If there were a way to exit without fuss and muss, tears and missing, I would in an instant.
If I weren’t so embarassed by being a human and having a body and being a nuisance and making people worry and stop and gather then I probably would have walked into a hospital before now. I have been fractured and fragmented, unsorted, out of sorts, unattached, foreign to my own body for so long that I simply cannot bear it and I feel as though this cannot continue.
My sabotage is perfected to the point of habit. I ignore my warm layers of clothing during the day, I drink chilled water and feel my shoulders hunch to center, wings of a bird, head tucked. I don’t eat breakfast or lunch, I might force 200 calorie oatmeal before yoga so I don’t pass out, and I eat dinner with Joe, because he’s starting to get “scared.”
I’m spending more than I make, (in every possible way), I resist sleep until 2am, wake at 6am, self-harm ritualistically before bed, using tweezers to yank out invisible hairs all over my body, leaving bright red sinkholes, miniature surgeries. I lied to my volunteer agency to get out of taking calls from sexual assault victims right now; made up something about my health which is probably true but felt like a lie.
I feel ugly; my coloring is bad, my skin is unhappy, my eyes are glassy, my hair is breaking. My heart is breaking, somewhere, I can feel it, peripherally, far far away. Faintest of faint, feeble pulse, connection coming in and out like something you can see in the night for a moment and it’s gone.
In yoga, they tell me my body is wrapped around my heart chakra in a way that will create physical and emotional tension. Depressed chest, holding shoulders, inertia.
Yoga is overwhelming; I have a massive amount of work due this Friday. Work is overwhelming; they are impressed by me so the pressure is on and my bar is going higher and higher. Christmas is overwhelming. And I have to do an assessment with an eating disorder program, says Robert.
And I don’t know who the person is typing these words. I am an imposter in every sense of the word. I feel there is nothing for me. I feel that I would rather not exist, and I would act on that if I could find more of a connection to that feeling. But, like everything else, it hovers out of reach. Tantalus and the fruit. Perhaps this is already my hell.