Turning the page...
I’m sick of it, it tries to get me at every turn. There’s no outsmarting anorexia, there’s only rising above it; knowing it’s going to pipe up but also knowing that you can be louder than it. “It’s not okay, it’s damaging”, she’s right, she’s absolutely right. It is damaging, and not only to me but to all those around me too.
This illness is sad, monotonous, isolating and scary. I wish it were as simple as to write this out, to know it all and to be done with it. I’m not that naive though, as if it were that simple I would’ve opted out years ago. However, I do think that recognition of the arduousness of anorexia helps bridge the gap to letting go.
How does anorexia make me feel? Small, incapable, alone, numb, desperate, and out of control. Yep, I hear you… ‘how does that work?’… cunningly, that’s how. It intertwines itself with positive qualities like conscientiousness and perseverance and makes them self-sabotaging. Silencing the sufferer and stealing their self-worth.
It’s like black ink that’s split onto watercolour paper, it seeps into every crack, throwing darkness on the light until the page is fully immersed. Blotting it out doesn’t work, nor does diluting it with another colour. It’s stained, indelible. Others sit and wonder why you didn’t pick the bottle up, or stop at the first brush. It’s not as simple as that. I wish it were, maybe then I could’ve chosen another colour; a lighter one, one that could be diluted, changed, merged. But again it’s not as simple as that… if it were it wouldn’t be an illness.
I can’t go back and unstain the page, but I can choose to start a new page; new colours, bright ones this time. And that’s what I’m trying to do. But I’m outside and it’s windy, I keep being blown back onto the old dark page.
I don’t want that page anymore. I want the new page.
… but perhaps I need others to help hold that page open so I can start my new painting?
