Yes, I'm starting off a new day and a new entry with more E obsessiveness. Just to write that the "Lies and Deception" entry was right on the money... tragically. It's certainly not the kind of thing you want to be correct about. Emily and her dad spoke on Tuesday night, and when he pressed her about why she left UCLA, she admitted it was because she was "feeling too confined." She did not have a partial hospitalization program lined up, and has spent the past week hanging out at home. So that's that. I think her dad is disgusted with her, and to be honest, so am I.
At this moment, her wedding invitation is sitting on the dresser in our bedroom, and neither one of us wants to send it. I just started putting together a wedding website, and I didn't include her in an entry about attendants. Her bridesmaids' dress is hanging in the closet beside the one my sister will wear... When she saw it for the first time a month or so, the first words out of her mouth were, "Why does it look like it's the same size as hers?" My petite sister will be wearing an 8... E's dress was ordered in a size 2. And the 2 is probably much too big, but it was the smallest size that could be ordered at David's Bridal.
Before she entered this last round of treatment, I was all set to have her participate in the wedding, even though it meant that all eyes would be on her, even though it likely meant an endless stream of questions about her health, or worse, the unspoken questions that would make everyone uncomfortable. I was willing to go there because I care about her and I want her to feel included in our important day.
Now, I'm not so sure. I think this latest treatment attempt was nothing less than theatrics. That may sound harsh, but I don't see any effort on her part. It is still all a game.
My birthday was theatrics, and it's exhausting. I don't want it on my wedding day. On my birthday, the three of us met up at a Cuban restaurant near the condo where we used to live in Torrance. We watched the restaurant as it was being built, then moved shortly before it opened, so we had been curious about it. It wasn't, however, my restaurant of choice for my birthday... But E kept talking about it, so she and her dad decided that's where we would go. R planned to meet us there, so it was my job to pick up E. From the moment she stepped into my car, it was an exhausting evening. She was exuding happiness and a positive attitude to the extreme, making all kinds of strange comments about how she''d spent the day "blessing others" by "giving them a smile"... I didn't recognize her, because while the sentiments were nice, she was over the top. When we got to the restaurant, her dad picked up on it immediately, too. Who was this child with us? I tried to keep an open mind... Maybe she suffers from undiagnosed bipolar disorder. She had been reading the book A Purpose Driven Life, so I was hopeful that she was simply taking the message of the book to heart. The thing was, it was so incredibly over the top... Larger than life. Emily used to talk about becoming an actress, so she has a knack for the dramatic anyway.
The evening became more extreme when it became clear that despite her desire to come to this restaurant, she wouldn't be ordering anything from the menu. Nothing met her standards. She had in fact had the takeout menu in her possession for a while, but as she looked over the dinner menu she remarked that it was completely different. She finally asked for grilled vegetables, but they didn't have the vegetables she wanted fresh... So at this restaurant that was really her idea, she ate a plate of grilled vegetables that came from a can (or were frozen- I don't remember), then raved endlessly to the waitstaff about how incredible it was. I couldn't wait for my birthday to end. Finally the evening was over, but I was faced with driving her home. I had been hoping she could ride home with her dad so that I could stop and do some errands on the way home, and decompress a little bit... But I couldn't find a way to say what I wanted in a non-hurtful manner, so I took her home (stopping half-halfheartedly at a store along the way, just to make it seem as though I wasn't in a rush to rid myself of her company).
"Worst birthday ever?" Maybe. I try not to be overly critical because part of the problem with eating disorder patients (or so I've read) is that they don't have a strong sense of self... So all the theatrics may just have been part of an ongoing attempt to find herself. Her behavior is not ever malicious.. Just inappropriate. But again, it's not something I want to deal with on my wedding day! She really got our hopes up when she checked into treatment... She was displaying a long absent maturity and sense of personal responsibility. It is devastating to see that it was a performance and not true change.
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