Page 426 of Power Play

I’m five foot three, and I’ve spent years doing everything I could to keep my weight inside two digits. Ninety-nine felt dangerous. Ninety-five felt acceptable. Ninety-four was the number on the scale when I entered treatment, and some sick part of me had been proud when I saw it.

Today, I was 101.

Seven pounds in three weeks.

The number followed me into breakfast and sat beside my plate while I tried to eat scrambled eggs, toast, fruit, and yogurt. It crawled under my skin during individual therapy. It waited inside the mirror when I changed for group, telling me my face was fuller and my stomach had changed.

I know this is the process.

Knowing hasn’t made today easier.

In this place, I could tell myself they’re only forcing me to eat. I could believe they’re forcing me to stare at everything I’ve done wrong while taking away the clothes, makeup, routines, and measurements I used to make myself feel safe.

That is the mindset I have to change.

Food isn’t a punishment. Weight restoration isn’t something they’re doing to me. The people here aren’t trying to take away my control so they can hurt me. They’re trying to keep me alive long enough to understand why hurting myself felt like the only thing I could control.

I can’t remain the person I was if I ever want to walk out of the cage.

Some days, it feels like there are a thousand things I need to change before they’ll let me leave. I have to eat when every thought tells me I shouldn’t. I have to sit with the panic afterward instead of trying to undo the meal. I have to stop checking every reflective surface for proof that I’ve become unacceptable. I have to learn that feeling full isn’t failure and that gaining weight doesn’t mean I’ve lost value.

I have to stop hating the woman in the mirror long enough to let her live.

Today, I’m struggling to believe I can.

Eleven of us sit in a circle inside the group room. The chairs are comfortable without being soft enough to disappear into. A box of tissues waits on the small table in the center beside a bowl of wrapped mints no one in eating-disorder treatment voluntarily touches.

The counselor asks what has been occupying our thoughts today.

People take turns speaking. Mara talks about her first supervised restaurant outing and the panic she felt when the menu didn’t list calories. A college student named Wren admits she misses running even though she knows exercise became another way to punish herself. Luke keeps his hands folded between his knees while everyone else speaks.

I haven’t shared during group since I arrived.

I answer direct questions when the counselor calls on me. I nod when someone says something I understand, and I complete every written assignment they give me because written words can be controlled before anyone else sees them.

Standing in front of the group is different.

It feels like handing strangers the ugliest parts of myself and waiting to see whether they confirm everything I already believe.

“Charm?”

The counselor’s voice brings my attention up from my hands.

“You’ve been quiet today.”

“I’m quiet every day.”

A few people smile because they know it’s true.

“You are,” she says. “Is there anything you want us to know?”

My first instinct is to say no. The word is ready, safe and familiar, but I’m tired of choosing the answer that keeps the door closed.

My hands tremble as I push myself out of the chair.

I don’t know why I stand. Nobody else has, and the counselor doesn’t ask me to. Sitting makes me feel trapped inside the circle, though, and if I’m going to say this, I need enough air around me to breathe.

“There’s someone I can’t stop thinking about.”