Looking Back on the Treatment That Saved My Life
By Lisa Barr
Last year, I returned to my elementary school to give a talk about my new novel and I experienced a full-circle moment. My first-ever published piece was a poem in this school’s yearbook called “A Windblown Tree.” At the time, I was in seventh grade and was proud it was chosen. I still am. But looking back, I recognize my subconscious at work: A tree without leaves, branches that were dying; this poem was my pain set in verse, a metaphor for the decay I was witnessing at home.
When I wrote that poem, I was almost twelve, a popular, straight-A student whose sunny disposition hid a painful secret. My parents were on the verge of a bitter divorce, and as the eldest of four I was in the center of the constant fighting, trying to shield my younger siblings from the unrelenting marital warfare. Amid this chaos, the only thing I could control was my body. Already naturally slim, I starved myself; within six months, my normal weight of eighty-five pounds tanked to a near-deadly forty-five. On top of restricting food, I exercised constantly—a daily routine of 1000 sit-ups, 500 pushups, plus jogging and aerobics. I couldn’t stop, even though I desperately wanted to.
Frightened by watching their close friend disappear before their eyes, my peers—except for one who is still among my best friends—deserted me when I needed them the most. I felt so alone, and I desperately needed help. When I could no longer stand because I was so weak, my parents had me hospitalized. At that time, more than forty years ago, there were no eating disorder support groups or clinics, no celebrities giving interviews about their secret struggles. I overheard my despondent parents discussing how they had to write the Library of Congress for information; I felt ashamed that my sickness was somehow humiliating them. Back then, an eating disorder was an embarrassing condition, one which made your inner pain visible for everyone to see. There was nowhere to hide.
At the behest of my pediatrician, my parents had me admitted as the first patient in an eating disorder unit that had just been established at a prominent hospital near our home in the Chicago suburbs. I didn’t want to go, but I had no choice. Once my parents dropped me off, I was stuck there, an inmate in solitary confinement, my food intake and exercise monitored 24/7. I felt like a caged animal and considered the nurse who watched me to be Enemy #1. She explained that the key to helping me gain weight was to break my destructive habits, like doing 250 sit-ups in the middle of the night. It took a few weeks under close watch, but I started to relent, to reach for the life raft that the hospital team threw my way.
I see now that the intensive therapy and around-the-clock monitoring saved my life. I was hospitalized for several weeks, and within a year, I had gained the weight back, and appeared “healed.” In truth, it took another decade of therapy to come to terms with family issues, my relationship with food, obsessive thinking, and body image.
Unlike my high school cheerleading mentor who died of Anorexia Nervosa, I survived, and ultimately, thrived. I told myself I had moved on. Then, several years ago, when my three daughters were in high school (ah, the drama!), I began reading about the surge in eating disorders. Yes, these stories were now public—no need to write to the Library of Congress—but watching my daughters and their friends count likes on social media, I realized how little progress has been made. The pressure to be perfect, to have everything under control, hasn’t been ameliorated; it seems to have become even worse. I knew I couldn’t change the way the world treats women. But I wanted to show those who are suffering the way I did that they aren’t alone; I’d been there, too.
I see now that the intensive therapy and around-the-clock monitoring saved my life. I was hospitalized for several weeks, and within a year, I had gained the weight back, and appeared “healed.”
I decided to contact the very same hospital where I’d been a patient. What was then a fledgling treatment program is now, sadly, a major unit—with a waiting list.
“Hi, I’m Lisa Barr, I was the first patient here…” I said, sheepishly.
A therapist invited me to share my story with the current patients. But as the days drew closer, I became terrified. I began having nightmares of being sucked back into the dark hole of my youth. I picked up the phone at least six times to cancel. However, I knew that I needed to go back to the scene of my most painful trauma not just to help girls suffering now, but to remind myself who I’ve become: happy, healthy—a survivor.
Entering the hospital, I began to feel clammy, dizzy. I stopped in the nearest bathroom, doused my face in water and gave myself a pep talk in the mirror. Shuffling into the elevator, all my twelve-year-old insecurities began to resurface. Suddenly, I was back to being that young girl who had to keep her pants up with staples. I glanced at my feet. I shouldn’t have worn those boots; they were trying too hard to convey that I was successful, that I had my life together.
When I approached the room, I froze. Instead of only patients waiting for me, there was a roomful of people—staff, patients, and their family members. An audience. My heart raced. For my entire adult life I had been giving speeches about writing, but this was wholly different.
You can still make a run for it, I thought as the therapist ushered me inside. You’re not a patient anymore, I reminded myself. You can choose. Don’t forget who you are now.
The room fell silent. At first all I could manage was, “Look around at your parents, grandparents, siblings, friends. They showed up for you. You are not alone. That is half the battle.” My voice trembled as I told my story for the next half hour. Then the room opened up to questions, and I felt like a target in front of a firing squad. Bam, bam, bam.
“How long did it really take you to get better?” asked the mother of a 14-year-old girl.
“A year to gain weight.” Pause. Breathe. “Another ten years to find peace with food and not obsess.” I gazed at the girls looking intently at me. “I know the thoughts inside your head are a full-time job; it’s exhausting.”
“Have you ever relapsed?” asked a girl in her late teens.
“No,” I answered proudly, but quickly remembered that everything I say will be measured heavily. The girls will compare themselves to me. “I have not relapsed into weight loss and compulsive exercising. But when it comes to feelings of safety, abandonment, and fear, I deal with those thoughts every single day of my life.”
“Do you ever really heal?” a teen asked softly.
I tried to give those girls a ray of hope in a world filled with darkness. But, for me, the shadow of that visit lingered.
How do I answer honestly and still offer these girls hope? “The one thing I learned,” I said, “is that you will have to deal with the feelings that led to anorexia and bulimia your whole life. There will be lots of triggers.”
“What are yours?” interrupted another girl from the back of the room.
My parents’ divorce, my own divorce, my ex-husband’s disappearance. Abandonment. Abandonment. Abandonment. I didn’t want to go there. Clearing my throat, I said, “Everyone in this room has her own story, her own triggers. What matters is learning new coping mechanisms so that when things in life hurt you, you have positive ways to manage the pain instead of punishing yourself.”
The room was dead silent, everyone immersed in their own trauma.
“Do your kids know about your past?” asked a concerned grandmother.
This I could readily answer. “Anorexia and bulimia mean living in constant deception. I’m open with my daughters. I try to teach them how to make healthy choices for their minds and bodies. But it’s up to them. The one false message we all share in this room is this: You are not good enough/pretty enough/thin enough. Or just not enough—and that is exactly the mentality you need to change; the hardest battle of all.”
A college-aged girl called out, “So, how did you become enough?”
The last question of the night, and by far the most difficult.
“By fighting for myself, just like you are.” I paused to let that sink in. “You are all in this hospital for a serious reason: survival. Through therapy you will discover what ‘enough’ means for you.” I added, “This is the fight of your life. But your family, your friends, your therapists all showed up for you. You are not alone in your pain. It's a process, not a quick fix. If I could get through this, I promise you can, too.”
I tried to give those girls a ray of hope in a world filled with darkness. But, for me, the shadow of that visit lingered. I spent days looking in the mirror at my healthy body, pondering my life. I had to remind myself that I am okay, that I am enough, and that I am not that sick young girl anymore.
Do we ever heal from trauma? I believe the answer is yes, and no. For those of us who hurt deeply as kids, we get through it. But a part of that child remains within us, despite surviving the trauma and growing up. I find this both comforting and at times painful. The pain moves through me, and I try to mother that little girl inside me as I would my own daughters.
The talk I gave at the clinic that day may have been the most important one of my life. Years later, on the happy occasion of my author’s talk at my elementary school, I knew that the “windblown tree” had become a healthy woman in bloom. She’d grown branches, lush leaves, and most of all, she now stood strong and rooted—proof that growth is possible, and that with time and proper care, sunlight darts through the darkness.
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Lisa Barr is the New York Times bestselling author of Woman on Fire. She lives in the Chicago area with her husband and three daughters.