FRIDAY I'M NOT IN LOVE
The Cure holds a special place in my heart. When I hear their songs play on the radio, I hear the voice of my mum, singing their poetic lyrics to me in her soft, delicate, loving voice that sounds like magic. When we listened to their songs together when I was a little girl, we were both so happy in our little world that had big love. It was a world where only She, The Cure & I existed. In that world, I was safe, protected, and cherished. But one day, an additional party intruded on our love triangle and cursed our enchanting spell. It was my eating disorder. And every day of the week, it will tell me something cruel enough to remember just how damaging its intrusion has been. When it was my Mum, The Cure, and I, Friday? Oh, how in love we were. Now, Friday? Oh, how we aren't.
'Monday you can hold your head'
This Monday had a rare delight woven into its morning plans. My Dad, unlikely, invited me to walk my dog after breakfast. My Dad doesn't usually ask me to do activities involving exercise because he cares about my physical ability and the risk it involves. But this was supposed to be a gentle stroll for big sister and little brother. It was more beautiful than I could've imagined. My dog and I smiled with each other in the sunlight and he seemed so ecstatic to be doing his morning walk with a new person who although he loves so much can rarely walk him. But it wasn't this experience that was the rare delight... It was found in the combination of love and a beautiful day that allowed me, for the first time in months, to ponder recovery. I had this strong desire to share Oreos and Marvelous Creations with my Dad in the evening. I could envision the enormous grin on his face and the pride in his eyes more clearly than a bay of crystal water. But as big sister and little brother walked up the hill on our way home, the reality I live in was there for me, waiting, calling my name. The light in the sky began to blotch: my body's inability to align the contrasting light with my low blood pressure. I spent the trip home using mailboxes as a refuge to lean my body against momentarily to compose and gather strength. My miniature toy poodle was now, gleefully jumping around, meters ahead of me. Although his little legs are impossibly small, it was mine that were giving way. Monday, I held my head in my hands, unable to grab hold of the perfect moment that allowed me to, for a few sweet minutes, envision Dad, Cadbury, and me.
'Tuesday, Wednesday, stay in bed'
I try my best not to read comments, assumptions, and hate but I see it fleetingly as I scroll through what is also, an overwhelming amount of support. But, sometimes, seeing it fleetingly is enough to crumble me. Today, it did. I spent most of my day trying to shrink myself and enfold myself in the sheets of my bed, the only place that I ever really feel safe, and even then, sleeping in my own bed isn't guaranteed. My depression felt heavy, like a drop of rain on a cobweb, weighing on it, sinking it. I thought about how I'm perceived by some people, and it affected me because although I know they don't really know me, sometimes a misinterpretation is enough to make you doubt yourself. I let myself down the most but that's tolerable. Knowing I let down other people isn't. My depression is like a knife that's always stuck in my heart but when it's reinforced, when someone's unkind, when hurtful words are said, the knife twists and I let it twist because I know it's what I deserve. I know that I'm no good. I know that even when I want to and try to be good, a lot of people don't like me... Family members, followers, readers, strangers, mums, nurses. And, Dolls, when you hate yourself as much as I do, knowing that somebody else feels half of what you do about yourself, is enough to make you cry yourself to sleep and use all of your effort to not drown yourself in the peaceful, inviting, calm stillness that is the water of your tears. I also want to be more productive, to have the energy and strength to engage in simple tasks like cleaning up the table or watering the garden... I want to, the will is there, I try and try and try but when I go to do it, I convince myself that I'll ruin it, make it worse, and mostly, my soul is so void of confidence, love, and life that I succumb to the avoidance that my bed sheets allow, the safety that my computer keys provide, the never-ending love my puppy's kisses hold. I know that makes me weak and unhelpful and unimportant but I know it, I admit it and I hope that there's even a tiny bit of value laced into that fact but also, it wouldn't surprise me if it just makes me as pathetic as it sounds.
'Or Thursday watch the walls instead'
I used to associate with the wooden floors in a room where a singular pin fell but now, I am the pin that drops... The thing that everyone sees and hears, judges and gossips about, thinks of and discusses. It didn't happen overnight. It was an evolution that progressed over every stage of my eating disorder. It might sound intriguing to be a pin: The topic and the focus of attention. But it's oh, so incredibly lonely because nobody is really seeing you, they're watching you. I long for the days that I'd once felt seen: The pride in my parent's eyes, the smile that illuminated their faces upon the mention of my name, and their excitement to see me when they came home. My name evokes a skip of their heartbeat, a crease across their forehead, a desperate cry of sadness, anger, worry, and concern that they think I can't hear behind the lock on their door or the muffle in their pillow but I can and I do. I miss when watching me was a beautiful journey, one where I was finding myself and unfolding into the young woman everyone hoped I'd become. Now, watching this journey cannot exist without how they truly watch me: Watching how much I've eaten, watching how weak I am, watching how slow my tired legs must walk, watching me freeze on a perfect day, watching the hair that falls out in chunks clump in the bath drains, watching me shrink, watching my toes turn blue, watching me wake up in tears from a never-ending streak of merciless nightmares. I became their nightmare. And every day the person I watch in the mirror is the person I growingly hate because although I know I'm loved, I know that I'm the catalyst of the darkest, most painful aspect of their lives that they hate. I'd like to tell you that it's manageable or that I've figured out a way to cope with knowing this fact about myself but truthfully it is crippling, especially when heated moments occur and it's reiterated vocally that I am ruining the lives of good, kind, important people, that I'm selfish and an additional unnecessary stress. I want to take it all away, I want it all to stop but I don't and I can't and I won't and I know it when they lurk, I know it every time I act on an urge, I see it with every tired, withdrawn gaze I catch in the reflection and every moment I spend listening to and talking to the one person who's grip won't let me go: Anorexia.
'It's Friday, I'm in love'
I can't remember the last time I viewed food as food. When I'm in the depths of anorexia, my perception of food is labelled as a 'fear', something I can't even think of touching, a 'category' in the form of its nutritional makeup or a 'number' in the form of a calorie. Even when my perception of food has been healthier, it isn't something I can have a simple thought over. For example, I may view it as energy, something that allows me to stay out of the hospital, or a challenge I must accept to leave the hospital. I can hardly recall the moments before this time but their memory is sweet like cinnamon in my mind. I recall the joy that flooded through my veins as we stopped by the fairy floss and snow cone sections at fairs. It wasn't something I had to compensate for, plan, or 'fit' into my day. It was nothing more and nothing less than a pleasurable moment in a beautiful life. Fights and conflict didn't prevent the joy I felt. It wasn't something I associated with my deservingness. And even if it had been, I still would've wanted to eat. I always wanted to eat. I loved food, I loved what it represented, and I loved every opportunity there was for food to be involved in my day. But most of all, I miss how easy, uncomplicated, and simple its place in my life and the lives of those around me was. I was in love with Friday, more so than any other day in the week, and now? Friday is just another day I spend, trapped in a relationship that grows more complex, controlling, and manipulative every minute of every hour of every day.
'Saturday wait'
On Saturdays, I used to wait for my ride to play my Saturday morning netball game, for my parents to drop me at a sleepover or to go shopping with my friends. But now, when it comes to waiting, it's usually in the form of delaying or avoidance. I fill this gaping void with pools of blood I cast upon myself or the tears that stream from my eyes or the poisoned cells of my mental illness that infiltrate my soul, body and brain. Saturday, I keep my hands busy to fight all of my urges to hurt myself, starve myself, and blame myself. On some occasions, it works and on others, it doesn't. The times they don't feel as though they'll never end, a race against myself in a heat I cannot win. Doing something, anything is my survival strategy to trick my brain into an anterior focus so that I can bear the day ahead of me. I can't. The day becomes more wicked, the air becomes colder, and the air I breathe becomes more suffocating. I begin to count down the minutes before bedtime, wanting to scream about the moments I have to eat because I know that in those moments, my head will be screaming louder than it already is, but even more so in the moments after I finish, when I'll just begin to analyse the morning moment I'm dreading most when I'll force myself to step on the scales again. The numbers that stare back at me are the numbers that decide my worth and dictate the day ahead, another day of waiting, another game that I won't be beating. I hate waiting for the things I wait for now. I feel like I'm always waiting, never hoping, never anticipating, never dreaming.
'And Sunday always comes too late'
At the beginning of my staircase to anorexia, I thought that when I reached a certain weight, when I looked a certain way or when I had engaged in a certain amount of rules, I'd allow myself the pleasure of eating. I used to dream of that day. For some reason, I thought that all of my thoughts would stop, the guilt would pause, the fear would cease and I'd be able to pleasurably eat my meal of choice, relishing in the peace of finally, deserving it, looking and being sick enough to eat it. But by the time I reached that 'goal' weight, the body I wanted, the goalpost wasn't satisfactory. I felt just as I did at the beginning, except in many ways my thinking and obsessions were more imbedded than ever. Dolls, all that changed was my goalpost and my thirst to grow even sicker. And I'll tell you a secret, Dolls, the other thing that changed was that I didn't even want to relish in a meal anymore because at these points, the brain had become so desperately starved for so long, so heavily entangled in the web of lies the eating disorder had cast upon it that it hated food, it hated my body, it hated enjoyment. When Sunday comes, it will be too late. The chances of still having the desire to eat out or want your mum to cook you your favourite meal will drastically decrease and if by some miracle they don't, you won't let yourself do it because the aftermath of engaging in anorexia's biggest fear will drive you to self-hatred, self-harm or suicide.
There are seven days in a week, Dolls, but just one day of living with an eating disorder feels like a lifetime. There has been sorrow at every avenue I've taken but I will say that every action I took against anorexia and every time I tried when I didn't think I could, I proved to myself that there was still hope. I don't believe anybody is a lost cause but I believe that finding the belief in yourself to overcome this nightmare is one of the hardest things a Doll will ever have to do. But if you can, remember me so that I can hear you tell me all about how on Friday, you were in love.
Kisses,
COS x
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