her.

“She means you are making up her problems to get attention, Munchausen syndrome by proxy,” the therapist says.

You still don’t know what that means, so you volunteer information. “She chews gum.”

“They all do.”

“I hate that bitch,” your daughter shrieks in the car on the way home. “I’m never going back.” Remember to speak in calm tones when you answer. Remember what the therapist told you about the six Cs: clear, calm, consistent, communication, consequences . . . you’ve already forgotten one. Chant the five you do recall in your mind while you carefully tell your daughter that she certainly will go back or else. In between vague threats (your specialty) and repeating your new mantra, feel spurts of rage toward your husband for sending you alone to therapy with your anorexic daughter. Also feel terribly, awfully, deeply guilty for feeling fury. What kind of monster doesn’t want to be alone with her own child? During this internal chant/argument/lament cacophony, right before your very eyes, your daughter transforms into a panther. She kicks the car dash with her boot heel, twists and yanks knobs trying to break the radio, the heater, anything, while screaming hate-filled syllables. Her face turns crimson as she punches and slaps at your arms. Pull over now. Watch in horror as she scratches her own wrists and the skin curls away like bark beneath her fingernails. All the while she will scream that you are doing this to her. Don’t cry or she will call you pathetic again. Remember that your daughter is in there, somewhere. Tell her you love her. Refuse to drive until she buckles in to the back seat. Wonder if there is an instant cold pack in the first-aid kit. Wonder if there is a car seat big enough to contain her. Yearn for those long-ago car-seat days. Think,
We’ve hit bottom.
Think it, but don’t count on it. Then remember the last C: compassion.

For some reason, driving suddenly frightens you. When you must change lanes, your heart thunks like a dropped pair of boots, your hands clutch the steering wheel. You shrink down in your seat, prepared for a sixteen-wheeler to ram into you. You can hear it and see it coming at you in your rearview mirror. Nearly close your eyes but don’t; instead, pull over. Every time you get into your car, remind yourself to focus, to drive while you’re driving, to breathe. Fine, fine, fine, you will be fine, chant this as you start your engine. Be amazed and frightened by the false stability you’ve been living with your entire life. If this can happen to you, anything can happen to anyone.

When your husband leaves town for business, worry about being alone with your daughter. Try not to upset her. When she tells you she got a 104 percent on her French test, smile. When she tells you she is getting an A+ in algebra, say,
Wow!
Don’t let her know that you think super-achievement is part of her disease. Don’t let on that you wish she would eat mousse au chocolat, read Simone de Beauvoir’s
Le deuxième sexe,
and earn a D in French. Begin to think that maybe you
are
always looking for trouble, Munchausen by proxy. Be happy when she has a ramekin of dry cereal before bed.

© Stephen Vanhorn | Dreamstime.com

Hug her before you remember she won’t let you, and don’t answer when she says, “Bitch, get off me.”

In the middle of the night wake her and tell her that you’ve had a bad dream. Ask her to come and sleep in your bed. When she does, hug her. Comfort her. Comfort yourself. Remember how she smelled as a toddler, like sweat and graham crackers. Remember how manageable her tantrums used to be. Whisper over and over in her perfect ear that you miss her. That you love her. That she will get better. Know that she needs to hear your words, believe that somewhere inside she feels this moment. In the morning, look away while she stands purple-lipped before the toaster.

When your husband dedicates every Saturday afternoon to your daughter, taking her to lunch, shoe shopping, a movie, use the time to take care of you. Kiss them both goodbye and say with a forced lilt, “Wish I could come too.” Quickly shut the front door. Try not to register their expressions, the doomed shake of your husband’s head, your daughter’s eyes flat as empty skillets.

“Take some
me
time,” your childless friend urges. “Get a facial . . . a massage . . . a pedicure. Take a nap, you’re exhausted. Read
O
magazine
.
” The magazine counsels:

• What to Do When Life Seems Unfair
  
• Do you ask, “Why me?”
  
• Or do you look at what your life is trying to tell you?
  
• How you choose to respond to the difficult
  
• things that happen to you
  
• can mean the difference between a life of anger
  
• .
   . 
  .
  or joy.
  

Instead, take a long bath. Light aromatherapy candles and incense. Pour in soothing-retreat bath oil. Even though it is only eleven o’clock in the morning, mix a pitcher of Manhattans.

Play world music and pretend you are somewhere else. Except of course you aren’t. You know you aren’t somewhere else because as you were filling the tub you noticed raggedy bits of food in the drain.

Wouldn’t she vomit in the toilet? Your daughter must be terrified for herself to leave behind these Technicolor clues. Get in tub. Continue adding hot water. Drain the water heater. Notice as the water level climbs, covering first your knees, then your thighs, and then your chest, that your stomach is nearly the last thing to go under. Weeks of role-model eating have changed your body. Try to love your new abundance.

When your husband and daughter return, you are still in the tub. She slams her bedroom door. Your husband comes in and slumps on the toilet, his head in his hands.

Quietly listen.

“She pretended not to know where the shoe store was. We walked for forty-five minutes. Really, it was more of a forced march.”

Say nothing, though you feel more than a dash of bitters; you feel angry and tired of being angry. Stare at your wrinkled toes. You are each alone: your daughter in her room, your husband on the toilet, you in the tub. You’re each in your private little suffering-bubble.

“Exercise is verboten,” you say. The doctor has given you both this directive.

“I know.” When his voice breaks and his hands shudder, get out of the lukewarm tub. Climb into his lap, and put your arms around him. Cling together.

November

Hooray! Your daughter has added whole-wheat pasta to her approved-food list. At the doctor’s office, her blood pressure is amazing! She’s gained five pounds!
You people
are all smiling. This time in the elevator, your daughter stands right beside you. For days you are happy.

Until you find her in the kitchen blotting oil out of the fish fajitas. When you confront her, tell her that is anorexic behavior, she throws the spatula across the room.

Persons with anorexia nervosa develop strange eating habits such as cutting their food into tiny pieces, refusing to eat in front of others, or fixing elaborate meals for others that they themselves don’t eat. Food and weight become obsessions as people with this disorder constantly think about their next encounter with food.

Your daughter claims oil gives her indigestion, the food in the drain is because of acid reflux, you are the one obsessed, you are the one who is sick, she is fine.

You say, “Bullshit.”

“Shh,” your husband says. “Can we please have peace?” Like a middle-school principal, he calls you into his home office to tell you that she doesn’t need to be told every single moment that something isn’t right. “Stop reminding her,” he says. “Leave her alone. It’s hard enough for her without having to faceherproblemeverysingleminute.”