Dear Vincent, Thank you for responding to my hysterical phone call.

Dear Vincent,

Thank you for responding to my hysterical phone call. I think I found the perfect new apartment to live in. I will just need to get slightly richer and also, a washing machine. So far I’ve felt somewhat better for almost two days. In French, the parts of my body have different ages, while in English, they are different ages. The difference, it could be significant.

When I was fifteen years old, I wrote my memoirs in a scrapbook for Mrs. Cameron’s grade twelve English class. Being a gifted child, I took the class when I was in grade eleven and since I had skipped grade two, I was younger than everyone else. Halfway through the semester, I crapped out with an overdose on laxatives, and ended up going to a psych ward. For much of my homework that year, my teachers let me off the hook, though this didn’t make that much sense, as I still made time to go on 15k punitive runs with ankle weights. But I did complete the scrapbook. Like so many teenagers, the scrapbook is unfathomably intense, awkward, vulnerable, poignant and exquisite. At the end, I expressed having gained so much insight from the hospital and held such hope that I would get over so many of my dysfunctional patterns.

When my father read it he said, “You write well when you write about yourself. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

I joked and said, “Well, I’m much wiser now,” which wasn’t true since I’d graduated from laxatives to puking, from the gym to long distance running, and was now down to the weight I always thought would render me happy, but in fact left me strung out and neurotic.

“No, you didn’t gain any wisdom or insight,” said my dad, never one to provide false praise. “But you write well when you write about yourself.” I do not tend to show my dad all that much of my writing. Otherwise, writing is not all that embarrassing. Only a little bit.

Inside the scrapbook, at the end of the story of my life, I’d made a super intense yet beautiful and highly teenage collage.

 
With Mr. Sketch Smelly markers, I’d begun with an upside down rainbow. I’d considered rainbows to have symbol of my life, if for no reason other than my childhood obsession with the Wizard of Oz, and my childish desire to fly above the rainbow with Dorothy and the bluebirds. Just like in the song, above the Mr Sketch rainbow was a perfect clear turquoise sky, painted thickly with oils, and speckled with yellow petals of flowers someone had brought me in the hospital, and the psych ward craft room feathers. Below were a bunch of fragments. Angry conflicted oil paint from art therapy, a big red x. My trademark Crayola designs emblematic of the hundreds of homemade greeting cards I used to give. A patch from my sister’s childhood Rainbow Bright sheets. And a squiggle of orange and yellow pipe cleaner that symbolized something deep, like rage or conflict, but I can’t remember exactly what.

On the next page, I’d drawn a right-side up rainbow and written the words to Over the Rainbow with a special silver pen. Shiny quarter note and hummingbird stickers also decorated the page.

Then there was an excerpt from my grade one journals from Mrs Vanden Bosch’s class.  I’d drawn a rainbow according to the colours in the song, “I can sing a rainbow.” Under that rainbow stood a row of tiny humans outlined in pencil and coloured in with crayons according to the song’s colour scheme. All the tiny humans had circles for hands with five little nubs for fingers. They all wore top hats. Mrs. Vanden Bosch had granted a green circular sticker and a check mark for my respectable printing of the song’s lyrics, “red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue I can sing a rinbow.” I only misspelled one word, and forgot the period after blue.

My fifteen year old memoirs contain very few spelling mistakes. A few pages before the angsty collage, I summarized what the psychiatrist Dr. Roberts had concluded were my main problems. Dr. Roberts wore her hair in a bun that was so tight it looked like it was pulling on her face. Her skirts were similarly tight and oppressive looking and all the patients shuddered whenever they heard her coming down the hall in high heels. I used to call Dr Roberts the Nazi Psychiatrist, though maybe the Wicked Witch of the West would have been more accurate, and it would have matched the clever Wizard of Oz motif in the story of my life. But Wicked Witch or Nazi, Dr Roberts left me with decisive conclusions about my life, and some of them still feel almost true.

May 2001, Erica Schmidt, age 15:

“Dr Roberts concluded that because I based all self-worth on external praise, I created all this stress for myself trying to please others. I’ve prevented myself from growing as an individual and I’m stuck at about 12 years old instead of 15 or 16. I changed my personality around different people trying to be the person they wanted me to be and now I don’t know who I am or what makes me happy. I would change my voice and had a bad habit of speaking in an ‘infantile voice’ trying to seem cute, naïve and innocent. She said that not everyone will ever like me no matter how sweet. She said that sometimes too sweet is yucky.”

So often I remember the words, “too sweet is yucky.”

Two nights ago, on the Insomnia Bed, I yelled out in my sleep, because I was dreaming I had cut up the angsty teenage collage into small pieces. Chunks of my sister’s Rainbow Bright bedsheets were scattered everywhere. Though I woke up relieved, the rage I’d felt in and at the collage made sense. For now, nothing is quite destroyed, but I think I will avoid that page in the scrapbook.

September 15, 1993, Erica Schmidt, Age 8:

(Grade Four, Close to the Peak of My Life, Mrs Fournier’s Class)

“As soon as I woke up I decided I’d feed my fish. I got out of bed and got the fish food. I hadn’t even looked at my fish but when I did… Yuck! One of my fish was on the glass it was dead. The other two had black spots. (they looked sick) I told Mom. I found out that two of them died because when Mom took them out two were dead. The other one is fine. I bet it will be as tough as goldie my old fish. She went down the drain and came back alive. Isn’t that amazing.”

See you Wednesday, Vincent!

Love, Erica.

The End.

Vincent was my therapist from October of 2016, and May 2017. After we ran out of subsidized sessions, I began to write him daily imaginary emails.

I called the project, "Mondays without Vincent," and it turned out to be quite healing. You too can write imaginary emails to Vincent. In fact, if you'd like, you can send them to me, on any day of the week.

My secret address is: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail.com.


Let me know if you’d like a response. The correspondence can remain between us, or else we can share it here with others and maybe it could be healing for everyone.  Love, Erica. 

Sometimes too sweet is yucky.

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The Closer I am to Fine

Not Separate From All That Is

Dear Vincent, Are you lonely? Do you have a pain body?

My name is Erica. I love coffee.

The Best Thing I've Ever Done 

Be your own best friend.

One day in grade eight, a handful of public health nurses came to visit our classroom. They warned us about the excessive hair that was probably already growing in all sorts of places, about the technical difficulties we might experience while inserting a tampon, and how most women don’t lose all their baby weight.
 
During one session, a nurse stood at the front of the classroom holding a piece of paper. ILAC, it said on the paper in big black letters.
 
“I’m Loveable And Capable.” That’s what ILAC stood for. “This is your self-esteem,” the nurse explained. She proceeded to rip up the paper. Apparently once your ILAC breaks into pieces, it could never ever be the same. The nurse illustrated this by taping together the ripped pieces of paper. You could still read the letters ILAC, but she was right, it wasn’t the same. It looked all ripped apart.

A couple of years later, I remember seeing this same nurse at the gym, where I engaged in a vigorous and extensive, self-loathing exercise regime. Like me, she had a solid two and a half hour workout. We started with at least an hour of cardio, preferably the stairmaster or rowing machine since they burned the most calories. Next was a fast-paced dynamic free weights routine, crunch-til-you-can-no-longer-menstruate, and a brief conclusion of minimal stretching.  

There is a story about taking a shit on the treadmill. Some other time.

I’m Loveable And Capable. I lack without a k.

When I was in second year university, my beloved roommate came home with a mission. It seemed she had a realistic opportunity to give a blow job in the near future. She was both excited and bewildered. How do you give a blow job? Neither of us had any idea. There was only one thing to do. Call my older sister. Earnest and focussed, my roommate faithfully wrote down my sister’s step-by-step instructions. My sister was full of helpful tips. Lovingly, my roommate stored the list in a drawer. As far as I know, the blow job was a success. 

Back then I thought that spooning involved spoons and vaginas. For this reason, my roommate and I had to call McGill nightline for clarification. So I learned that spooning is significantly more wonderful than I imagined.

On the fridge of second year university apartment, we’d stuck a hand-out my therapist had given me. The hand-out was about negative thinking patterns.

“Be Your Own Best Friend,” it said at the top. Underneath were the words, “Treat Yourself Well.” Every once in a while my roommate would repeat this, when I was frenzied and frazzled about some essay, dude or food hang-up.

Be your own best friend.
 
“You’re really hard on yourself,” a friend told me recently.

“But it’s the only thing I am good at,” I said. “I am so good at it!" I am amazingly good at it. And it’s hard to find something you are consistently talented at. Even if you have an expertly dictated how-to blowjob list tucked into a drawer, next to the condom jar.
 
When I was fifteen years old, a few months after I shit my pants on the treadmill, I was hospitalized in an adolescent psychiatric ward for eating too many laxatives. A terrifying psychiatrist named Dr. Roberts ran the ward. The bun on the back of her head was so tight it looked like it hurt her face. All the patients would seize up and shudder whenever they heard her high heels clicking from down the hallway. It seemed Dr. Roberts could not speak without snapping. I suppose she had a difficult childhood. They say this why people become psychologists and psychiatrists. Maybe I should have given that a try.
 
While I was in the psych ward, I vowed that I would never again puke or purge or obsess about my weight if it meant that I would avoid being re-incarcerated. It seemed so simple. The day I left, I was certain that my eating disorder was all over. Her voice void of compassion, Dr. Roberts announced otherwise.
 
“You are not out of the woods,” she said. “You have a severe eating disorder and because you are an externally motivated person, you are going to have a hard time.”
 
Damn. And with that vote of confidence, my parents drove me home. Although Dr. Roberts’ delivery left about a million things to be desired, that part about being externally motivated has proved to be somewhat true.
 
Fame, Money, Weight Loss, Prizes, Sex (FMWLPS), none of these things are a given. Stunning Blog Stats (SBS), Innumerable Facebook Likes (IFL), these too pass away. If such items are your main source of motivation, you are probably going to have a hard time.
 
In less than two weeks, I am going to be thirty. I no longer have a severe eating disorder, but that took a really long time. And I remain highly motivated by external things. Stunning Blog Stats. Sources of Sexual Gratification (SOGS). Prizes. Sometimes I have a hard time. I am not my own best friend.
 
Back when I was twenty years old, I lived and worked at house for people with intellectual disabilities. After one year, I had to decide whether or not to stay for another year. During my weekly 32 hours off, I used to write down lots of things in a little purple notebook. Like this list of my goals for my whole life. I have already published this list, but since I am going to be thirty, and because I used to be such a darling, I get to publish it again.



The Purple Notebook



Life Goals

never get fat, that is to say, always be physically fit

                master French

Learn a new language

                                Either Spanish

                                 Italian or

                                German

 Properly perform

headstands and

    handstands

Develop flexibility

     Live in Third World Country

     Live in Europe

Finish University Degree

   Develop piano talent

     Quit Regurgitation (this means puking the food in my mouth over and over until everything tastes bitter and acidic and abhorrent) 

       Fall in Love.

Be immersed in a language Other Than My Own

                Write Novels

                    And Short Stories.

                                ->Become Famous

                                        Doing This

Not to worry about money but to live simply

Not to worry.

   Be Close to Someone Who Dies

          Fall in love

              Not get cancer.

                Be Grateful for Life

Always be helping children and/or adults with disabilities.

 

        Orgasm.

The End of the List.

Life Goals, by Erica

I ended up staying a second year at the house for the people with disabilities. Over the next decade, more than half of the list came true. Many of the important things. Some of the embarrassing things. As it turns out, many of the items you put on lists end up happening. Whether or not you hang the lists on your fridge. It’s possible that you don’t even need a list. Just like you don’t really need blow job instructions.

Even so, here’s my list for the next seven years. Feel free to put in your purple notebook, or on your fridge, or in a drawer next to your condom jar:

You’re loveable and capable.                                                                                                                         
In fact, you are kind of a darling.
Be your own best friend.
Treat yourself well.


The End. 

 
Me and my friend the Corn Puppet

Not Separate From All That Is
The Benefits of an Ashtanga Yoga Practice, Part Two
The Closer I am to Fine
List


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P.S. Parents from Eastern Ontario: If you have a teenager in distress, take them to CHEO in Ottawa. The staff there are so lovely.

Also, thank you to everyone for reading and sharing my blog series, Where is Emma Fillipoff. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, here is Part One: The Grieving Mothers of Perth Ontario.
 

 

Not Separate From All That Is

Michael Stone translates, Ahimsa, the first yama in Ashtanga Yoga as, “Recognizing that I am not separate from all that is.” Other people translate it as “non-violence.”

On Friday, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the young men responsible for the Boston marathon bombings was sentenced to lethal injections. Dzhokar Tsarnaev, his older brother and accomplice in the crime is already dead. He was shot in the man hunt. At the time of the bombing, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was 19, and his brother was 26.

When I first heard the news, I felt really uncomfortable about it. My second feeling was relief that I’m not American, and so somehow I hold zero responsibility for how the trial turned out. As though all the other Americans are responsible. The logic was ambiguous.

I don’t know how it feels to lose my legs or someone I love because of something someone else did. I have a deep, unyielding fear of losing my legs. In the past, my politics have ended with potty training and pubic hair. But nineteen years old seems really young.

When I was fifteen years old, I spent about a month in an adolescent psych ward. It was run by a monstrous psychiatrist named Dr. Roberts. My mother brought me to Dr. Roberts because I used to eat packages of Ex-lax to complement my extensive exercise routine and other questionable weight-loss strategies. Ex-lax tastes like the most mediocre chocolate bar you have ever consumed. The other down sides to laxatives is that they don’t tend to make you very skinny, and they can really fuck up your electrolytes. Plus shitting your pants on the treadmill kind of disrupts your workout objectives.

Anyways, after checking my blood and heart rate, Dr. Roberts screamed at my mother that laxatives were extremely dangerous. She’d discovered that I had an arrhythmia and she wanted me hospitalized immediately.

At first I wasn’t even allowed out of bed. To this, I did not behave gracefully. I screamed and cried for three days straight, begging them to let me out. The muscles I’d developed from my multiple-hour exercise routine shrank from hysteria, anxiety and bedrest. I was convinced that I didn’t belong in the hospital. I had nothing in common with the other crazy teenagers on the ward. My first roommate was this sickly, yellowy looking 14-year-old girl from Sharbot Lake.

“I see dead people,” she told me.  One of my first out-of-bed privileges was going to school with the other patients. (I almost said inmates.) School was the kitchen table, about 100 metres down the hall from my room. Mary, the cheerful nurse with long horse-like hair, flowy skirts and bright red lipstick pushed my wheelchair into the kitchen. Altogether there were five of us. Me, Jenn, Curtis, Nathalie, and Steve. My roommate who saw dead people didn’t come.  Everyone was supposed to try and get caught up on the homework they’d missed while they were in the psych ward. We opened our books and pretended to concentrate. Besides being paralyzed with anxiety, depression or lethargy, I think we were also terrified that our psychiatrist would come charging down the hall on her two-inch heels.

Almost everyone had scars running up and down their arms. I did too. Most people used razors. My scars came from scratching my forearms over and over again until the skin broke. While I was scratching, I would repeat the ABC’s. Usually I would stop after five rounds.

“My God,” Dr. Roberts had told me. “It looks like you’ve dragged cigarette butts up and down your arms.” Her voice was filled with horror and disgust.

My school courses were gym, chemistry and grade 12 English. I feel like there should have been one more course, but I can’t remember. I spent most of the school hour alternating between writing in my journal and staring at everyone else. Nathalie quietly read The Hobbit. Jenn cut out photos for a scrapbook she was making. With neon markers, she drew cloud shapes around the inspirational quotes she’d transcribed. “Happiness does not depend upon who you are and what you have. It depends solely upon what you think.” She’d written this beside a photo of herself and her dog, now dead.  Steve didn’t have any books to open. He just stared into space, nodding his head back and forth.  Curt shook his legs vigorously until the table vibrated. He was scribbling something in his notebook.

“How are you doing, Curtis?” Mary asked in her happy sing-song voice. Curtis had written poem. “Why are we here?” it was called.

“Well, Curtis, that’s an excellent question,” said Mary. “Artists, scientists, writers have been pondering over that very question for centuries.” I had huge purple bruises in the crease of my right elbow from when Mary had tried to take my blood. Otherwise, she was a rather lovely woman.

“I hate this place so much,” Curtis told me after our school session was finished. He had recently been on a two-day pass. “It was such a relief to get out of here. I’ll never be suicidal again.” I hope that worked out for him.

When Dr. Roberts finally set me free, I too promised that I would refrain from purging and obsessing about my weight forever more.  This sort of worked for almost a week.

Being a teenager takes a long time. Everyone always says that time flies. I don’t feel like time flies. Even when there is too much to do, time doesn’t fly. I am twenty-nine years old and still there are many days when I think, “I am going to be myself forever. It is going to be a long life.”

While I was in the psych ward, I got to go home for a weekend. My parents and I watched the movie, “Ordinary People.” It is about a formerly suicidal young man who spent a long time in the psych ward. He was really sad because his brother died in a boating accident and he felt guilty he survived. It is quite a sad movie and an odd choice for the time. Watching it with my parents was awkward. I wanted to tell them I wasn’t as sad or as crazy as the guy in the movie. In fact, he did not seem that crazy. Just sad. Over the weekend, all I wanted to do was lie in bed and read The Diviners by Margaret Lawrence. My parents were worried about me. I seemed way more down than before I went to the psych ward. And all my muscles had shrunk so I looked sort of sick.

What does all this have to do with the Boston bombings? With lethal injections, or life sentences?

Lucky for me, I have made no commitment to coherence.

Ahimsa means recognizing that I am not separate from all that is. We may as well end with sex.

Last summer, the Boatman and I enjoyed a period of particularly impeccable sex. Some people write excellent poems about sex. Other poems are not so excellent. During the season of impeccable sex, I remember getting to the part that people always put in poems. And I felt like finally I’d arrived at something so precious and universal.  I cried, maybe because all this time, I never believed I was worthy of this level of joy. But that’s not true.

These were the words in my head: “This joy, this ecstasy, this isn’t just for everybody else. It’s also for me.” At the same time, this joy, this ecstasy, it’s not just for me. It’s also for everybody else.

Not just for me. Also for everybody else.

The End.


Michael Stone
michaelstoneteaching.com

Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
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