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.