Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,5

before helping others,” but I didn’t entirely respect her because she accepted my insurance. How good could she be if she was willing to deal with Blue Shield? I couldn’t help but see our sessions as disposable soap samples handed out for free at a mall.

Dr. Mahjoub’s office was filled with elephants: elephant lithographs, elephant statuary, elephant carvings. I wondered whether she genuinely loved elephants and had collected them over the years, or if Pier 1 was having a sale and she thought, Yes, thematically cohesive decor fosters ego integration in patients, and purchased them all at once.

I’d entered therapy hoping to alleviate the suffering related to both my food issues and my mother, but without having to make any actual life changes in either area. I’d hoped that Dr. Mahjoub and I could pursue a subconscious, hypnotherapeutic modality, like learning to go comatose while still appearing alive. But Dr. Mahjoub wanted me to take real action.

“I suggest that you take a communication detox from your mother,” she said.

“Sure,” I said. “No problem.”

“I suggest ninety days of no contact.”

“Ninety days! No contact?”

“That’s right.”

“Like, not even an emoji?”

“Try,” she said.

I laughed, as they say, out loud.

“She’d never let me go more than four days without talking.”

“She won’t let you?”

“I guess she can’t force me to talk. But the guilt would be excruciating.”

“Setting boundaries doesn’t always feel good,” said Dr. Mahjoub. “Just because it feels bad doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

Maybe it wasn’t wrong to set boundaries. But I knew that my feelings would be intolerable. I kept thinking, My mother is going to die someday. I would die too. Dr. Mahjoub couldn’t stop death. What did she really know?

At our last session, she’d encouraged me to learn to “parent myself.” Amidst the Mahjoubian elephants, this idea seemed positive, doable, maybe even fun. I was going to speak gently to young Rachel, tell her that everything was going to be okay in hushed, empathetic tones. I’d be a mother to me.

Then I left the office and thought, Wait, what am I supposed to do? Something about self-soothing, offering up compassion for the young Rachel who lived inside of me. But I hated that young Rachel.

Young Rachel was always getting excited and then being popped like a balloon animal. She was always being deflated. She wanted too much. This week, young Rachel wanted a little acknowledgment from her mother.

I had just been chosen by a low-trafficked entertainment blog as one of 25 young female comics to watch. When I’d texted the link to my mother, she wrote back: How did they find you?

A few minutes later she followed that up with: Can’t opem link

And then: I hope there’s nothing embarrassing in it

And then: You didn’t embarrass me did you??!

Dr. Mahjoub said that if her daughter came to her with that kind of news, she would be incredibly proud.

“My daughter is only eleven,” she said. “But I only hope that she can one day have your success.”

“Let’s not get carried away,” I said. “It’s a blog.”

It seemed strange that mothers like Dr. Mahjoub existed in the world—mothers who supported their daughters. I felt jealous of her daughter, that she got to have a mother like that. I told Dr. Mahjoub I hadn’t expected fanfare from my mother. But I’d thought she would at least be a little bit proud.

“You were going to the hardware store for milk again,” said Dr. Mahjoub.

“Well, maybe just a tiny bit of milk,” I said.

“That’s the problem,” she said. “You have to expect nothing.”

Expect nothing. The simplicity of that directive, its bare-bones, self-contained power was intoxicating. Expect nothing. It was so clean, so potent.

It was a phrase you’d associate with a person who didn’t need anything from anyone; a closed system, an automaton. I wanted to be that person. I wanted to be that automaton.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try it.”

“Try it,” said Dr. Mahjoub.

“Okay!” I said again. “Why not?”

I left the office feeling strong, hopeful, a bit high. I kind of sashayed across the parking lot. Expect nothing. Why expect something if you could expect nothing?

In my car, I texted my mother.

Hi. I will not be reachable for the next 90 days. Thank you.

She wrote back immediately: What are you talking about?!?

Sorry, I replied. Unavailable.

Then she called.

“I’m detoxing,” I said.

“What do you mean, detoxing?”

“From our relationship,” I said. “It’s emotionally unsafe.”

“What do you mean, emotionally unsafe?”

This was the thing about boundaries: they made sense in therapy, but when you tried to implement them in the real world, people had no