A Nightmare On Mentally Ill Street.
Since the decline of my mental state, an increase in what was otherwise non-existent became poignantly prevalent. Night terror became a term I knew too well as the night itself became something that terrified me throughout the daylight. I spent all day fearful of what I knew was boundless by its ruthlessness. I write this post in hopes that another soul can find security in knowing that their wildest nightmares are just like mine. I felt isolated in my suffering, knowing that others fell asleep as easily as they breathed. I felt ashamed of the level of violence, gore and brute laced within every nightmare, as though only the most volatile and disgusting people harboured such mentalities. I have been able to find a sense of peace in knowing that malnutrition is a form of torture that alters one's brain chemistry. I can understand that my nightmares are a result of purely biological defects and not defects in my personality, qualities or values. I hope this post allows someone else to find that peace within themself, too.
'He should be paid for this.'
My mother yelled these words to me, disgusted by the fact that I was the sole reason for my father's mental deterioration, ridden with concern. She blamed me. He blamed me. They thought I'd become ill purposefully. They thought the words my illness spoke to them, its rigid requirements and its ever-changing and inconsistent nature were all me, entirely, insufferably, cruelly.
I'd been what I am most afraid to become... A burden. I saw it by the tiresome look stained on my father's face. My dad has the type of face that's so sweet, good, kind and gentle that it personally hurts you when it doesn't smile back. The strongest man I know was weak and defeated by the strongest illness I know. I’d killed the person I love most. I heard the words spoken to me and saw the faces looking at me as clearly as a dream allows. To me, it could never be just a dream. In any reality and any fabrication of reality, the scene played out before me was disturbing to an incomprehensible extent. Although I can comprehend it... now... since I had this nightmare. And on the day I woke up and every day since, every minute has been tinged with a melancholy that burns. It isn't agreeable in any way, like how whisky is when it slides down your throat. It's hurtful and excruciating like being slowly submerged in a pool of lava, centimetre by centimetre, second by second. The nightmare has left me broken because those very words were something I'd hoped to never actually hear even if I did only hear them in a bad dream.
I've spent a lot of my life feeling like I didn't fit in, particularly during school. This nightmare resurfaced those memories as I was pitted against by girls in my grade and laughed at. During school, though undiagnosed, I experienced depression. School was the place where my troubles with my mental health initiated. Insecurities were established, bullying prevailed and self-doubt developed. This nightmare forced me to remember just how heartbroken it made me to be the consistent outcast amongst cliques.
It feels deathly to hate yourself but it makes you want to die when others hate you too.
The second part of this nightmare followed along those same lines of isolation. I gained the ability to chase nonexistent realities, only to find that the world I chased led me to a place of dark woods entangled with my greatest fears: Shadows, spiders, fires and ghosts. Every thought experienced by me, someone mentally ill, was played out before me. Though I desired inclusion, refuge and love, I saw the past. I saw my childhood. I saw the hardships my mum faced as a single mother. I saw how I suffered growing up with a Dad who was never the Dad I needed him to be. And, finally, I saw how it crumbled the heart of me, a little girl, as disharmony within her family became a view all too familiar to see.
I often protect my illness before I protect myself. Anorexia doesn't allow me to make choices that belong to me. Even if such a choice may save my life and relieve my anguish and others', if weight gain and a loss of control are involved, when I'm not recovering, the choice will never come if it involves that. Interlaced with this truth is perpetual loneliness. It's primitive for humans to want to protect their lives, family and sanity. Everything feels lonely when your mind robs you of the fundamental human requirement of seeking survival. Because no matter how 'in control' anorexia tells me I am, dying by choice is a loss of control in every way. Despite what my mind tells me and despite how physically and mentally ill I am, I feel in my bones that it is extremely, completely, utterly wrong and against my most natural instinct. In this nightmare, I had a deep bruise on my right arm, formed from deep physical trauma to the body, directly a result of anorexia. Alongside this, my body wasn't able to walk and when I tried, the lower half of my body instead would tip upside down. Although I knew how something was wrong, although it made me desperately scared and although I wanted so badly to tell my family, be honest and attain help, my entire dream was spent concealing what was happening to me from those I loved, avoiding every possible scenario in which they would notice I couldn't walk and was dying. I can still remember what it felt like as I ate up the guilt in my dream because it felt as though a million fire ants were running through my blood, stinging and tormenting me. And to be honest, that feeling isn't far from what I experience whenever anorexia takes over, which is every day. Having an eating disorder has robbed me of so much, but being robbed of the choice to live is definitely one of the worst.
When I was little, I remember how my dreams were fantasies. I used to be able to count the nightmares I'd had in my life on one hand. But since I've become ill, my brain is clouded and poisoned with such potent anguish, disharmony and detachment that it's become the good dreams that are the ones I can count on one hand. I feel lost writing this blog post because the frequency and equal severity of my nightmares have barely dissipated over the years, even with the assistance of medication. The only light I can see is laced within the comfort this post could provide another, like me, with. Your confession is always safe with me, Dolls.
Kisses, COS x
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