I know I am still writing the history of Emily's anorexia, but I have to talk about yesterday. It would have been Emily's college graduation day. Since she withdrew early, the school wouldn't allow her to walk and get her diploma. If she could have, I would have done anything in my power to get her there.
The family that Emily is staying with invited my husband and me over for lunch. The woman (I thought she was younger, but she is 40) that Emily has befriended at church was there. I'm calling her Brenda. Brenda is an anorexia success story. She was down to 75 pounds at her lowest point as a teenager. She has told Emily that the way she got better was through prayer and moving out on her own. She claims that once she had to take care of herself, she did just that. With stress being one of Emily's strongest triggers, I cannot fathom how moving out on her own and being responsible for all her bills and everything else that comes with living away from your family for the first time wouldn't cause her to back slide, not improve!
Well, we went to lunch and it was like high school. It felt like every rejection I had faced in my life only magnified because it was my flesh and blood doing the rejecting. Emily and Brenda disappeared into Emily's room to check it out and look at a book Emily had bought on the advice of her therapist at school. I followed them down because I wanted to see her room, too! When Brenda asked if Emily was finished with the book and could she borrow it, Emily said she was finished with it but she wanted Mrs. A. (her host family) to read it. It was like a dagger to my heart. She didn't want me to read it, but her surrogate mother.
When we were at the table to eat, Emily ate a piece of quiche and 1/4 pear wrapped in prosciutto. It was great to see that. Brenda & Emily sat next to each other and murmured to each other and giggled and talked about what Emily would eventually eat. They were in their own little world. Emily wouldn't even open the graduation gift we had brought her. She was wearing a new watch, which was the graduation gift that Brenda had brought her.
Then the conversation turned to dead children. For some reason, Brenda brought it up. Why in the hell would she do that? My other daughter's death anniversary was May 1st. Yesterday was the anniversary of her funeral. Yes, I remember that date, too. I had a particularly hard time with the anniversary this year as my husband is cheating on me and my daughter is slowly trying to kill herself.
I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to cry. I couldn't seem to pull it together after that. Brenda (smart ass bitch) asked if I was OK. I told her and them that I really felt like an outsider in my own daughter's life. Emily hadn't made eye contact with me or my husband the whole time we were there. They assured me that this was the best thing for her and we would all come out of it stronger, yada, yada, yada.
All I knew is that it felt like every time my mother put a man first in her life, every time my husband put his job first, every time I wasn't accepted as a teen, every time I was called a slut in high school. It SUCKED. I left shortly after that. Emily was supposed to come over in the evening to watch a movie with her brother, but texted that it had been too emotional of a day for her and she couldn't come over. I am fucking losing my daughter. I will not survive if I have to bury another child.
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