From Behind Bars, Part II, On Open Group

As I recall, breakfast has just concluded, yes?

So, once back on the unit, all the girls wait impatiently for “The 30” to be up, which will be a loooong thirty minutes we must endure before being able to use the ladies’ facilities. Because it’s easier to, you know, get rid of your food when it has most recently been eaten, we all hop around and cross our legs trying to hold in our pee until our tummies have sufficiently digested our unholy amounts of food, which, by the way, would feed a small family of three hundred for the day.

So. We’ve all peed. It’s time for Open Group! Are you excited? No?
Neither of us ever was, either.
Open Group would predictably begin the same way every single session. The therapist would ask us to go around the room and tell everyone our names, how long we’ve been in treatment, where we’re from, and then have us answer some ridiculous question that would be something like “If you were a mythical creature, which would you pick?” or “On a scale of 1 to 10, how angry/happy/fat/ugly are you right now?” or “How are you doing today, but please refrain from using weather words – go into detail, girls!” (For some reason they really discouraged adjectives like fine, good, cold, cloudy, hurricane-ish, etc. Why the hell would we tell everyone we were felling “snowy” that day, anyway?) This was for the benefit of the new girls who had just been admitted and didn’t know anyone yet. You could always pick them out, because they were usually the ones sitting in the corner, tapping their foot a million miles a minute, looking like a deranged, rabid animal, frightened out of their starved little minds.

“I’m Brie.” I’d glance dully around the room quickly, and then revert my eyes back to my rapidly growing thighs. “I’ve been in CFC for ­­­_____ days/weeks/months/years. I’m from SLC, and if I were a mythical creature, I’d be a hobbit. Or something.”

Once everyone has had their turn introducing themselves, and after we all learn that there are an extraordinary amount of girls who would like to be either fairies and/or unicorns, Group finally begins. The therapist leading the particular group will open the floor to anyone who has anything they want to talk about. Thus begins the most awkward time of group, for we all look at each other, willing the other to speak, so that we, in turn, won’t have to. As expected, the same one or two girls will fall asleep, despite the care techs continually asking them to wake up.

After a good ten minutes of unbearable, disconcerting silence, the therapist will groan and pick a victim to speak. The rest of us sigh in relief as it wasn’t us, and we cheerfully listen to Victim Girl begrudgingly share her pain/worries/fat fears, etc. We all know she took one for the team, was a casualty in our I Don’t Wanna Talk In Group War. We all try extra hard to support her and give her remarkable amounts of feedback that she will, of course, immediately disregard. But still. She did us a solid, and we don’t forget that.

Group is over. Most of us are relieved, if only for the fact that we’ve been dying to pee like Seabiscut and couldn’t hold it a second longer. Most of us believe we are in a Nazi concentration camp, one reason being no bathroom breaks are allowed during groups, unless it’s an emergency. An emergency consists of either a

Time of the month issue or a
#2 or #3 thing

Because many of us don’t have “time of the month issues” because we still don’t menstruate due to our famished little bodies unable to produce the extra, I dunno, eggs or whatever, that option was usually out. So having a number twosie was usually the “emergency” we would have to revert to. So if I’m in Group, and I reaaaaaaaally have to pee, I’ll tell the tech that it’s
“…an emergency! For real! I can’t hold it!”
She’ll begrudgingly take me to the bathroom where I will blissfully pee (Should I mention how hydrated they insist on keeping you?). Then I sweetly would tell her that
“I had to go poop soooooo bad, but I’m just constipated and couldn’t get anything out!
Oh. Darn!”
And voila. That’s how you do it girls. Many a bladder infection has been avoided by my fool-proof plan to make sure my miniscule bladder pees all it wishes.

And thus concludes Part II.

[Disclaimer: This is a bit, you know, sarcastic. CFC actually rocks my socks.]