I had such a strange dream last night. Well, more accurately, today [slept from 5am-4pm]. In the dream, Mia's mom had made her an appointment at some clinic... I think she was supposed to see a nutritionist. Oh, background info: Mia is my best friend from birth, I've known her forever and we are one month apart in age. She's my only friend that lives near me. She's home from college, where she was a freshman this year [we're the same age but she is a grade ahead of me cause she started kindergarten a year earlier than me]. She was having anxiety attacks, which had never occurred until then, and was basically miserable. She had a horrible roommate, the food was awful, and the list goes on. Anyways, she developed a lot of anxiety from all the stress and started losing weight from all the stomachaches she got as a result of the anxiety as well as the horrible food. She is normally about 150 pounds at 5'6" and when she came home [early] from college this spring she was 130. That's a normal weight, of course, but she didn't look well because she has just been having so many health problems [the stomachaches etc] and for her frame she really shouldn't weigh any less than that... she was starting to look underweight even though she wasn't. I'll go into detail about all this in a second, but first my dream:

So Mia's mom made this appointment at a clinic, and I took her there for moral support I guess. It was down in Palo Alto near Stanford, and when we get there it seems like this is a weight loss clinic, not a nutritionist's office. Her mom sent her to this place to help her GAIN weight and to figure out what exactly was wrong with her, but instead it was like this clinic for obese people. Everyone in the clinic was really overweight and walking around in these hospital type gowns except they didn't really fit and they were bulging out of them. Yeah, nice picture. So we go up to the front desk and she says her name and her appointment time and the woman at the receptionist desk tells us to have a seat. Awhile later we are called back, and a nurse [I assume] lead us down this long corridor past rooms full of obese people and into a small room with a cement floor, a metal examining table, a scale, and a cabinet full of surgery-type intruments. She starts off saying what "their [the clinic?] philosophy" is and how they try to get people to lose weight. We both don't say anything and then she hands Mia a gown and tells her to put it on and come down the hall to get weighed [yes, there was a scale in the room... don't ask why she have to go to ANOTHER one!]. The next thing I know Mia is wearing the gown [never saw her change] except now it's a robe and it's bright pink. I say "Hey, cool robe." and she says "Yeah, I got it at Northpark!" [which is this mall in Dallas, so that's odd...]. Then she leaves and goes down the hall and I just stand there watching her walk down the hall and then this woman comes up to me and starts asking me for diet tips and I have no clue what to say. I end up saying I have Cystic Fibrosis and close the door. I sit and wait and what seems like an eternity later, Mia comes back and is in tears and says this place is weird and I say "Let's get out of here" and lead her out the door to my car. Then for some odd reason I take her down to Stanford. I say I think she has an eating disorder and not just anxiety and so I take her to the ED clinic. Dr. Kappan [my doc when I was IP at Stanford, who is a total bitch and hated me] is there and is acting very nice to me. Very strange. She is saying "Hi Ruth! How are you today? You're looking good!" and then says she is going to "help Mia" and tells us to come with her. We go down to the hospital and she leads us down the hall of the unit [which looks very strange and not at all like it really is] and inside all the rooms I see little kids that look perfectly healthy, all playing video games or watching TV. Most are laughing and all of them are wearing Barney pajamas. We get to the last room and she tells Mia to have a seat on the couch and gets out a box of video games and tells her to play them and she will feel better. Then she tells me to get into bed and hands me an Ensure to drink. "Drink this, you look like you've gained weight" she says. I say OK and drink it [why?!] and then she tells me to go home and leave Mia there. Mia is playing a video game, something like Mario, and I ask her if she wants me to leave her there. She doesn't respond, just plays the game. Dr. Kappan is sitting on the couch now too, watching the game. She tells me to leave and Mia will be fine. Then I wake up.

WEIRD! Nothing in this dream made sense, of course. Just felt like writing it down. I know Mia doesn't have anorexia. So I don't know why this dream was sort of centered around her having an ED... but believe me, she doesn't. I was worried when I first heard about all her problems with school, etc., but didn't think about her developing an ED... then I saw her when she was 130 and I was really worried, thinking that although she didn't have anorexia now, and was not losing weight on purpose or because she wanted to, she might at some point decide she wanted to lose weight and then, well, you know how things spiral... especially if she has the "perfect excuse" to not be eating -- because of the stomach aches, etc. Luckilly that has not turned out to be the case. She told me tonight she knows she can't lose anymore weight and is really trying to gain "at the very least 6 pounds back" - she's now 124. She sounds really worried herself, that she has continued to lose, so I'm not worried anymore that she'll want to lose more weight, but I am still worried about her in general. I hate that she was such a happy person before she went to college and she has come back so wracked with anxiety. She was so stressed when she got home, I had never seen her so unhappy. Things are looking up, though, because she is planning on moving in with her boyfriend who lives in LA at the end of the summer and going to college down there at Santa Monica College. That should be good for her. Her boyfriend Ryan is really sweet.

So that's the story on Mia. Now I feel like I can mention her and not have to explain who she is and all that :) In short, she's my only friend here who hasn't left me when I got depressed etc. She may not have an ED but she understands them amazingly well, considering. She knows I have to want to change or it's pointless to send me off to the hospital, I'll only lose the weight again. We talked about Renfrew some tonight. I was telling her how it's covered on my insurance, so I could go if I want. She wants me to go. I'm thinking about it. Still undecided. One thing that has pushed me slightly toward the "going" option was that an online friend is going in June. Also, another girl I sort of know online is already there. It would be fun to meet them both, in person. Of course I wouldn't go just for that reason. I was considering it long ago...