I’m so ANGRY at my body for not doing what it needs to do to lose weight. Giving in so easily. So weak and useless and clumsy and huge. And my head for relying on the idea of suicide and a coma as ways of losing weight. Not being able to deal with living while changing. What a fuck up.
Just angry at yourself?
Yes. No. I think I’m angry at them too, for not protecting me during those times. I mean my body didn’t do enough but why was I even in those situations in the first place? And why was I allowed to be hurt so badly? Why aren’t those people being punished for what they did?
Because obviously you’re not worth anything to anybody, you fat piece of shit.
No. NO. That voice has to come from somewhere else. I know what I sound like, who I am, and that’s not me. Neg Voice been there for so long that it’s hard to separate her out from the rest of me, but she is separate. She comes out when I try to feel anything hard about the past, to squash it down again and try to make it all about my body.
So what else do you feel then?
I think it’s more sadness than anger. Sad for myself that I wasn’t protected from her, that I wasn’t able to depend on anyone or reach out or make it stop. Frustrated that she had such a hold over me and everyone else, and that she still does even though she’s interstate. I say that I don’t think about it or care about her but I do. The assault in August 2001 was like…a bottle of bleach being poured onto a deep open wound, but the patterns of abuse were already so well established that it didn’t really matter. Does that make sense? What he did, what she was doing, what they weren’t doing, it all kind of just blurred into one continuous attack on me, on my body. I had no way of dealing with it and I didn’t trust that anyone else would care enough to do anything, so I just left it open for people to throw more acid on. So long as I float above it, squash it down, numb it with food or starving or being in a coma or whatever, it’s OK because I don’t have to feel it.
But now I’m trying to work on it, trying to accept the idea that I have worth, that my body is worthy of care. It means being in my body, feeding it regularly, feeling it, putting protective barriers around it. Defining myself as me not as the Neg Voice defines me, not as ‘the fat useless one’ or as ‘dumping ground’. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t even know if I can do that.
So you’re scared?
Yes, genius. I’m fucking terrified. I’m fearful of staying like this forever- despising myself, stuck in the binge/purge/starve cycle, being isolated, never connecting to anyone because they might hurt me- but I’m even more scared of trying to change and having to feel everything and having to look after myself and live in my body in the world.
What are you going to do now?
I want to curl up in under a pile of blankets and sleep forever. I want to starve until I waste away and kill myself. I want to binge and binge until my body explodes. I want to slash at my body and get all the awful things out of it and finally be free of them. I want to overdose and numb everything out for a while.
Yes, but what are you actually going to do?
Go for a walk in the rain, come back and make a cup of Lady Grey, work on my assignment while listening to calm music, go to sleep.
Well there you go kiddo, that’s living. You’re doing it.
Piss off. Go and sit in someone else’s traumatised brain for a while.
Glad to be of service. Therapy Fairy, signing out.
