Family Matters - Like it or Not

Friday, 9/30, was Family Day at the eating disorder center. The very idea of Family Day made me feel like I’ve been away at camp, though away at camp I’ve never been. There was a flyer announcement, an official-like agenda, a schedule. There was a boxed lunch, staff presentations to family and friends, Q&A, a keynote speaker.  There were flower arrangements on the tables, which we – the “campers” – designed and put together, bless our little hearts. The pomp and circumstance turned me off during the planning stages, and I argued a bit with the staff about the flowers, the new table cloths, the party napkins – even the normally-forbidden caffeinated beverages, some with calories and some without. Basically, I didn’t want Family Day to offer anything out of the ordinary, because that wouldn't be a true image of our daily lives. Rarely a flower arrangement and never a Diet Coke. Granted, the treatment team relaxed the rules for us on this "special" day, and I enjoyed the privilege of caffeine and the relative safety of the boxed lunch. It beat hell out of our regularly scheduled challenge meal, though the white sandwich bun and brownie were challenge enough for me (I overcame). Nevertheless, I wanted my parents, whom I invited, to get the full-on experience, to see how things really are. If I need permission to use the bathroom, why shouldn’t they?


For one, the eating disorder is mine, not theirs. A better question might be: Why should they be punished for it? Should the citizens of a "rogue state" suffer the consequences of sanctions on their leader? Although they may be complicit sometimes or tacitly consent, my parents are not, ultimately, responsible for my actions. They’re likely doing the best they can or, at least, the best they know how to do. This isn’t to say that they have nothing to do with the choices I’ve made. I lived with them for over twenty years, and their influence, along with the influence of my siblings, is pervasive. My influence on their choices is just as pervasive.  None of us fully understands the degree to which our lives and decisions are interlaced. Neither they nor I really know who’s in charge, or, as my individual therapist would say, who’s “leading the dance." No one person leads all of the time.
  
I do not make it easy for people to help me. I tend to sabotage potential support. Concerned family and friends probably get the impression that anything they might say to me is wrong. They would be right - I make it so. Telling me to “just eat” is bossy and betrays an overly-simplistic view. Offering me a salad or some other “safe” food is patronizing. Yet, silence is as good as encouragement. So, what’s a family member or friend to do?


Family Day!


I invited just my parents, because I wasn’t sure how many others I could handle in such a concentrated amount of time. Nothing against my brother, sister, extended family and  friends – but my parents are complicated enough. They divorced approximately a year ago, I guess (I don’t have copies of the paperwork).  In my opinion, the “official” split was long overdue. Until Family Day, they had spoken little to one another since the divorce and hadn’t spent nearly a full day together in the same building, much less the same room.


First, I was anxious about how my parents might behave, since I know there are many unresolved feelings between them. These are feelings that a court of law cannot adjudicate way. I’ve never known my parents to be happy together. Tolstoy’s famous first line rings eternally true. Even before the divorce, my siblings and I served as go-betweens for misaligned personalities. It isn’t that my folks consciously used us as middle boys and girls, now middle men and women.  It’s just that family systems have a way of doling out the roles required to maintain them. Eating disorders do the same. 


I was just as anxious about how deeply my parents and I might dive into my psychological state, particularly my feelings about them and about our relationship. While the eating disorder is “mine” alone – the identity it offers being part of its appeal – I use it as a way of dealing with the emotional “stuff” I’ve yet to consciously address with others. There is a lot of that, I think. Needless to say, I thought Family Day might get pretty heavy, and heavy is something the anorexic tries hard to avoid. It took me awhile to make the decision to invite either of my parents.


You might imagine how awkward their reunion was. I saw and spoke with them briefly before things kicked off (they did not ride together, of course). They greeted one another, but their tone, manner and facial expressions betrayed their discomfort. They were cordial enough, but I still saw the chips on their shoulders. The chips are there, regardless of what either of them might tell you.


During the first half of the day, family and friends were occupied listening to the staff’s presentations on eating disorders, their psychological and medical complications, the nutrition required to sustain normal human beings and effectively battle disordered thoughts and behaviors. My fellow group members and I went about our morning as usual, away from our visitors. We had heard it all before and would almost certainly here it all again. We practiced yoga as scheduled, and yoga – when you willingly and generously submit to the practice – has a way of putting things into perspective. At heart, yoga – and life – is about the breath. You can breathe through your anxiety. You can recognize your breath. You can focus on it. You can live with it, in it, through it. You are it. Without it, you are not. Breathing, you can essentially eliminate a lot of your worry about the horizon, because you no longer seek what might be on it. You are breathing. That is all. That is enough. This helped me get through a lot of my Family Day anxiety. It may sound to you like corny self-help juju, but yoga –  the breath – is just as much metaphor as actual practice.  It's taken me awhile, but I’m finally beginning to heed our instructor’s advice about letting yoga - the breath, the metaphor - inform the way I live out the other aspects of my life.


To their credit, my folks had agreed to set aside their own grievances for Family Day and try to be present for me alone. So, I would trust them. If I got burned, I could inhale the flame. Then I could blow it out.


Part of me wishes I had an action-filled climax to spice up my Family Day account, but I don’t, really. We – the campers – reconvened with our family and friends for lunch. My parents – sitting and eating together with me – spoke directly to one another, complete sentences. They undertook the conversation gingerly but with greater comfort than at the day’s start. They had learned a lot more that morning than I would have been able to objectively teach them.


After lunch, everyone got together in a room and sat in chairs arranged in a circle. Breathing or not, I felt a tinge of anxiety about this. I let it go. First, a former patient  – a fellow dude (represent!) – spoke about his personal experience at the eating disorder center and his continued recovery. Gender aside, his story was very much like our own stories. I took away a lot from his retelling, and I admire and appreciate his courage to tell.


Earlier in the day, the staff had given everyone – campers and visitors alike – a worksheet to complete.  This worksheet had four sentence fragments printed on it, all of them the same: “I wish my family member(s) knew…”

The staff asked us to complete the sentence – four times, fewer than four times, more than four times, whatever we could do. We would not have to read these aloud, they said, but there would be an “opportunity.” Yay.

We closed Family Day in our circle, group members sitting with their family and friends, me sitting between my parents. The worksheets  were out, the “opportunity” provided, the initial silence excruciating. I agreed to read some of my statements, but not all four of them. But then, as I began to read, I thought:  Fuck it. This isn’t supposed to be easy. To be effective, it has to be hard.

So, I read all. This, more or less, is what I said: 

• I wish my family member(s) knew…that I do not want to be this way, to have an eating disorder.
• I wish my family member(s) knew…that, most of the time, I feel uncomfortable around them, but that I wish this were not so.
• I wish my family member(s) knew…that I often worry about what they might think of me and am not always honest about my feelings with them.
• I wish my family member(s) knew…that I love them but often find it hard to do so. I harbor resentments that would best be addressed and which have grown stronger because they have not been.

Family Day went better than I expected, perhaps because I expected. It was a good day, regardless. I am glad that my parents came. I am relieved and thankful that they came in the spirit of the event and that they appeared to take some of that spirit home with them. We’ll see where this takes us.

Until then, I’ll keep breathing.