Polly's Mom

I don't think that Polly was without blame, but it seemed to me that she was a bit of a scapegoat. I heard one of the staff calling her a "bad seed" and someone else remarked on her "negative power". I honestly think that there was something about Polly's manner that made her seem like she was less vulnerable, so the staff kind of used her, labeling her as almost the sole source of the dishonesty and rule-breaking.

It kind of seemed to me like they felt that since her insurance was running out, and she was emotionally less needy (at least on the surface) it would be easy to throw her out, as if to symbolically eliminate the rebelliousness that was, in reality, spread out among many of the patients.

I don't know...in a way, it feels like ridiculous that the staff would be callous like that, but at the same time...it just seems really like an odd way to relate to a patient.


What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.-Emerson

Really? I thought she was right on target, criticizing the staff. I would be furious if my therapist called me a "bad seed" (not that she knew, I think).

She got a tattoo -- as did the other girl. She was trying to help her friends in the other case.

Honestly, think of Shelly's statements of "I don't know how to live on my own." Many people with ED worry about control. While the structured world of the center may help with that at first, it does not prepare them WHATSOEVER for the real world, where there is no control. In the real world, people break rules.

Polly threw it all away. She had been promoted to a higher level because the staff thought she'd done a lot of work. Then she stupidly (I still can't believe she did that) LIES to the staff about going to a bookstore with Shelly and then goes to a tattoo parlor. That was just so stupid.

Polly backed the staff into a corner; there was no way they could keep her there without essentially sending a message to the other patients that it was OK for *them* to lie to the staff without any adverse consequences.

Maybe it's me, but when they called Polly's mom and told her Polly had to make arrangements to go home, I just pictured the mom thinking, "Oh, crap! Now *I* have to deal with her."

The note at the end of the video says Polly was still struggling with her eating disorder, but she was holding down a job, so at least she was well enough for that. Hopefully she is OK today.





God save Donald Duck, vaudeville and variety

They should have put her on some kind of probation and require her to cut off contact with the other girls that she influenced. Kicking her out was too harsh. It's morally wrong to throw a sick person out and make them fend for themselves.

I CHOSE NOT TO CHOOSE LIFE.

It's funny; I read that scene so differently. I totally sided with Polly's mother. I know that staff in such places are worried about one person jeopardizing the recovery of everyone else, but neither of Polly's transgressions seemed particularly terrible. Okay, giving medication to someone else is potentially dangerous, but she did it to help someone else who was hurting; it was misguided, but well intentioned. (Not to mention...two sedatives? Come on.) As for the tattoo, I find it a mysterious rule to begin with, esp. since the girls chose a recovery symbol, but maybe tattooing and piercing are considered akin to self-mutilation? I guess Polly's biggest mistake was lying, but she certainly wasn't alone in that.

I also was really put off by the way the staff discussed the patients, and I'm sure many at Renfrew were embarrassed by what was caught on film. So much of it was so childish and gossipy -- as someone mentioned, calling Polly a bad seed, or suggesting that she was a source of negativity. Or the nutritionist, who said she didn't trust Shelly "as far as she could throw her," and who didn't immediately apologize for the false accusation she'd made. The staff seemed as cliquish and unprofessional as the patients. I worked briefly as a middle-school teacher, and remember my first time in a staff break room; I was shocked at how these purportedly mature, educated caregivers gossiped viciously about their students. It's the sort of thing that seems particularly offensive in staff with leadership positions.

Maybe, too, it's because I know what ultimately happened to Polly. Staying at Renfrew another few weeks might not have made a lick of difference, but I guess we'll never know.

You have to understand how her mother must have felt.

Polly DID *beep* up, but she also got more *beep* then needed.

Polly was a very sick woman and needed a lot of help and her mother just wanted her to get better.

I was just going to post here that I thought Polly was the most annoying of all the women in the documentary. Now I found out that in 2008 she committed suicide. I am not going to say anything more.