It is 11 pm on Sunday night. Midterms start tomorrow. Most of my friends are pulling all nighters to study for the tests they are worried sick over. But me? I'm pulling an all nighter. But not to study for my midterms. I'm staying up because my body physically won't sleep. It's shaking and freezing. The physical showing of the racing of my mind. I ate three meals and two snacks today. I haven't done that in a week. I never planned on doing it again. I planned on starving for as long as my body would hold out. But today I didn't have that option. I had to eat. And now I can't sleep. Because there is nothing beautiful left. I lost a friend tonight. Not physically. She's still here, doing whatever it is that she does. But I had the wonderful opportunity to find out that she had been lying to me to make me feel better. Because she thought that lying was better than being honest. And when I called her on it, she pulled the card that she has been busy "navigating her own mental issues". Which struck me because when she needed me to save your life after he overdose, I didn't turn her down or any other time she needed help because I have my own issues. No. I did more research to be able to help her more. But you see, there is nothing beautiful left. My brother took time tonight to call me a fucking bitch. To point out how much time he wasted caring about me. To tell me how my eating disorder has ruined his life. It drove me to almost breaking my 23 months of being self-harm free. That is right. Tonight, I was completely ready to tear open my body. I didn't care. I still don't. I want control. I want to feel something. I want to be in charge of who gets to hurt me. And the only person who an do that is me. There is nothing beautiful left. There is nothing beautiful in an 18 yr. old girl staying up all night because she ate, She should be staying up for last minute cramming. But she can't. She's too busy adding calories and shaking out of sheer panic. There is nothing beautiful about a body that has dropped its pulse to below 60 and it's body temperature just to maintain basic functions. There is nothing beautiful about anorexia or about relapse. There is nothing beautiful about the destruction of friendship. The destroying of trust. The lack of regard for those who trust too easily. The fact that is okay for friendships to be one-sided. There is nothing beautiful about brothers hating their sisters. There is nothing beautiful about self-harm. Feeling an intense need to see your own blood, to cause your own pain or to need to have that much control. There is no beauty in self-destruction. There is nothing beautiful about any of this. There is nothing beautiful left in this world. I should be studying and partying and having fun. But instead I shake and go to therapy and have to worry about numbers. There is nothing beautiful about this. Nothing.
I take it back, there is some beauty. here is the beauty in that I am alive and all my friends that are suffering are fighting their hardest. There is beauty because we refuse to let it all fade away. There is beauty because we fight the darkness every day we open our eyes and eat breakfast
Looking at your life from a different perspective may help. If we can’t ‘get better’ for ourselves than doing so for someone else whom we care for turns the perspective from inwards to outwards which tends to make us think more and consider true value in what we do.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has the potential to live the life we want to live. Granted, there will be struggle but struggle is the foundation for recovery. If you don’t slip and bang your knees every now and then it wouldn’t be recovery. Plus, you also wouldn’t see the beauty in anything.
I think the real piece that fuels anyone’s recovery is will, strength, and determination. You can do anything you set your mind too. Maybe next semester you’ll be doing what your friends are doing in college. Maybe things will be different. Maybe you will be different. Change is a process. If we didn’t have change we’d never move forward. If we didn't have hope we'd always be kept in the dark.
Hold on.
Don't give up yet.