Cello & Bach: Anorexia Nervosa

Cape Floristic Region (CFR) of South Africa

 ©Am Ang Zhang 2005

South Africa reminds me of my Anorexia Nervosa patient.

In The Cockroach Catcher I got my Anorectic patient to play the cello that was banned by the “weight gain contract”:

                 Jane got on well with me.

          She had to, as nobody understood that to her achieving was not a hardship but something she secretly enjoyed. She was no longer allowed to pick up her books as she had not put on any weight since her admission.

         

          Cello would be banned too, if her nurse was to have her way.

          For the unit to function the nurse must have her way. After all I was not there all the time to watch her. To watch if she was eating, vomiting, exercising or whatever else they did to avoid gaining weight.

          But I was determined that it would be the first privilege she would get if she put on half a gram.  Or any excuse I could think of.

          Brutal confrontation is often what happened in many adolescent units dealing with Anorexia Nervosa. The brutality is not physical.

          But these patients are intelligent and have such strong will power that confrontation generally fails and the failure can be a miserable one.  Yet it is the kind of condition that hurts. It hurts those trying to help. It hurts because these patients deserve better for themselves. It hurts because they are not drop-outs of society. 

          Was it too hard for Jane to keep at the top academically? Someone offered that as an explanation. Perhaps she should be moved to a state school.

          The idea horrified me.

          A fourteen year old non-smoking, non-drinking, non-drug taking, intelligent Audrey Hepburn look alike virgin turning up at your local comprehensive.  It sounded like a major disaster to me.

          I had to take the matter into my own hands. She did put on some weight and at the earliest opportunity I decided she should get back to the cello which had always been by her bed at the unit.

          She missed the cello, the only thing she could use to shut out her worries.

          Fourteen and carrying the burden of the world.

          Then she started playing.

          “Ah. The Bach G-major!”

          “So you know it.”

           Of course I do. The hours I spent listening to Yo Yo Ma and it was such amazing music, melancholic and uplifting at the same time.

          For a moment I forgot that I was her psychiatrist and she forgot she was my patient.

          “My grandma gave me Casals.”

          I knew Casals was even more emotional than Ma, but Ma is Chinese and he was less affecting, allowing the listener to tune in to his own mood.

She played from memory. What talent! What went wrong?”

          “I wish my dad could hear me.”

          It was the first time she could talk about her father. They had a very comfortable life in South Africa when father was alive. It was very difficult to imagine what he would have looked like. It was never clear what he did but he was involved in a number of ventures. The plantation Jane’s grandfather ran was sold when apartheid came to an end. He was involved in some private reserve and he was a photographer of sorts but my junior told me that mum started to cry when she talked about him so she did not pursue too deeply.

Read more:

NHS: The Way We Were! Free!
FREE eBook: Just drop me a line with your email.

Email: cockroachcatcher (at) gmail (dot) com.

A Brief History of Time: Anorexia Nervosa

Lohengrin: Speech Disability, Design & Hypertension 

Bayreuth: The Ruling Class & Photography

Sadness & Songs: Superstition & Mahler

Bach - Cello Suites:  Yo Yo Ma