Hemorrhage.

August went by quickly. The doctors were nicer here – they gave me time to open up, and they didn’t have the same snarl as Dr. Meyer’s, which was an automatic plus. Everything took time. I was anxious. I wanted to leave the second they handed me a lumpy pillow and introduced me to my white-walled room, but I knew that running away from here wouldn’t accomplish anything. And my mother was paying something like two hundred dollars a day for me to get better. So I needed to get better.

September went by slowly, because I knew that they were home. My mother was the only one that called me here, but I wondered if Molly knew. I hoped that she would know. That she would get it. I didn't want her to think that I had abandoned her for no good reason. This time, it wasn’t just because I was selfish and I only liked to please myself. I was getting better here. I was talking more, and I had a friend to eat my meals with. Things were getting easier, but barely.

October was fast. I wondered how everyone was doing. I wondered if Molly had finally admitted her true feelings to Kennedy, or if she still needed a swift kick in the ass. My therapist said that with the progress that I was making, I should get out of here by Christmas. I really hoped so, because I missed my mom. Our relationship was improving. She called me every Tuesday afternoon, and I wrote her long letters, detailing my improvement and how I was starting to think about things. I ate two solid meals a day.

November was a confusing month. I was getting better, but I had a brief relapse. I refused to eat the sugar-free, fat-free pie that they served for Thanksgiving. The mention of mounds of food had kept me anxious, and I went back to my regular habits and cheating ways for four days. I got really angry and irritated. One of the doctors sat me down and talked to me about what the lack of food did to my body. I was so moody because my blood sugar was constantly low, keeping me from having constant and reliable mood shifts. I recovered from my relapse. I got a heavy period, for the first time in months. It was the happiest I’ve ever been to have cramps, because it signaled a change.

December was pleasant. I spent two hours of every day in group therapy, and four hours taking classes on nutrition, health, and ways to keep emotionally stable. I was working so hard because they promised that I would be out by Christmas. I was. I packed up the two suitcases that I brought, and I gave everyone a hug and a huge thank you. One of the last steps of the program was a physical change, to help with the emotional one. I dyed my hair a deep brown, and I was up to a solid size one/two. My goal weight was a five/six, but my doctor didn’t think that I’d be there anytime soon. I left, without looking back.

“Oh my god,” were the first words out of my mother’s mouth, and she rushed towards me, dropping her purse on the ground.

“I love you,” was the second thing she said. “And I am so proud of you.”

I hugged her back, squishing her against me. It felt nice, to hug someone familiar. We hugged at the clinic, but those people were strangers at first. Some were friends now, but it wasn’t the same. I had missed hugs from my mom.

“Thank you.” I whispered. “For believing in me.”

“I never stopped.” She pulled away, holding me at arm’s length as she scanned up and down. “God, you look amazing. The most beautiful girl in Arizona.”

I smiled. At times, it was hard to take compliments, but I was getting better at it. Things were getting easier. It took baby steps, and repeating mantras in my head over and over again, but at least there was some type of improvement. I didn’t think of myself in that negative light anymore. I thought of my body as an instrument, and as a way to live the life I wanted.

When we got home, I set my bags in my room, and grabbed the instruction sheet, meal planner, and list of “ground rules” that they had given to me at my last meeting. I was instructed to live with someone for the first few months, to help keep the progress, and then, eventually, when I thought I was ready for the next step, to live alone.

My mom was sitting at the table, a notepad and a pen at the ready, waiting for this to be discussed. There were a lot of basic things to do – we were going to go to the grocery story every Sunday and get the groceries for the meals ahead. Eating out was okay, but only when I felt really up to it. Only constructive criticism was allowed when it came to my eating habits. If I said something negative about myself, I had to rephrase it in a more polite way and state why I felt that way. On bad days, I was to tell my mom why I was feeling down.

It was pretty simple, on paper and in the air, but we both knew that this was going to be hard work. It wasn’t going to be easy, living a life of recovery, but I was convinced that it was going to be worth it. I needed this, to get things in order. I wanted to figure out what exactly I wanted out of life, and start on the path to getting that thing. I wanted to reinvent myself, but I had a couple things to do first.

I needed to confront Pat, first off. Then I needed to apologize to Molly. I needed to talk to John, and explain to him what was going on in my life, and how I felt. I needed to get a job, or go back to school. I needed to get into a healthy habit of things, get into living my life.

There were a lot of things that I wanted to do, and hopefully I would accomplish everything in time.

It seemed like a quick transformation, in retrospect, but it wasn’t. I started the second John had looked at me, his eyes so sad, and said, “You were always beautiful.”

Because at first I didn’t get that. I never thought that I was beautiful. I thought I was ugly because I didn’t look like everyone else. But really, that was a good thing. I didn’t need to look like anyone else. I wasn’t supposed to look like anyone else. I was supposed to look like me. I was supposed to be me. It just took some time for me to realize that to some people, I was beautiful.

Realizing that changed me. It made me appreciate the fact that I was alive, and I was fortunate enough to have a roof over my head and people that cared about me. I was living a successful life, and I needed to start appreciating it.