What's Mine Is Yours
Dear sweet Shopaholics, where would we be without our greatest allies, our biggest supporters and believers? I've been guided off paths and encouraged down dark allies by a few rotten eggs but if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have known just how luminous the golden eggs in my life truly are. The only darkness that resides within these relationships is the shared heartache that occurs as a result of an inextricable bond. Your pain is my pain. What's mine is yours.
Fear is a fundamental aspect of human survival, integrated into the caveman's brain to prevent danger. However, fear can be irrational. When it comes to eating disorders, the thing that causes us the most fear is the very thing that will save us... food. The more fearful I grew of it, the more the anxiety, distress and avoidance grew. It became unmissable to the golden eggs in my life. The fear that was mine became their sorrow. The sorrow in their hearts existed because they recognised the desperation I felt as I began to live a life controlled by fear - one without a birthday cake, one without medical stability, one without drunken 2 am nightcaps. The people who cherish us expect us to live a life that isn't bound to anybody or anything but rather a life that is bound to our wildest hearts, most spontaneous experiences and warmest lovers. Watching an eating disorder forcibly remove the life that our loved ones believe we deserve from our fingertips is a slow and painful process. Watching it occur could never be easier than experiencing it. What's mine is yours.
It was just a little secret... one for me and my eating disorder to share, to be safe from others' judgement, preconceived ideas and input. Over time, it wasn't just a little secret. It was a lot of little secrets that accumulated until I had forgotten what was supposed to be kept secret and what wasn't. The secrecy evoked anxiety in those around me as they grew unsure of what was deemed 'acceptable' to ask or what would trigger a threatened response from my eating disorder. Either they feared what to say so greatly that everything they wanted to say was left unsaid or they were so completely ridden with anxiety that they said everything too loud and all at once. The secrets I kept had begun to make me feel unsafe in my mind and body but conversations became overdue. For now, I was alone in a multiverse of seclusion and they were alone in a multiverse where every breath they held clogged their trepidacious lungs and poisoned their worried minds. What's mine is yours.
Misconceptions and stigma are ever-present in eating disorder treatment and society which is detrimental for a sufferer who in turn, doesn't seek help. What is mine is disappearance as my body perishes and my mind fades and my soul dims. But with every piece of me that chips away, a piece of you prepares for a seat at the wrong hand of the Father. As I disappear, you slowly watch but for me, the days elapse indistinguishably. What is mine is a result, a final product. But for you, you watch the funeral unfold elaborately and slow like a butterfly unwinding from a cacoon and taking flight into the sky. Except nature held higher hopes... the product of transformation was exquisite. What is mine is deformed and crooked. Your funeral for me is sorrowful and cold. What's mine is yours.
I love you as though I am the Earth and you are the moon. You exist during daytime and nighttime but when darkness falls, you provide light. If you provide me with a hope like this and I continue to self-destruct then I wonder whether I'm fit to grow soil, bloom flowers and generate oxygen. But it is through you that my water has a tide and if our love can motion oceans, our love must persevere. Who is it that belongs to you as you belong to them, Shopaholics?
COS x
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