Believarexic.Pdf

Young adult / fiction www.peachtree-online.com be • bulimarexic believarexic n. bu be • lim • liev • a • rex • ic liev Someone with an eating human disorder marked by an alternation between intense craving for and aversion ood belief in oneself. • to f a • rex H “Compelling and authentic, this story is impossible to put down. Believarexic is a raw, memorable reading experience.” • —Booklist ic “A powerful story of healing and self-acceptance.” —Kirkus Reviews 978-1-68263-007-5 $9.95 be•liev•a•rex•ic Believarexic TPB cover for BEA.indd 1 4/20/17 12:55 PM be•liev•a•rex•ic For Sam— We all have monsters. May yours be a friendly, loyal luck dragon who will fly you in the direction of your dreams. Published by PEACHTREE PUBLISHERS 1700 Chattahoochee Avenue Atlanta, Georgia 30318-2112 www.peachtree-online.com Text © 2015 by J. J. Johnson All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Design and composition by Nicola Simmonds Carmack Printed May 2015 in Harrisonburg, VA, by R. R. Donnelley 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Johnson, J. J., 1973- Believarexic / JJ Johnson. pages cm ISBN 978-1-56145-771-7 Summary: An autobiographical novel in which fifteen-year-old Jennifer Johnson con- vinces her parents to commit her to the Eating Disorders Unit of an upstate New York psychiatric hospital in 1988, where the treatment for her bulimia and anorexia is not what she expects. [1. Psychiatric hospitals—Fiction. 2. Anorexia nervosa—Fiction. 3. Bulimia—Fiction. 4. Depression, Mental—Fiction. 5. Family problems—Fiction. 6. New York (State)—Histo- ry—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.J63213Bel 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2015002404 be•liev•a•rex•ic — Before — Thursday, November 17, 1988 It’s 2:04 a.m. Your eyes are dry and big. You are in your bed, burrowed under blankets and quilt. Spike is curled in a sleeping curve at your feet, barking quietly, a bad dream. You stroke his ears until he relaxes, soothed. You are not soothed. You are the opposite of soothed. You are wretchedly hungry. But you won’t eat because you are too tired to make yourself throw up again. Somehow, for no good reason— or at least no reason you can figure out— you have a monster inside you. It is hunting you from within. It waits around corners; it stalks. Before A horrible beast— greedy, disgusting, toxic. The monster tells you, You are not what you are supposed to be. You are not good unless you are sick. Be the broken one, Thursday, November 17, 1988 17, November Thursday, it tells you. Pare yourself down, do everything just so, empty your stomach, scrape lines in your flesh, throw yourself down stairs, drop to your bare knees on gravel. You want it gone, the monster. There is no safety or comfort while it lives. You yearn for it to be slain. You want it dead. And yet: you need it. It is what makes you special. It sets you apart. It helps you. 2 Before It focuses your whirling vortexes of thoughts 1988 17, November Thursday, and your frenzied typhoons of feelings into the exact precision of hunger. The meticulous control of losing weight. The sparkly glamour, the pride, of being the skinniest person in the room. But you are sick. Sick, as in unwell: shaking, dazed, light-headed. And you are sick, as in tired: sick of wondering why you are so sad, sick of feeling alone at a crowded party, sick of thinking happiness is simply not meant for you. You are sick of being sick. There must be a way. A questing hero finds a weapon and slays the dragon. 3 Before You are no hero. But you have looked everywhere for a monster-slaying sword. Where is it? Not inside a shrunken stomach, or on the scale, or in the tang of bile, vomit. Not in the pop-fizz of diet soda, or the melted, muddy pools at the bottom Thursday, November 17, 1988 17, November Thursday, of a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Not in the glinting edge of a razor blade. Not in the bitter swill of stale beer, or letting boys inside you. Not even in the right things: confiding in your friend, or trying to tell your mom, or your guidance counselor, or your dog, with his sweet brown eyes. No sword. No exit. ♥ ♥ ♥ There’s one thing you haven’t tried. One last thing. 4 Before Maybe a hospital. 1988 17, November Thursday, A place for you to heal, with clean white sheets and smiling nurses and doctors and vases filled with flowers on the table by your bed. Last week you saw a TV commercial for a place like that. The commercial showed bare feet stepping on a scale, but instead of pounds, the dial on the scale showed a phone number to call for information. Or help. Specialists who may know the way out of this labyrinth and how to fight the monster until you kill it. Or else maybe it will kill you. 5 Before At least then it would be over. One way or the other, you’re getting too tired to care. But then again of course you care. You care so much it hurts. You want you want Thursday, November 17, 1988 17, November Thursday, you want more than anything for someone to understand you, for someone who will reach in and pull you out of this maze and away from the monster. 6 Before The monster howls with laughter. 1988 17, November Thursday, You are not skinny enough for a hospital. You are not sick enough. If you lose twenty more pounds, then maybe. Thirty would be better. But. There must be something more than this. There has to be light somewhere. And so tonight, you throw back the quilt and make your way to your parents’ room. Spike follows you, his toenails clicking on the wood floor. Your mom and dad are asleep and snoring. You feel around for the phone. You tug the cord gently so it will stretch to the bed and, with shaking voice, whisper, Mom? Mom? 7 Before With volume rising in increments, you make a whisper ladder, until your words break through and your mom finally hears Thursday, November 17, 1988 17, November Thursday, you. 8 — Admission, Part One — Screening Interview Friday, November 18, 1988 This is it. The phone dialed, the appointment scheduled: an admission screening interview with the director of the Eating Disorders Unit, Samuel Tuke Center, Syracuse, New York. Mom had been so groggy when Jennifer woke her last night. Grunting, she pushed the phone away, led Jennifer downstairs. She snapped on the lights, and, blinking, both rubbing their eyes, they sat down. Admission Petting Spike’s soft ears, Jennifer begged her mother to pick up the phone, punch the buttons, make the call. Mom didn’t —doesn’t— Friday, November 18, 1988 18, November Friday, really believe that Jennifer has a problem. But she does love her daughter. And so she called and made the appointment. Jennifer knows what Mom thinks the specialist will say: Your daughter does not need a hospital. Your daughter is not sick. You are a good mother, but for some reason, your daughter is an attention seeker. Counseling might be a good idea, but no, she does not have an eating disorder. And that will be that. ♥ ♥ ♥ They have made the drive, an hour and a half. Jennifer reads the directions through downtown Syracuse, past the War Memorial, 10 Admission a left turn, a couple of blocks, 1988 18, November Friday, and here it is, on the right, the Samuel Tuke Center. The building is not fancy, like Jennifer had pictured it. One half looks like a shabby two-floor motel. The other half is newer, plain, tan brick, like a high school. The two buildings are oddly conjoined by a long corridor in the middle. Mom tips the blinker, turning their car into a small parking area, just a few diagonal spaces next to the older building. There is a squalid convenience store with iron bars on its windows separated from this parking lot by a chain-link fence. Mom shifts the car into park, turns off the engine. Jennifer reaches for the door handle. “Better lock it,” Mom says. Jennifer pushes the lock, checks the latch after she shuts it. They never lock things at home. Mom opens the door of the building and they step into a glass vestibule. 11 Admission Jennifer yanks the interior door, but it does not give. They are in a transparent trap. They are on display, like an exhibit in a zoo: human daughter, fifteen years old, scared; human mother, forty years old, annoyed. Friday, November 18, 1988 18, November Friday, A box on the glass is labeled Press to speak. An arrow points to a red button. Press to speak. Jennifer feels like Alice, cascaded down the rabbit hole, on the fringes of Wonderland, the little bottle that said Drink me. Will this button shrink Jennifer, like the potion shrunk Alice? Or will it be more like the cake, the one with currants? Will she expand like Alice did, so huge she can’t fit through doorways? Mom presses the button.

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