yesterday, Sara called me. she's been in a nearby treatment facility for just over a week. after hearing some of what's gone on recently, I freaked out. I asked her to call her parents and her therapist and whomever else she trusts back home. to tell them what she'd told me because based on what I heard, I didn't want her to be there another minute. I told her that I was forty minutes away, and the moment that she called me, I was on my way to get her.
so now this might make a little more sense.
*
hi, me.
hello!
you know why I'm here.
I know parts of it. and you know parts of it. I suppose we're here to start putting those together.
yeah. I'm scared.
I know.
I'm really scared. I wish I could be calm; then I would know if this is rational. If I weren't scared, I'd feel better, like I'm not jumping to conclusions, like it really is bad, and I know that, and this time she really does need to get out.
Talk about the time she didn't need to get out.
She didn't need to get out of college, and I thought she did. Because I thought I did; I still think I do, sometimes - need to stay away from that environment, where the system is based on a thought process so different from my own. And she was upset, and I told her something the same as what I told her last night; I said, "You are not the crazy one in this situation" ... and I didn't tell her she needed to leave, or that I thought she did - I didn't feel any of that urgency or insistence then. But I did comment on how she was stating the reasons I'm not in college and how that's an option, to not be there. Then, she was fine, and the doctor said something about how she didn't need to run away because they don't think just the way she does, and I felt slighted and misunderstood - but then when I talked with Sara next, she said the same thing. That she had made it into something she needed to run from when really she didn't. And now I feel stupid, like maybe I'm doing that again, maybe I'm blowing it out of proportion; maybe my own fear is distorting it. But if it's not...it has to stop. She has to get out of there. I can't stand sitting around waiting to find out if she's ok, and what if we talk and she says she's staying? At least, with her forty minutes away, I have the luxury of knowing that I can swoop down and save her from them, the second she asks me to do so. But if she doesn't decide to leave, I can't very well make her. I can't pressure her, given that it's her life, and she's the one who knows best what's happening there. I just want to get her out and know she's safe. It's hard enough having her under attack from that awful, awful illness; to have her abused this way as she fights for recovery is not fair. It's not ok. It's not something I can stand. And I want to be driving now to pick her up, even though the past two days I haven't left the building, and just now when I went to get the mail I was convinced someone would slit my throat... I want to bring her here, to my messy room, and hold her, and cry because she was kidnapped and abused and in need of rescue - because I love her, and no one is ever, ever allowed to hurt those whom I love.
It sounds like it's about your safety.
It's about my safety a great deal, I guess. I don't want to feel powerless. With the eating disorder, I'm always close to powerless; all I can do is be her friend. I have no ability to take her away from her eating disorder, to separate them. I can't do that. But with this, I can get her out. I can take her away, faster than anyone could; I'm her getaway chauffeur...I'm the one who could say to her, "If it's 3 am, and you need to get out of there, call me. Give me forty minutes." She said, "Promise?" and she sounded relieved and disbelieving, like she'd forgotten people could be kind. Of course, I promise, my darling, my dahlia; of course, I promise to be there the second you call. And know this. My mom knows how much you mean to me, and she will act in this situation as if you are her own, as if you're me. She will get up at three a.m. to drive that car for me and you. So, you're safe, Sara; you're not trapped. Call your mom and your therapist, and tell them this. You can go somewhere else. You are so brave to enter treatment and working so hard to recover; you don't in the least deserve to be in this cult, this awful place, where they would cut you up and cut you off from anyone who'd yell out at your injuries. I'd yell out, I'd yell out, I'd yell out! ...Please you have to let me save her.
If she really needs saving.
How can she not? That story she told? The way they wouldn't even let her talk to me? The way they're brainwashing those residents? I know she's her own rescuer; she's nineteen, she can sign the papers, she can decide to go. AMA, if necessary. As Mary Advised, we'll say. I'm just so scared, to not know what's going on now. Has she made the calls? Has she made a plan? Has she decided to stay, and are they still hurting her? ...How can I go to my dad's tomorrow, not knowing, thinking all the time that she might need me, that I'm more than forty minutes from her, should she call...
What about you?
I don't want to talk about me. I want to get her out of there.
What about you?
I'm scared, damnit! She's my friend and I'm scared.
You called last night because *you* were in pain.
Yes. And now I'm in more pain because we didn't get to just touch base and say "I love you" like I wanted - because she had this story that made me want to throw her over my shoulder, scream at those people, and walk away. Made me want to pick her up and take her to Wisconsin, restore Rogers, pet her while she slept in a safe bed. Made waiting too hard, too much. Not knowing. They could be hurting her, and she could decide to stay.
Why is it so scary that she might decide to stay?
They'll keep hurting her. And I'll be wrong, again wrong... Either she really does need to leave, and she won't; she'll keep getting hurt - or she doesn't need to leave, in which case I've been going crazy for the past 24 hours over nothing. Over nothing but the possibility, and her voice, and that story, and the cruel things they said to my Sara, my sister...What if she decides to stay, and I just have to deal with it, just have to sit back and let her make her choice? This isn't the eating disorder; with this, I could do something. She can't say, "Ok, Mary, I want you to come and give me a ride out of my illness." I can't do that, even if she asks. But I can get her away from this, and I want to so badly; I guess as badly as I want her to be well. As I want them all to be well. For once, I can do something, and I just want to. I just want to do the little thing I can after years of helplessness. I know it won't save her, but it will keep her safe from this one thing, for this one time. It would mean a lot to me, to know she doesn't hurt as much, to know that she's protected. It would mean a lot to me for it to finally be simple, finally be a situation where I can help her.
And if she doesn't ask, you're powerless again.
How can it be ok today? If she says she's decided to stay, that it's not so bad, or she was wrong, or she blew it out of proportion, or it's actually helping her... How can I believe that after yesterday? How can I say, "Ok, Sara, I trust you" when I imagine hell around her, danger everywhere. It's as impossible as saying, "Ok, Sara, I trust you to know whether or not your eating disorder is dangerous." I trust you to stay in it and know when to get out. I can't trust her with that because she doesn't have that power; no one has that power, to decide when this illness stops, when it's gone too far and how to turn it off. And this place, maybe, isn't so cut-and-dry as that; it isn't as easy with this...this place might not kill her. But the violence that's already taken place is enough, isn't it? More than enough - too much! So what if she's strong enough to survive it; that doesn't make it ok. And if she says to me, "I'm going to stay" I have to let her. This one time that I could help, I have to say ok and that I trust her. ...It's not right what they're teaching her. What they're trying to teach her. And the way they attack her when she questions the philosophy, and the way they try to keep her cut off from others, people like me, who might tell her she's right to question what they say. Who might tell her to have strength and not lie down like a dog just yet, not let them have her. Might say she's strong and brave and elegantly powerful, might tell her that she's loved.
Do you feel like she'll be rejecting something from you if she says she's decided to stay or to wait and see?
I don't know... Maybe. But it's just...if you finally have the means to help someone, someone whom you would have given anything to help but never could. If you love someone who's always in danger you cannot help them escape, and all of a sudden that danger becomes something you can change, you can take away...it's such a gift. To be that close, to know that for once, this isn't a matter of "there's nothing I can do." Everything that eats away at my friends' lives; I can never do anything but love them and be their friend. I can never do anything about the danger; I can only stand with them in it, love them against it. This time I could pick her up and take her to my room, my safe room. I could pick her up and take her into my arms, where I know she would feel safe. For just a few minutes, this time, before we reexamine, reasses, begin full-force the fight again, she could just stay here and take in the fact that she's safe now from that one bad thing.
I don't think this is illness, baby. I think it's noble. It's noble, and it's true. Your love for her is pure, and the desperation, the wanting to help even if there's nothing to help, is such a natural manifestation of three years' love and helplessness... Of course, you want this for her. For you. It's not sick, even though it's overwhelming and irrational. It's just love. It's just, I'd do anything for you, and for so long there's been nothing I could do for you, even so, but now, now there is... To meet the smallest need. To take away the smallest threat. After all this time, how can that not feel like the greatest gift? And to have it taken away, to suddenly not be able to help her, again, because she theoretically decides she doesn't need to leave...will just be painful. Because this is an opportunity you've wanted since the night you met her. And to have it pass before you could seize it, to see it coming and then realize it's not what you thought, will hurt. To take her in your arms would hurt. It would be scary; you would have so many tears to cry. But then the love, between you, overflowing because you're suddenly so close together it can't fit... Even if an hour later, you had to let her go. Off into another plan. To be a safehouse in her underground. To finally yell at this bastard of all things hurting her, "NOT THIS TIME! This time I will stop you!" This time I can stop you... Why shouldn't that mean everything, just because it's not the final showdown, just because it's one blow against a huge monster... She's still one inch or one foot or one yard closer to safety. She still gets to know that I meant it when I said, whatever you need from me that I can give you, you will have. I still get to know that after three years, I finally get to live up to that promise in a way that's huge. I get to step in for a second, be all-powerful for just a second, before the suspension relaxes and she's back at her own fight. One time in three years, in so many friendships, I get to physically take her and bring her somewhere safe.
I don't know what voice I'm in now, and what does it matter, they're all me. But that's all it is. That's all it is. I want, one night, to fight off Sara's nightmares. I want one night where I can hold onto her, listen to her breath, and by that know she's ok.
~me