"it's 8.52 p.m. on a monday night and i've been staring helplessly at this computer screen for nearly an hour, blank. my mind is entirely, alarmingly clear and i feel possibly more numb than i have in my entire life. well, i guarantee that's a lie, but at this moment, i feel so disgustingly numb that if you were to rip out my wisdom teeth at this very moment i would most likely experience nothing save a slight twinge of pain. odd, isn't it, how eating disorders tend to do that - leave you wholly emotionless and unscathed by even the most horrific of occurences? you could be purging your brains out one moment and sitting motionless the next and it's as if there's no difference at all. it's as if i've adapted so incredibly to the disease that has long tormented my physical and psychological being that to be simply resting is no different than hiding out in the bathroom, removing my body of what nourishes me. it's as if it's not me - but someone else, hunched over the shallow porcelain pool, divulging my innermost secrets and toils, all the while ridding my body of what it is it needs. i'm a shell of a person that once existed, or rather, once had the potential to exist, and i'm not anyone as i'm tying my hair up, eyes fogging my vision with tears of regret, becoming one with my disorder, becoming the disorder. i am the illness. i am the disease. i am no one.
yesterday, i fell back in love with ______. it's almost comical how on that last fateful day of our relationship we had been at a show, and on the day my heart fell enitely back into his hands, we were at a show. ironic, no? the day began relatively normal. i figured it'd be yet another day with him in which i felt bad for not being entirely devoted to our relationship and indifferent towards him in every way save a sexual one. i actually pegged it as a day on which i wouldn't be able to tolerate him at all. and for much of the day, it was like that. i looked at him and was met with this intense sense of disgust and hatred, reminiscent of that day, that night on which he ripped my heart from it's cavity and pummeled it to the ground. but somehow, in the course ofthe day, i softened. nostalgic, surrounded by memories of previous shows, and prior kisses and dates, i melted in his arms and felt my heart slipping back into his grasp again. he paid attention to no one else. only me. i felt the world slipping into place and the stars aligning again, even if only in my mind's eye. and i stood with my arms around him, draped around his neck, afraid to let go and have him leave again - petrified of yet another departure. and i imagine it will always be like this, until we make one last and final split. there will always be a biting paranoia nipping at my happiness, reminding me of his past misgivings, and my month of woe in which he ran off carelessly with another. i will never forget, and i will never entirely forgive. and every look into his eyes punctures my heart with yet another needle of truth - he hurt you. you had no say. he will do so again. and you will let him.
today i realized that my grandfather was dead. and oddly, i did not cry. but rather, i heard him laughing. is that odd? to be able to hear someone laughing even though they no longer exist physically? i heard his laughter and wished i could wrap myself within it forever. i miss him terribly. i despise how i've yet to fully accept that he's gone. gone, as in never, ever coming back. i have this crazy idea in my head that maybe if i ignore his death and pretend it never occurred, i can pretend he's still alive and still laughing and still telling his famed corny jokes. and maybe, if i don't acknowledge it for a long enough period of time, i'll foreget him altogetherwith, believing him to be someone else's grandpa, someone else's lost loved one - not mine.
i have three more grandparents to bury. four stepgrandparents. two parents. two stepparents. three aunts, two uncles, several cousins, possibly several siblings. is this how it's going to be every single time? is this impermeable sense of numbness going to encompass my brain every single time until i am completely, unpervadeable in every aspect of the word? am i bound to become an emotional quadraplegic - from the neck up? who am i to become? or rather, who am i now? and what am i becoming?
i want answers. i want people to stay alive. i want to stay alive. i'm actively dying and i find no problem with it. people aren't supposed to think as i do. people are supposed to be rational. and normal. and i am neither of those things.
and as i'm writing this, i can feel exhaustion overtaking my brain particle by particle and i'm growing excessively more and more tired with each progressing second and i swear, if i don;t cease my incessant babbling, i may fall asleep right at this very keyboard.
i can't stop purging. i hopelessly love my boyfriend and i've reached the point at which i'm terrified of losing him again. and my grandfather is gone forever. and i'd like to cry, but i can't find it in me to surpass the numbness that is currently encasing my brain like some sort of inpenetratable shield. i hate this. i hate myself. i wish i could somehow morph into someone else overnight and be someone who loves life. i don't. i never have. i don't think i ever will. this frightens me possibly more than anything else.
what am i going to do when i have nothing left?
who will i be when my eating disorders don't consume me,
and when ________ no longer loves me,
and when someone else i love passes away?
who will i be then?"
This makes me incredibly sad. But, on top of that sadness is pride. This is inexplicably well written and clear and honest. This is very clearly something I wrote for only my eyes, thus I didn't bother omitting anything or tacking on details. This is genuine and heartfelt and, above all things, REAL. I couldn't lie to myself. I knew that what I was doing was terrible. I knew I was numb. I knew I would die if I didn't cease. Unbelievable.
I have always been a smart girl. I just haven't always been a strong one. I have been dealt a rough hand, and for a long while, I used that as an excuse for everything. I don't anymore. I realized that being numb was no better than being dead. And, that I wanted to experience life and experience every emotion I had long since forgotten existed. I was so in love at this point in my life and I couldn't, for the life of me, feel it as much as I should have or could have. Because I was so stifled and so vulnerably and such a fucking train wreck.
I read this and can distinctly identify myself. I still write this way. And, there are times I still feel this way, though about different people and different things. I always thought that when this illness ceased, I would magically morph into a different person. I didn't. I'm still Jessica, only an improved version. My idiosyncrasies, flaws, and insecurities remain. I'm just better at countering them and accepting them. Which I am incredibly, nauseatingly thankful for.
I wish during this point of my life, I could have given life a chance. I was holding on so tight to things that couldn't save me and trying to kill myself to bring back the dead. Silly, silly girl. How sad.
But, how happy I am that I am alive. And, that I am okay. And, that I proved myself wrong.
Monday, November 30, 2009
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this truly inspired me. that was exactly what i needed to read.
ReplyDelete:D i'm so glad! i am following you, btw. hope you don't mind.
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