Tag: eating disorder treatment

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The River Centre Clinic story takes a back seat for the next 18 years. Time to fast-forward.

The main story, at this point, is individual therapy. The DSM IV-TR came out in 2000, and there was no doubt I met the criteria for for a slam-dunk diagnosis. On top of that, I had been sick at that point for 17 years
(the fancy clinical adjective: “entrenched”)
AND on top of THAT, my environment (a.k.a.: my marriage) was not supportive. Thus I automatically assumed that under her care it would only be a matter of time before she admitted me to the nearest treatment center for eating disorders: River Centre Clinic.

Ten-Mile Creek ran fast and swollen my first month, there. The ducks were constant company.

Now, allow me, if you would be so kind, to digress into a history lesson. For I think it’s possible that one day in the future, the factual origins of social media could blur into Myth and Legend.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, before Buzzfeed and Huffington Post, there were these things called newspapers. They were actually printed on real paper, and they were printed all over the globe and in every language, and (along with TV and radio) that is how we learned about the world around us. In general, we could reasonably trust most of what we read because they were only supposed to print stuff that they could prove was true. This concept was called: “Journalistic Integrity.” Anything else was just gossip. (And gossip used to be considered “wrong.”) Also, sources of information were allowed to protect their privacy, so they could remain reasonably safe from persecution. This concept was called “anonymity.” Back then, in the olden times of long ago, anonymous sources were often considered the opposite they are, today, and many looked upon them with admiration for their courage to find a way to expose truth.
Okay – you got all that? Because I’m going to discuss newspaper articles that are important to my story.

One day towards the end of 2003 an article came out in the city paper that I paid special attention to because it was about this “River Centre Clinic” place in which I’d already stockpiled some hope. (Our small town had it’s own newspaper but most of the people I knew got the city paper, too, because there was nothing in the other one.) (Hi – that was sarcasm – why would we buy blank paper?) (And we really got it for the coupons.) It got my undivided attention because I was not doing so great. (Big, huge, ginormous Understatement.) And a good eating disorders clinic would have been a very helpful thing.

It was an extra-trustworthy article because it was written by a Pulitzer Prize winning young man who married a local woman who just happened to be one of my friends:
https://www.toledoblade.com/frontpage/2003/12/12/Trouble-revisits-local-psychologist-as-counselor-admits-affair-state-cites-ethics-breaches/stories/200312120022

So. Apparently. This “David Garner” person, who founded the clinic with his wife, liked having sex with his patients. And he treated anorexia. So that means he was drawn to women who had starved away their curves and periods and looked like children. So obviously there could have been a pedophilia theme running in there, as well. And he didn’t JUST abuse his power: when his victim lodged a formal complaint, he LIED about it. For a YEAR. Think about that for a moment: that made her look like a liar. So: not only was she sick, he made her sicker with his abuse, and THEN he slandered her CHARACTER for year (which allowed others to, as well.) I mean – HOW MUCH DAMAGE IS ONE PERSON ALLOWED TO INFLICT UPON ANOTHER PERSON?

Right away I had to wonder about the co-founder of this clinic, his wife, who was also a therapist. WHY would any therapist help supply this guy with fresh victims by setting up an eating disorder clinic with him?!? it’s not like he could hide from her the fact that The Country Of Canada suspended his license.

Wait. It gets better. Shortly after this he became an ex-pat of his homeland and crossed the border south to Michigan. At this point a SECOND Canadian victim came forward.
DUDE. This guys been doing this – and getting away with it – since FREAKING 1979, This is when him homeland stripped him of his license forever, and he moved even farther from Canada, and crossed another border, south, into Ohio, whose licensing board apparently thought that unlike every other repeat offender, this guy was done repeating. But this guy just couldn’t keep his pants zipped at work. He had an affair with an “assistant psychologist,” at the clinic, who was publicly willing to shoulder the blame.

An “assistant” would imply she was early in her career and thus probably young. One might wonder why the older, mentor-type figure would allow the younger person to compromise herself in this way. Unless they had no scruples whatsoever. I couldn’t help but think of how easily a younger woman could have been manipulated by an older man who (the article said) even helped her by a house.

What on earth was the atmosphere like at this clinic run by a husband and wife working together with his mistress? I wondered. Nope. I’m definitely not going there anytime soon. (Which wasn’t a problem with my therapist, who merely called me “the worried well” – but that’s for a different story.) As I continued to work in recovery, wondering if my therapist was right, I continued watching River Centre Clinic’s website, wondering if my therapist was wrong.

Why did I care? Why did I pay attention? Why did I spend brain cells on it?

Simple. It was the closest and only viable treatment facility and I needed full-time care. My therapist was a well-published eating disorders “expert” (quotes deliberate) so I was unable to consciously acknowledge that she was not helping my eating disorder. I literally starved the 24-48 period before most sessions, and on those occasions she rewarded me with compliments on my appearance.

… which is I N S A N E …

So somewhere deep in my fuzzy screwed up brain I knew I needed what this clinic offered but impossible if they cancelled out their help by doing more harm than good. So I watched their website: maybe one of the female staff members name would disappear from the site, indicating the “psychology assistant” went to work somewhere Maureen Garner (her boyfriend’s WIFE) did NOT work. Or maybe David Garner would get fired, or quit for the sake of his clinic. If I saw staff changes that indicated the Clinic was dealing with their drama in a healthy way, then maybe I could get the care I suspected I needed. And had possibly never stopped needing, since I left my hospital program so many years earlier.

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River Centre Clinic was not a place I would ever be sick enough to need treatment a second time.

But the thought of it’s existence brought me comfort, because I assumed that at least part of my old treatment team had to be there. Where else would those specialists have gone when their hospital program closed? And maybe I could talk to them, someday. I had never stopped keeping an eye out for them whenever I drove an hour to the city to shop at the malls. I mean, therapists, nurses and doctors went to malls, too – right? I badly needed verification they existed, because although I cherished my memories of treatment there, those memories didn’t feel like mine. They felt like something I read about, and that was a source of great pain and confusion to feel like this thing that was so important to me had nothing to do with reality.

Reality. A good transition word to refocus. For, as I said, “De Nile ain’t just a river in Egypt,” it was my Way Of Life. I was in denial about my health, my job, my marriage, my education…almost everything. Thus, I had no insight about my misery. I simply assumed the things I had heard were true:
“You’re not happy with anything!”
“No matter how/what/when/where, ___ it’s never enough for you! You’ll never be happy!”
“You know what, you’re spoiled! You’re just like your father/mother/grandmother! you have to have everything go your way or all you do is…”
What was my way? I had a “way”?…I never figured that one out. I just figured (is that past tense?) it was all true and I was a dyed-in-the-wool malcontent with no hope of hope. I had long since accepted that as fact. I only wished acceptance made it less painful.

So there I was driving home from the factory one summer morning. I remember about where I was, north of town, and how when I glanced out the passenger window I noticed the mist rising off a field that was backed by a treeline, and how I thought, “Wow, today’s gonna be a scorcher” And that moment it hit me:” I don’t have to stay here. I can leave!” Immediately: a flash of joy, of relief, of shock, then shame settled in for, by “leave,” I meant leaving the living. (I’m still too ashamed to use the “s” word.) This was not a new thought; desensitization to the idea settled in beside the shame. For the time being though, the shock lingered and I was able to use it to began making attempts to change. Something. Anything.

I started by moving from nights to second shift (a.k.a. No Life – you work late, so you fall asleep late, so you get up late, so all you really have time to do is get ready for work. Repeat.) By the time the company Christmas party rolled around, though still on the high end of a healthy weight range, I’d lost about two dozen pounds. I met up with my old friend at the shrimp table exactly like the year before, remembering how emaciated she was despite all the “free shrimp” she was so happy about. I still wish I had the burgundy outfit I bought for the event – a huge splurge for me, from the Ann Taylor store. I bought it because the semi-cropped jacket over the zip-up pants made me look deceptively thin.

That year, though, the roles were reversed, and it was my old friend who was staring and whispering, and I who was uncomfortable and irritated. And I remember why! “They don’t know anything about eating disorders! I’m at the high end of a healthy BMI for someone as short as me! I have WAY more experience with this than they do!! I KNOW what I’m doing.”
Another flip-flop: I didn’t socialize that year. I just hung out with my antisocial husband.

My next change was the job, itself. My depression made me desperate; I jumped at the first viable position. It was at a bank, where no one would notice how much weight I’d lost, freeing me to continue to lose more. My new boss, though, seemed food-obsessed, constantly bringing in desserts that most co-workers were more than happy to be pressured into eating. But me? Well…one Ash Wednesday, I amused myself for 3 days in a row by challenging myself to open my wrappers in total silence, so she wouldn’t hear me eating at my desk. I told her I was fasting for religious reasons – and oh! the shameful kick I got watching her freak out exponentially as each day passed.

Two big things happened in 2000. The first big thing was we done got ourselves this new-fangled gadget they was callin a computer, and we bought us a complicated piece o’ furniture as durn big as a shed to put the thing in. And what was one of the first things I did with it?


I looked up this place called The River Centre Clinic.
I read every name, every bio: David Garner. Maureen Garner. (husband and wife? yep)
A unique last name; female.
More that I don’t recall because they didn’t stay.
(But not one name from my old team.
And I’d know because I kept every scrap of paper from that program.
I still haven’t thrown any of it away.)

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Family-sized Bags of Repurposed Horsefeed Made Me Anorexic

1 Twenty-ish years before the clinic,
a year or two before the Twin Towers fell.

Night shift at the factory. I considered myself recovered at this point (which means nothing. By age thirty, de Nile wasn’t just some river in Egypt but my most profound modus operandi.) I truly never expected to live to see 30; and when I arrived I had no idea what to do, had made no plans. So there I was at the factory. It was depressing and I ate myself silly, never connecting the dots that my binge eating was no different than anorexia or bulimia – it was just a new, unfamiliar band-aid for the same old wound.

But I did find a friend, there. Around my age, from around my area; we had even hung around some of the same people. For the first time there was someone interested in, at the same time I was willing to talk about, my eating disorder and the month I spent in a hospital ward for treatment. I’d never met anyone so comfortable with, nor so eager for, the most mundane details. That did trigger an instinctual alarm, but even if I’d known to listen, the denial I was in regarding my own eating disorder blinded me to what I was seeing in front of my own eyes: the more I talked, the more she shrank.

I doubted my vision until starvation affected the way she spoke, thought, reacted, communicated, behaved, et cetera, et cetera. By that point her friends were comparing notes trying to tease out the truth to give us direction. For instance: the “ice cream” she claimed (to Friend A) to “pig out on” nightly was (according to Friend B’s look in her freezer) actually zero-fat, zero-sugar, zero-nutrition, synthetically flavored air called “frozen whipped topping.” On the outside, as a “recovered” eating disorder survivor, I took on the role of expert; calming, explaining and guiding our circle of friends. On the inside I wrecked. I felt left out. I felt tricked (why had I listened to people telling me starving didn’t work? obviously they were wrong, for here she was right in front of me, with the sticks for arms and legs that I coveted, instead of my own squishy, bloated limbs.) While i paid lip-service to health and common sense, my heart felt like a failure for letting myself grow layers upon layers of padding.. And I misinterpreted all of my own feelings as competitiveness. What I was able to comprehend was that I could not deal with her anorexia in a healthy way.

I had a coping skill. A real one – not one involving my body or what I put in it. (This part usually seems to surprise people, now, knowing only the devolved state I’ve been currently living in.) I wrote my friend a letter, explaining as kindly and respectfully as I could, my fears for myself and her that led me to give her an ultimatum: get treatment or I cannot be friends with you. Though we were never close, again, she did leave for the nearest eating disorders clinic.

When she returned a few months later, complaining they only ate frozen, microwaved food, I literally did NOT understand. “What do MEAN there’s no stoves?” I asked. There’s no such a thing as a kitchen without a stove. She may as well have said they fed her green eggs and ham. There’s no such thing. So she repeated herself: “There’s no stoves. There are two kitchens and neither one has a stove. It’s all microwaved. There’s, like, dozens of microwaves.” What?! No way! I told our friends not to believe her because no eating disorders treatment center would feed malnourished people that way. Even back then in the late 90s, before nutrition science, with all other sciences, practically exploded with progress, we were starting to catch on that mass-produced, preprocessed, chemically-preserved-to-withstand-Armaggedon food was detrimental to our general health. So her claim that a group of clinical experts deliberately fed one of the most malnourished populations like that could not be true. I said it was probably a couple of special “challenge” meals that angered her.

(I

was

WRONG.

SOOO wrong. Though it was 20 more years before I learned HOW wrong I was.)

When she revealed that her clinic was in the same city as my hospital program it made me so excited that it startled and scared me. (Yes, my feelings frighten me.) (I’m Super Fun like that.) In the 10 years since I’d been a patient, there, Managed Care happened, and my old hospital program had dissolved. I automatically assumed that her clinic was where my treatment team had landed because it’s not a big city and there was no other specialized program in a very large tristate area. BUT. That immediate hopeful flash of excitment didn’t just scare me, it confused me, because I wasn’t sick, though I was sure I was pretty messed up to be excited about an eating disorders treatment center.

But you see, about that part where I called myself a “recovered” eating disorder survivor? Well, that whole time I had been doing exactly what my friend had been doing. starving. It just didn’t look like it because I was so overweight. We were in different stages of the same disease; a year before, she had looked like me; a year later, I looked like her. But according to the DSM IV (the most current diagnostic tool at the time):
a) I was too fat to be anorexic because you had to be at least 15% UNDERweight and I was more than 15% OVERweight
b) I didn’t purge at least twice a week for at least 3 months because there was nothing to purge
I didn’t look sick like my friend when I ate, either, because I had been sick for so long my eating habits were even weirder. Instead of inhaling buckets of cool, whipped, artificially flavored air, I would eat an entire bag of cheese puffs. All night long. For eight hours. And I would exercise all of the calories off before my next shift/bag. (And for which I suddenly developed a craving until I saw this video that made me retitle this post: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-cheese-curl-junk-foods-happiest-accident

I was not aware of how sick I was or of why I was so desperate to learn where my friend went. I only knew it was imperative I found out and imperative that no one else found out how imperative it was that I found out. Buuuut, not only did I give my friend an ultimatum to enter treatment, then, when she got back, I didn’t believe her. Yeah. She was angry. Also, since I wasn’t sick, it was imperative I didn’t look or sound sick. So, very, very carefully, I tried very hard to inquire as casually as I could, “where, again, did you go, again?”

“River Centre Clinic.” Says she.

“Never heard of it,” says I, very casually shrugging, and shaking my head, trying very hard to feel as cavalier as I was trying to look and sound.

Never forgot it, either.