\n<\/p>\n
R<\/span>ehab doesn\u2019t happen to you. You happen to rehab. That\u2019s something I kept thinking when, at night, I wept myself to sleep in the tastefully appointed room where I could not keep any sharp objects, not even tweezers, and did not have a lock on my door.<\/p>\n I realised it the moment I walked in and they demanded I remove my Marni booties, in keeping with their no-shoes policy, and I began to argue, muttering something about how I was self-conscious about my feet (a lie). I realised it when they asked me what sorts of things I liked to eat, and I considered it briefly, then said \u201cgoat yoghurt\u201d like it was normal. I realised it when the woman who was tasked with watching me pee into a cup through a cracked door looked like I was giving her much more anxiety than she was giving me.<\/p>\n I was so dazed from the days, weeks, months \u2013 perhaps even years \u2013 prior that I had a good deal of trouble understanding what had got me there, what twist of fate had delivered me to this small stone manor house in the woods of the Berkshires, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t tell very many people I was going, but to the select few who knew, I said I was going to a \u201ctrauma treatment programme\u201d. I wasn\u2019t fooling anyone, but those who loved me allowed me the dignity of not calling a spade a spade.<\/p>\n double quotation markIt was hard to tell the difference between the patients and the orderlies, because nobody wore uniforms<\/p>\n When we arrived, my father gave them the name I was using on my files: Rose O\u2019Neill, after the inventor of Kewpie dolls, America\u2019s first published female cartoonist. I related, I felt, to the tragedy of her life \u2013 she had made something people didn\u2019t know they needed, had made a shocking fortune on her illustrations of impish Cupids, but had stayed too long at the party, and by her mid-40s her wealth had been drained by hangers-on, and an inability to duplicate her first success (which seemed to me like where I was heading, considering I hadn\u2019t had a coherent idea since the day that we finished shooting Girls). So Rose is what they called me in rehab, until finally I gave them permission to say my name, and even then, they did it with trepidation.<\/p>\n We walked through the doors into a sea of beige with a grand staircase. A sweet guy with an iPad made my parents check in and show ID, which they had to retrieve from the car. I was asked to take the aforementioned shoes off and was hurried upstairs for that urine test. After that, my parents were allowed to come see my room. It was a lot like the first day at camp, or college, except many of the people here had a problem with IV heroin. It was hard to tell the difference between the patients and the orderlies, because nobody wore uniforms.<\/p>\n Who would have guessed that the massive tattooed man in the Harley-Davidson shirt was a sober companion, and the petite grandmother knitting in house slippers had a crippling Benadryl addiction that had caused her to destroy her own daughter\u2019s wedding? This was the first lesson of rehab, and the simplest: never judge a drug addict by their Patagonia half-zip fleece.<\/p>\n double quotation markChaos wasn\u2019t happening to me. I hadn\u2019t landed here because of some sudden natural disaster. I had swallowed the medicine. I had made choices. And I was the chaos <\/p>\n This was also the moment that I realised that chaos wasn\u2019t happening to me. I hadn\u2019t landed here because of some sudden natural disaster, as mysteriously seismic and strange as it all felt. I had responded to events. I had swallowed the medicine. I had made choices. And I was the chaos. I would come to realise, after much resistance \u2013 after asking to skip the group therapy sessions aimed at drug cravings because I didn\u2019t feel they applied to me, after telling anyone who would listen that I was there because of medical trauma, after retreating to my room night after night instead of socialising, to \u201cwork\u201d \u2013 there is no good addict, no right addict, no better addict than any other.<\/p>\n We had all tortured and terrified our families and friends. We all lost things that we once thought we couldn\u2019t live without. And, in our own very different and special ways, and for our own very different and special reasons, we all fucking loved drugs.<\/p>\n There was Walter, the middle-aged father who knew the component parts to every antidepressant and how to order them on the dark web. There was Jackson, the shy, beautiful boy with the piano who spoke so movingly about immigrating but wasn\u2019t sure he could experience love. There was Gaylen, who was only a teenager but could have beat all our asses and got us to thank her. Shirley, a grandma and wife who knit baby booties in her free time and was getting used to not having a bottle of chardonnay by 8am along with her Benadryl. There was Livia, who was 76 and whose necklaces jangled as she rode her mobility scooter to the yoga hut. Some of us loved to party. Some of us loved to jack cocaine into our veins and give long lectures about capitalism. Some of us loved to take Benadryl in the morning, despite not being allergic to anything.<\/p>\n The fact that I had taken drugs, at first in order to be able to show up to work, in order to meet my responsibilities; the fact that I was sick, didn\u2019t make me less of a problem than anyone else. It just made me harder to see coming.<\/p>\n O<\/span>n my second morning, I sat across from my new therapist, Dr Mark, a kindly man in khakis who could have been anywhere from five to 25 years older than me. He reminded me of a children\u2019s entertainer, the type of guy who would play banjo for kindergarteners. Dr Mark asked me to explain to him, in my own words, what I thought had got me here.<\/p>\n Well, I told him, it started with me being sick. Or maybe it started with me being stressed. Sick, physically and mentally, and stressed in the way you can only get stressed when your wildest dreams start rolling out the welcome mat \u2013 and with them come the wildest obligations.<\/p>\n I was supporting a family, someone else\u2019s family \u2013 multiple families, in fact \u2013 and my failure would be their failure. I disappointed people while also filling their pantries with fancy bread.<\/p>\n At the same time, my period crippled me, and when I didn\u2019t have my period, the pain could be just as bad but with no clear cause. I was in love with the idea of my boyfriend, and he was never home, and when he was, the disappointment was palpable. My little sister had become my little brother. My parents didn\u2019t recognise me, but I could see them looking, hopefully, as if for signs of memory in an amnesia patient. When my uterus was taken out, I started to go through menopause, and nobody explained what was happening, so I howled like a wolf in bed at night, not sure where the sound was coming from.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018The whole event felt like a fever dream.\u2019 Dunham arrives at the 2018 Met Gala with her former creative partner Jenni Konner and guest Bruce Bozzi. She was given special leave from rehab to attend the event.<\/span> Photograph: Angela Weiss\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Meanwhile, my oldest dream \u2013 of carrying a child, of being a mother, the one from back before there were other dreams \u2013 slithered away. Because my body couldn\u2019t do it. My body couldn\u2019t do anything. And look at me, just look at me. In the months after the surgery, I kept remembering how many hands had been inside me, pressing and prodding. I told Dr Mark that I\u2019d been raped once and sexually abused on a few occasions. This had felt like that. It wasn\u2019t that \u2013 but it sure felt like it.<\/p>\n \u201cIs that it?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n No, that wasn\u2019t it. I started acting up and acting out. I didn\u2019t know why. It felt, suddenly, like my intuition \u2013 once as noisy as a metal detector on a beach after a frat party \u2013 had just broken. I couldn\u2019t tell what was right or wrong, what would make people laugh or make them sneer. I did things just to do them. Nobody made me, but it sure felt like they had.<\/p>\n double quotation markThe minute I had my first dose of IV pain medication, I wished in some ways I hadn\u2019t. The shiver through my whole body \u2013 better than any orgasm<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s what you\u2019ve been feeling lately?\u201d<\/p>\n Well, there was the medication \u2013 the blessing and the curse of it. Klonopin for anxiety, Percocet for pain, and that exquisite, fluffy cotton-candy high as the drug moved through me, weighing down my anxiety like three quilts in winter. Bed became a wonderland. Sex became tolerable. At first, it let me keep it all together, patched me up with strings and glue, and sent me back on to the field.<\/p>\n The minute I had my first dose of IV pain medication, I wished in some ways I hadn\u2019t. The shiver through my whole body \u2013 better than any orgasm \u2013 followed by the alleviation of all of it, all the lows and, I realised later, all the highs, too. Just a blank euphoria, all possibility and no immediate action. I was tethered there with a needle in my arm. It\u2019s not for everyone \u2013 nurses like to warn you it can feel strange, that some people may cry or vomit \u2013 but for someone like me, whose thoughts, negative or positive, have always been so aggressive they can hijack a whole day, it felt like a pause button \u2013 available anywhere that accepts your insurance, available anywhere that doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Now my pain had a solution, and that solution was waiting in ERs across America, making hospital beds as appealing as sunny brunches with friends in Union Square once were. The relief started as soon as the nurse began to screw the IV together, pump it with saline that ran cold in my arm and left a metallic taste in my mouth. I wasn\u2019t eating much or drinking, either, so it was often hard for them to find a vein, but when they did, we all sighed with relief. I was thin, too \u2013 everyone said it \u2013 and when I sat down, my fat no longer followed with a kicky bounce a second later.<\/p>\n \u201cIs that it?\u201d he asked again.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, I think that\u2019s it,\u201d I cried.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not just a three-car pile-up. It\u2019s not just a five-car pile-up. It\u2019s a 50-car pile-up,\u201d he said, folding his hands in the lap of his Dockers.<\/p>\n And I cried into my stupid kaftan, because it felt so fucking good to be heard. I cried for myself, and I cried for my parents. I cried for my sister, who was now my brother. I cried for the time I\u2019d lost and the time I was losing, and I cried because I couldn\u2019t think of anything but the past, and because I couldn\u2019t imagine the future.<\/p>\n W<\/span>alter hated me. I had tried hard with him the first day, prodding him with questions about his job as a private equity trader and his toddler daughter who was named after a top 10 emo song and his apartment near mine and his coke addiction. I was sweet and pliant. He was cold and removed. I figured he was getting off cocaine and probably pretty tired. But the next day, Dr Mark called me into his office right before group therapy.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry to have to say this, but your confidentiality has been breached. We learned that Walter told his wife and several friends at home that you\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOK.\u201d I shrugged. \u201cI mean, that sucks \u2026 I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, it\u2019s against policy. We have to send Walter home. He\u2019s currently in the billiards room, waiting for his car. We will have to share this in group, since some people have been healing alongside Walter for a while. Would you like to share it, or would you like me to?\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Mark was the gentlest man I had ever met. I cried again, thanking him in advance for sharing. I didn\u2019t want the job. I was new around here. Walter was their friend.<\/p>\n The group was divided. Some were mad at Walter; others said they could relate to \u201cjust saying something, not really thinking about it\u201d. Most felt the punishment was a bit strong. I jumped in only to make it clear I had not come up with said punishment. \u201cIt\u2019s policy,\u201d I stammered, like an anxious branch manager talking to an angry customer.<\/p>\n Shirley said that I deserved safety just like the rest of them. Livia said that Walter didn\u2019t mean any harm. Jackson said he would really miss Walter, but that he also liked me and was glad I was here. \u201cWalter says Lena is a man-hater, he read her blog, and he doesn\u2019t feel safe being in group with a man-hater,\u201d Gaylen said. All I could stutter was, \u201cI don\u2019t have a blog.\u201d<\/p>\n O<\/span>ne day, in group thereapy, Dr Mark asked us to fill out a \u201cvalues spreadsheet\u201d. It involved listing our primary values, along with the primary values of the people we surrounded ourselves with in active addiction. We were then meant to create a Venn diagram to see where they overlapped. Used to being the A student in therapeutic language, I stuck my hand up: he had me stumped. \u201cWhat do you mean by values? Like, what are we \u2026 worth, as people?\u201d Values, he explained, are one\u2019s sense of what is important in life, what matters to them. Still stumped.<\/p>\n It took me 20 minutes to fill out the three spaces:<\/p>\n ART I then started in on the values of the people I\u2019d been hanging around. This one was easier. I remembered my writing partner, Jenni, toasting a project, \u201cLet\u2019s get that private jet money, girl.\u201d I remembered being pressurised to go out, even when sick as a dog, by pseudo-friends so I could show up at events where nobody really gave a fuck about me or anything I was making, just because they were excited to be my plus-one. I remembered meeting someone at a party and asking them about their kids. \u201cThey\u2019re adorable,\u201d they said. \u201cSuper fun.\u201d Then they continued to pitch me a sitcom starring them.<\/p>\n I<\/span> had a few scheduled leaves. On one, I went to the Met Gala. They had let me go, though not without some hesitation \u2013 there were long talks about whether it would be \u201csafe\u201d, whether I could handle the chaos of it.<\/p>\n I was seeing Jenni for the first time since I had left, and my stomach knotted with fear. I didn\u2019t know why I kept fearing everyone I was meant to love; I figured it could only be shame \u2013 fear of their rightful anger. Jenni had been tending to our show alone when we had been meant to do it as a pair. It was always meant to be us as a pair. She hadn\u2019t been communicating much, and when I wrote her a long letter of apology, she had simply responded, \u201cI appreciate this.\u201d<\/p>\n We met at her hotel at 11 for breakfast. She didn\u2019t ask me much about where I\u2019d been or want to hear any stories about rehab. \u201cI\u2019m sure it\u2019s very funny, but you\u2019re not meant to be getting funny stories out of this.\u201d We drank tea, and my hands shook under the table. I wanted us to say something that might give the whole thing perspective, but she just talked about her kids and her schedule.<\/p>\n She was texting with a newer friend, and her eyes lit up when the messages came in \u2013 the glittering pleasure of a fun and uncomplicated bond. I didn\u2019t feel I was allowed to say how scared I was. I also didn\u2019t feel I was allowed to tell the makeup artist \u2013 who did me up like the OG Queen Elizabeth, with a powdered face and heart-shaped burgundy lips \u2013 that I looked like I was trying to conceal syphilitic sores; or the hairstylist that I hated the crown; or the designer that the dress was so stiff I could only shuffle.<\/p>\n On the red carpet, I looked wan and haunted. The whole event felt like a fever dream \u2013 cameras flashing, people shouting names that weren\u2019t mine, champagne I couldn\u2019t drink circulating like a joke I wasn\u2019t in on. I told Jenni I was probably the only person there who had come just for the night \u2013 from rehab. \u201cYou\u2019re probably not,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n At midnight, I climbed into a black SUV and drove back to Massachusetts \u2013 Cinderella in her pumpkin. They made me drop my dress at the door to my room so they could search it for contraband.<\/p>\n . . .<\/p>\n During the last week of treatment, I identified as a drug addict for the first time, and so it was the first time Dr Mark asked me, \u201cAnd do you want to be sober?\u201dThe day before I left rehab, Gaylen and I sat outside on the steps for hours in the sun. I sketched her, and she read her book about healing crystals. It was the first time in a long time that I could remember noticing anything about the world around me. The sun was so bright. The sky was so vast. Later, on my way to therapy, I took off running. I couldn\u2019t believe it. All I could think was And my legs run on their own<\/em>.<\/p>\n When I got back, Gaylen shouted \u201cLENA! LENA!\u201d She was pointing to a robin\u2019s egg nestled in the grass, so blue it looked like it had been dyed. \u201cWho put it there?\u201d I asked. \u201cNobody put it there!\u201d Gaylen said, laughing at me, her hair pink and blond and black in the sun. \u201cIt just is.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/em>Some names have been changed.<\/p>\n Famesick, by Lena Dunham, is published by Fourth Estate on 14 April. To support the Guardian, order your copy from guardianbookshop.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rehab doesn\u2019t happen to you. You happen to rehab. That\u2019s something I kept thinking when, at night, I wept myself to sleep in the tastefully appointed room where I could not keep any sharp objects, not even tweezers, and did not have a lock on my door. I realised it the moment I walked in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[535,131,24174,24176,24173,364,1651,24175],"class_list":{"0":"post-48175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-college","9":"tag-day","10":"tag-dunham","11":"tag-heroin","12":"tag-lena","13":"tag-people","14":"tag-problem","15":"tag-rehab"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
FAMILY
MAKING PEOPLE FEEL SEEN<\/p>\n