I'm Glad My Mom Died(80)

Fuck it. I get up, hurry to the bathroom, and purge.





81.


“SLIPS ARE TOTALLY NORMAL. WHEN you have a slip, it’s just that. A slip. It doesn’t define you. It doesn’t make you a failure. The most important thing is that you don’t let that slip become a slide,” Jeff tells me, and then he hands me a packet titled Don’t Let Slips Become Slides. (I have a feeling he rehearsed this moment. “Say it, then hand them the packet. Yeah, that’ll hit home.”)

These packets are a weekly occurrence with Jeff. At the end of every session, he hands me a new one. Usually they include an article, maybe a quiz or two, and some worksheets. The topics have a wide range, everything from How to Establish Healthy Relationships (And Take Stock of Your Current Ones) to Building an Identity without Your Eating Disorder to What Is Self-Care, Actually?

I enjoy doing the packets. I like that I’m able to get myself on paper. It simplifies things for me. When everything’s in my head, it feels chaotic and jumbled. But when I can look down at a sheet of paper and see myself reflected back in words and tallies and graphs, it’s clarifying.

The packets always reiterate whatever our session was about, so I know today’s session is going to be about slips.

“Jennette, this is going to be one of the most important parts of recovery. Accepting slips and moving on from them.”

I nod.

“People with a propensity for eating disorders tend to be the types of people who get very caught up in their mistakes and struggle to move on from them. Perfectionists. Does that resonate?”

“Yeah…” (The label’s a little annoying, but it resonates.)

“The problem with this is that if we beat ourselves up after a mistake, we add shame onto the guilt and frustration that we already feel about our mistake. That guilt and frustration can be helpful in moving us forward, but shame… shame keeps us stuck. It’s a paralyzing emotion. When we get caught in a shame spiral, we tend to make more of the same kinds of mistakes that caused us shame in the first place.”

I nod, catching on.

“So it makes slips become slides.”

Jeff points at me with pride.

“Bingo.”

I could’ve done without the “bingo,” but the point connects with me in a deep and powerful way. I’m realizing how much shame spirals have contributed to my issues. I’m so tired of swearing over and over again that “this time I’m done for real.” Maybe this acceptance of slips is the missing piece. Maybe when I have a slip, I can acknowledge how disappointing and frustrating it is without getting caught in the shame spiral. Without letting that spiral lead to more slips, and more slips, and more slips, until they’ve become a slide. Maybe now a slip can be, as Jeff says, just that. A slip.





82.


SHIT. I’M RUNNING LATE FOR a meeting. I grab my bag and hurry downstairs when I see him sitting there, looking out the window and twirling his hair with his index finger. His expression is catatonic, the way it often is lately. It scares me when I see him like this. The first time it happened, I thought maybe it was because he was on too high a dose of lithium. But the lithium dose has been adjusted a dozen times, and the catatonia hasn’t stopped. That’s when I realized it was something else.

“Hey boy,” I say, trying to sound as casual as possible. “How’s it going?”

He doesn’t seem to hear me.

“Steven?”

Nothing. I bite my lip.

“Um, I have to go to a meeting. Do you wanna come along for the ride? You can maybe walk around while I’m in there? Shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

I’ve started inviting Steven to come along with me whenever I have appointments or work or meetings. I’m afraid he won’t leave the house otherwise.

Steven has completely stopped working and seems opposed to ever returning to it. He claims “work is a waste of life.” He has no hobbies and isn’t interested in spending time with his friends. The only thing Steven does these days is smoke weed. He wakes up in the morning and smokes immediately, then continuously smokes throughout the day. He’s high every minute he’s awake. So high. Higher than I’ve ever seen anyone. Catatonia-level high.

At first I thought it was okay. It seemed like a reprieve for him from his schizophrenia diagnosis and all the overwhelm that came with it. I tried to be supportive. I even helped him find a dealer who could get him the amount he wanted, which seemed to be a lot.

But then it became this. And it’s not that I don’t understand this. I do. I very much understand the need to numb out everything in your life. But I’m not numbing out anymore. And maybe that’s the problem here, for us at least. I’m making strides in my bulimia recovery. I’m no longer abusing my body to nearly the extent that I used to. I’m trying every day to face myself. The results vary, but the attempts are consistent.

The further into my recovery I get, the further into his drug of choice Steven gets. And the further away from each other we grow.

And so a few weeks ago I had the brilliant idea that I’d get us back on the same page, whatever it took. Steven tried to help me with my bulimia, so I’ll try and help him with his marijuana addiction.

I printed out a bunch of articles about how to quit smoking weed. I looked up support groups. I suggested he try a new therapist who specialized in addiction. I planned activities for us so we’d be out and about and he’d be less likely to use. I invited him everywhere I went so I could monitor him. I pitched him on potential hobbies to take up. I threw away his weed.