Let Us Not Forget

My nutritionist tells me: “I understand that you are depressed, that you are constantly sad, that you are sad all the time. I’ve never been depressed myself, but I want you to know that I get it.”

She does not get it.

“What about this,” she suggests, “how about the next time you notice a sensation of sadness coming on, you just let it pass over you, just let it come and go.”

She does not get it.

I tell her that would be like drowning in a deep ocean and noticing a rain drop splashing on the surface.

She laughs at this. She does not get it.

Her office building is cold and sterile. She weighs me in the bathroom that reeks of disinfectant and is lit with harsh fluorescent lights that flicker and buzz as I step backwards onto the scale and hear metal clinking against metal. She marks the number in my file as I gather my things and try to avoid looking at my reflection in the huge mirror situated above the white sink that is decorated with plastic plants and fake flowers. She walks, too fast, back to her office and I follow behind her trying to keep up with her quick little steps. Her desk is efficiently organized with weight charts, neatly stacked measuring cups, manila folders, and white binders packed with nutritional information lined up in orderly, rigid rows. We sit facing each other, an invisible wall of thick tension between us. She scribbles notes while I talk. She seems frustrated with me most of the time. We do not understand each other. Her greatest passion is my greatest fear.

I step out of her office building that is indistinguishable from the rows and rows of identical office buildings next to it. I am engulfed by cement. Cement gutters lining large cement sidewalks leading to smaller cement walkways leading to cement buildings. Cement and more cement. Everything is cold, even when the sun is shining. My head is very loud when I leave, my temples throb and I feel nauseated. I keep my head down as I walk on the sidewalk, sure that everyone passing me knows why I’m there: because I’m a bit out of my mind and need someone to tell me how to feed myself. They know I’m not normal. No use trying to pretend otherwise.

My therapist’s office is much different. It’s not an office at all, actually, it’s an attic in an old Victorian mansion that has big stained glass windows and a wide wooden porch always lit by a glowing yellow porch light. We sit in big, soft chairs with pillows and she always has a radio playing low in the background. She doesn’t use the overhead lights, she uses a small lamp and low-watt light bulb. She keeps her office really warm and runs a space heater constantly, because she has overcome her own eating disorder and works specifically with eating disorder patients, so she knows how awful our circulation is.

She gets it.

Sometimes, I don’t feel like I’m in therapy at all. I feel like I’m just visiting a friend and, for a little while, I forget why I’m really there. I forget that I’m there because I’m 27 years old and haven’t yet figured out how to feed myself. I forget that I’m there because my reflection in a mirror can make me cry. I forget that I’m there because sometimes I look down at my legs and find that they have somehow magically morphed into the size of tree trunks. I forget that I’m there because the world is crushing me and I can’t escape all of its suffocating weight. I forget that I’m there because I feel unworthy of being alive and I can’t stop apologizing for my existence.

Sometimes, I forget.

But then my therapist looks at the clock and says “I can’t believe we’re already out of time. I don’t know what it is about you, but I could just talk and talk with you forever and the time flies by so fast.”

She walks with me down the antique staircases and she stays next to my side. She does not speed ahead of me. She says goodbye as I step out of the house and close the big wooden door behind me. I never want to leave.

Sometimes I stand on the porch after my session and try to forget again. I pretend I’m normal. I pretend I live in this beautiful neighborhood with all of its warm Victorians and green lawns. I pretend I’ve just been visiting with a friend, not paying to see a therapist, that I’m exactly like the people who are strolling by me, out on their evening walks with their dogs. I pretend I’m just like them. That I’m going to go home and eat dinner without crying beforehand and panicking after it’s gone. I pretend that I’m just like them. I pretend I get it.

Some are walking with grocery bags and little shopping lists in their hands. And then I remember the list I have to carry around in my own pocket, with all of my automatic thoughts that I am supposed to continually challenge written down on it:

-I’m a glutton
-I’m weak
-I’m selfish
-I’m pathetic
-I’m a joke

I remember my list. Then it’s harder to forget that I'm not like them. It’s harder to pretend that I get it.

I walk away from the door and across the porch. As I plant my foot on the last wooden step, it creaks as if to snap me back to my reality, as if to say “So long now, that’s enough pretending. Let’s not forget why you are really here.”

I leave the porch and I remember why I'm here.

I step back onto the gray sidewalk, back onto the cement, and I remember.

I don't get it.