Beginnings

I'm used to my life now. Its not ideal necessarily but its my life. This is what I was given to work with. It is how it is. But when I was 16 the pain was brand new. I had lived my life to that point with what I can only assume is a fairly common amount of stresses and miseries. I had about 6 months to a year when I was 12 when I was so terrified of the dark that I spent at least a portion of every single night crying and shivering even with the lights on. But other than that my childhood was fairly happy. Normal. Uneventful. But when I turned 16 the walls started caving in. Its astounding actually how the depression almost coniencided with that birthday. I turned 16 in September and by christmas at the latest I was in deep. I thought (probobly like everyone experiencing depression for the first time) that it was a phase. A bad day, week, month. That all I had to do was wait it out. Like everyone has learned to do with bad days. Just wait it out, wait for tomorrow to come, the clouds to pass, the pain to go away. I was always introspective, a quiet kid who kept to herself, and I honestly don't know if anyone really noticed a difference in the beginning. I myself don't remember much about the beginning. I only remember falling. Falling into the pain, falling away from everyone else, curling into myself, curling into a ball. Litterally. I found a space on my bedroom floor- a 2 foot square butted up against the wall in between the side of a dresser and the mirrors of my floor length closet. In that tiny little space I curled into myself and fell away from the outside world. Fell into starvation. Fell into the tears. Fell into the pain. I found that tiny space comforting. I still do. No world to hurt you. Nothing else to take care of, no one else to care for. No questions to answer. No expectations. Just me and my reflection. Smooth hard surfaces against warm comforting skin. And tears. In that little space the me I could only feel could stare straight out at the me the world could see. I don't know if I have ever looked in a mirror and seen ME. I understand how science and reflections work. I understand that that is me (save the opposite thing). But not me. The girl I see and the girl I feel are very very different. If I ever experienced the simple act of looking in a mirror and relating to that image i certainly didn't past the age of 16. And I certainly haven't ever since then. As the depression grew deeper so did that gap between my external and internal selves. So deep that at some points they actually split. But in the beginning it was just me and a sad sad shadow of what I thought I should be, fighting it out in that tiny little space. And waiting. Waiting for it all to go away. I never chose to be anorexic. I didn't go on some diet that sucked me in or conciously decide that I wanted to control my food intake. I have had stomach problems my whole life. I was overall a sick kid- not like most people think of sick kids- I wasn't whisked through hospitals and surguries. I didn't have cancer or _____. I was just sick. Imagine having a cold for like 1/2 of your life. Thats the kid I was. I remember having to stop my bike in the middle of my paper route and lay down on the curb because my stomach was cramping so hard that I could do longer pedal. Laying down numerous times with bathroom tiles cooling my back waiting for the pain to subside. At the beginning of my junior year of high school my stomach seemed to be tightening almost every time I ate so my mom took me to get help. The gastroentologist we found had (unfortunetly for me) just been promoted to head of the eating disorders unit at the hospital down the street from his office (the hospital I would later be admitted to). He was one of those doctors who would rush into the room, scan my papers, scan me , tap my stomach a few times and rush out. He took half a min to think about my stats-
16 year old white middle class suburban female.
Honor roll student.
Over achieving.
normal weight
Textbook case for an eating disorder.
and decided I was anorexic. Before I did. Now my mom will argue me on this and over the years I have realized that this disease is part of me. Its who I am. Who I was mostly likely going to be regardless. Part of me realizes that there is no way that this man caused the past 13 years. 13 years of pain and hell. There is no way that that one day, this one man's opinion could have created the thousands of days since then of crying, suffering, laying in heaving pile on bathroom floors. I realize that now. But then (and honestly still a bit) I blamed him for opening that door. For pushing me through. I had never thought of anorexia. Never thought- I'll try to starve this pain away. Never thought- I'll numb myself with hunger. Force away the thoughts by making my mind concern itself only with survival and starvation. He introduced that notion to me. He brought that option to the table (litterally). And I will in some ways always hate him for that. Who knows if I would have found it. How I would have found it. Most of me thinks, knows, I would have. I am textbook case. Things that people without these disorders would never in a million years think of doing I do naturally. Without thought. It is who I am. But still.... I was scared and I was sad and was trying to figure out how to deal with that. Or better yet not deal with it. Run. Run from it. Run far far away. From the pain. From reality. And he gave me a door. He gave me a place. A goal. A destination. I took his threat of sending me to a hospital if I didn't gain weight as more of a promise. I let his diagnosis become a self-fullfilling professy. Its not like I thought the hospital would be fun or a vacation or something. Not really. Although honestly it was a little. Who doesn't dream about a couple weeks without the stresses of day to day life? But it wasn't that. I was dilluded into imagining that hospitals were sunshine and rainbows. But when you are in a seemingly endless tunnel you take the route that leads you to light. without regard to where it drops you out. you never think that staying confined in a darkened hole might hold less horrors then stepping out into a unknown world. I was trying to run away from the pain. I still convince myself I can- its why i move so often, change jobs so often, am so terrifyingly afraid of permanance. I want to believe that the pain is here. its in this place. this situation. not me. not living and breathing in me. whereever i go. i dont want to believe it now. at 16 i couldn't believe it. i couldn't even start. so I switched the energy i had been using to run away from myself and put it into running toward the hospital. Which makes no sense I know. Who chooses to make themselves crazier? Or if not that at least let themselves go crazier. Stop trying to stop the crazy and let the world just spin. Let go. It was like I laid down at that moment. Put down the weapons. Gave up. Decided to let the insanity save me. Which makes no sense I know. A lot of what happened doesn't make sense now. And probobly didn't then- to anyone watching in. But to me somehow....

At the gym

I have planned and unplanned a dozen things to do today. A dozen trips, projects, plans. Im trying to plan away the energy in a fight that I never win. I wrote a story at the gym today that was brilliant. Everything I write at the gym is brilliant, of course brilliant when I can't actually write it. And you can't prove that it wasn't any more than I can prove that it was. Because you can't actually WRITE at the gym. Or maybe you can - maybe you can learn but I haven't yet. I would love to be able to because everything I write at the gym is brilliant. Like I said. How did today's 'story' start? Oh yeah- I can't slow my mind. Its hip-hopping (I don't know if I wrote that at the gym- OK- I do know that I didn't write that at the gym. I wrote it now- in my car in the parking lot of the gym. which kind of counts, right? And I can't remember exactly what i wrote in the gym (which was brilliant) so I'm trying to regrasp it now. Maybe I can find a little brilliance in paraprasing?- rewriting?- trying to fill in the gaps of missing old words with new words. Same thoughts (mostly) new words (slightly). I hope I'm not taking a spot someone needs with my car- Anyway, where was I? Oh- I can't slow my mind. Hip hopping from one thought to the next, one word to the next. My eyes darting and dropping from one object to the next. one tv i can't hear to another. there are 5 tvs and they alternate between the same two channels. I like to bounce between the 2 same channeled ones trying to make sure there is no lull in the broadcast. Trying to move quick enough back and forth to not miss any of the commercial now playing. This is not what I wrote at the gym. What I wrote at the gym was brilliant- this not so much. Why can't I remember what i wrote in the gym? Shit- i'm starting to not want to write- i want to get it out. damn it! concentrate. I can't make my mind stop. my eyes are flitting form one thing to the nezt. one tv to another to another to one with the same station as the first. to the aerobics class being held. to the person in front of me. to my book which is opened to the first page. contents on one side. prologue on the other. this is the second book i have tried to read today. while i was at this machine. i have read the first paragraph 3 times. the first sentence at least three more. 'i went seal hunting today' bourdain. i got it in the hopes that i could fall into it- away to it. stop my world from spinning by engrossing myself in someone elses. food memoirs are good for that. light, funny, and sometimes written well enough to actually be inspiring on some level. the first book that i read the preface and half of the first chapter of is a memoir of a girl who grew up under a schitzoprenic mother. i think its written well and i couldn't concentrate enough to hear the writting so i switched to bourdain. 'i went seal hunting today' the movie on tv #2 is lit really fakely. hair lights in nature. i think its the bad news bears. my neck hurts. i dont really want to write anymore. fuck. think. maybe if you get it out you can still it. i dont think so- i'm writing to feverishly. im only perpetuating it. what was the word? i used a good word when i 'wrote' at the gym today. it was kind of like perpetuated but not. Not in meaning- in sound. damn it. what was it? damn it. damn it.
have to let it go. i talk in i's when i talk to you, ficticious reader. I think in we's and yous. we've got to get through this. you've got to slow down. come on we're ok. you can do this. but i only talk in i's when i talk to you. or when i talk to myself but someone else. thats not as crazy as it sounds i dont think. i never talk to anyone else when i talk to myself. i just talk like im talking to someone else. is that better? Ok. I answer as myself when i talk to myself. idont expect someone else to answer. thats when you are crazy, right? when you talk to yourself as someone else and you expect someone else to answer. jesus. i bet im not making any sense at all. i need to stop talking about where I am and start talking- i mean writing- about how i got here. its an interesting story i swear- at least i think it is.

The Birds

I have four birds tattooed on the insides of my wrists. Every single thing about them is deeply personal and important to me. What they are. Where thier placement is. When I got them. But when it all comes down to it I put them there to try to save my own life. They are there to keep me from killing myself. More precisely they are there to keep me from deciding that one day that I would like to see just how much blood one of my veins or arteries could spill out when split. They are there to keep me from accidentally taking my life. A possibility that is unfortunately incredibly plauseable for me at this point. So the birds block the veins. Thier wings and tails cover the arteries. Their delicate feathers remind me that this is worth fighting for. That life is not something to be thrown away. On purpose or by accident. I don't show them to people. I don't talk about them unless asked and usually even then I stick to praising the tattoo artist and pointing out how well they were done. Since I have gotten them I have told my best friend and I have told Mike. Anybody else who has seen them has just that- seen them. I've had them for over a quarter of a year now and my only family and friends that know are those who have actually been in my physical presence in the past 3 months. I went alone to get them, purposefully, when Mike was out of town. If he had been in town I would have gone while he was at work anyway. I wanted to be alone. I sat with the tattoo artist, mostly in silence, for close to 4 hours, just watching and feeling the birds embroidered into my skin. Absorbing the imagery mentally as well as physically. Taking in the pain it represents in all forms. Alone, I was able to revel in the one of the few chances I get these days to accompany the internal pain with actual non-questionable physical pain. To feel the pain in a way I don't normally get to. The tattoos face me- upright when I hold my hands to my face. Into my body when my arms are by my sides. They are for me, so much so that in order for someone else to see them clearly and upright they basically have to stand behind me and look over my shoulder. I very consiously made that decision when i got them. They are for me to see and me to feel. Anyone else who sees them is secondary. They are not a badge or a decoration for the outside world so much as they are a promise to myself. An image for myself. A reminder of the fight and the pain, the strength and the artistry that are my life. As corny as it sounds. They are my jesus. they are my savior. even better they are me. the part of me that is good and strong and willing to fight. When I first thought of getting these tattoos I wanted one on my wrist right above my pulse. A small black square. It was to represent the struggle of my eating disorders. When you are in the hospital they take your pulse a lot. Partially just because it is a hospital and partially because as an anorexic you are in essance slowly killing yourself. The nurses want to make sure you are still alive today. Ever since I was first hospitalized I have found myself reaching for my pulse when I'm sick or stressed or lightheaded or dizzy (as I tend to get a lot- at this very moment I can barely see the words, my screen is rocking so much.). I grasp onto my wrist and feel for the beating. When I'm lightheaded or dizzy it reminds me that yes I am still alive. My heart is still beating- it is all still working- it is all still ok. When I'm stressed or scared or I feel like my heart is racing the slow steady pulsing calms me. Reminding me again that it is still all working. That it is still ok. As long as my heart keeps beating I can make it through whatever. It is one of the only constistancies I have in a world that is continuously spinning and shaking and folding in on itself. My heart keeps beating. It is the fight. I wanted a black box at the point my fingers reach for to symbolize that consistant fight. but at some point I saw an image of two songbirds. I had been thinking that anything symbolizing the fight had to be as dark and empty as the fight itself. But the birds were beautiful and I felt something toward the image. And I wanted it. I grappled with the thought that the fight isn't pretty. It isn't superficial or ornate. It is painful and it is hollow and it is never ending. Putting birds in that spot undermined the pain and the helplessness that the spot above my pulse represented to me. And the images weren't origonal enough- they weren't me. But I wanted them. And as I thought of them more I began to feel them there. These two birds on my wrists began to carry me. When it hurt too much, when I just wanted to stop, the birds started to carry me through. I can see them holding on my limp wrists dragging my defeated body through the world. For a little while there they were accompanied with a theme song of "I'll fly away". The song is religious and if you imagine it the way I do the birds are carrying me in a very cruficial like fashion. Which bothers me. I curled up on my couch one day- "i'll fly away" on repeat on my itunes sobbing hysterically and trying to understand my minds imagry. I am not a religious person. I do not have a god or symbols that give me strength outside of myself. But these birds- I have these birds. Along with an entire cast of characters that live within my mind's world. They are my gods and my devils. There is a mouse in my chest that scrapes at my ribcage in anxiety. A neighboorhood of fuzzy balls- like dustballs or cat toys- that inhabit my lungs and steal the air when I'm stressed. A family of ameabas named Joey. A black crow that I don't understand but can only assume represents death or sorrow. Or both. They have all come into my life as an adult. I was not a child that had imaginary friends yet somehow I find myself to be an adult with an entire set of imaginary enemies. I think when you live in pain for a long time at some point you must give that pain a name. I have given mine many. And it helps get me through. I am visual- I deal with things by seeing them. Creating a world in a way that I want to or need to see it so that I can deal with it. It makes perfect sense that I should create so many visual manifestations of my pain. It is the only way I know how to even start relating to it. On top of that I am catholic. Not in the sense that I believe in, well anything, that the catholic church believes in. But in the sense that I want people I can turn to. Just like my mother's mom had a little visage of st____that she prayed to for good weather. and my father's mother's had a dresser covered with statues of mary and jesus and saint paul along with at least a dozen other saints I never learned the names of. I need to be talking to someone. I need to pleading with a face, a name, a story. Crying out for help onto a seemly empty sky or into a seemly helpless soul feels hopeless. So I cry to the birds. I pray to the birds. I beg them to help me. To carry me. To fly me away. And they do. Because they are me. And I am the only one who will ever be able to save myself from a disease that is my internal devil.

Cats

I keep telling myself to write about then- the beggining- the start of it all. before i got lost in this disease. i keep thinking that somehow by searching my way through that i can find my way out of this. understand it better. me better. figure out what got me here. but the words dont come. i can talk about the pain. today. i can talk about how i left the gym and my lungs suddenly seized and the world became confusing. i can talk about how i spent who knows how long- way too long- in the grocery store staring and fidgeting and circling the aisles. how i stood in line and clentched my fingers back from poking the magazines. just poking them. and the man behind me's paper towels. how i understand that that is not ok but how my hand somehow realizes that it NEEDS to be done. or just can not NOT be done. i dont know which. i can talk about how i heard people on a balcony laughing when i got out of my car and thought they were perhaps laughing at me and had to make sure i wasnt actually talking to myself out loud. when i was a child i didnt quite realise that even if you werent audible people still looked at you funny if your lips were moving. i think i didnt quite realise my lips were moving. i had to learn to talk to myself without my lips. without facial expressions and hand gestures. i still havent quite mastered it. i sit in my car in traffic and talk to myself in my head- thinking the world around me is none the wiser- then i look over at the person in the car next to me who is staring at me curiously and i realise my face and hands have been making gestures inappropriate for sitting in a car in traffic. i have taken to wearing an earpiece even when im not on the phone. so i can talk to myself in peace. i often still pull up beside someone who is obviously not fooled. i have talked to myself my entire life as far as i can remember. it seems like the most natural thing in the world to me. i had a paper route for a 3 or 4 year chunk of grade school/ junior high. just a few blocks within a 1/2 mile radius of my house. there were three things i particularly enjoyed about this paper route. one was timing myself to see just how quickly i could possibly deliver all of the papers. i would pedal as quickly as i could, drop my bike, sprint to one porch, dash through the hedges to the neighbors stopping as far as i could and still manage to fling the paper onto their porch. i believe i got it down to somewhere around 15 mins. which may or may not be at all impressive for the amount of papers delivered. the second thing was the cats. i loved cats as a child and on days i wasnt timing myself i would stop and pet the neighborhood cats. i was a super shy child but cats always seemed to love me. i could get anybody's cat to befriend me no matter how unfriendly i was told they were. i especially liked getting the timid cats to trust me. it was just a matter of getting low and being patient. moving slowly and letting them come to you. i had nothing but time for cats when i was a child. i didnt talk to people much but i had no problem talking to cats. the third thing i loved was talking to myself. i would ride from house to house and interview myself as i rode. one day 3 boys a bit older then me rode by on thier bikes while i was conducting one such interview and stared at me like i was crazy. they rode away laughing at me. at first i didnt understand. i wasnt talking out loud. if they couldnt hear me what did they think was wierd? it took me a while to understand that they saw my lips moving and that was enough for them to look at wierd. it didnt matter if people hear you speaking. from then on it has been a daily effort for me to speak to myself only in my head. which is hard when you are person who speaks with as much of her body as i do. i practically pantamime as i speak. i write by whispering a line out loud to myself all the while moving my hands around above the keyboard. then stopping only long enough to type it. its almost as if my mind and hands work together to form sentences. the thing i didnt like about the paper route was collecting the money. talking to the adults. knocking on doors my heart would race. i think that above the understanding of money this is one of the lessons my parents wanted me to learn by delivering papers. people were not my thing. adults especially. they still arent. my mother tells a story of my preschool teacher calling her in may and asking her if i enjoy preschool. my mom said that yes i seemed to and the teacher said its just that she hasnt said one word to me. ever. in the 9 months i had seen this woman 3 days or so a week i had never said a single word to her. and probobly not to any of the other kids either. that is the type of child i was. i was the kid who walked around with a snotty nose a box of tissues and did everything to avoid making eye contact with adults. i cried when i forgot my homework. never talked to adults but talked incessantly to cats.