Purge

My fingers
reach down
my throat,
push back
and I heave
and surge
and spew again and again
and
again
my fingers
reach down
my throat.

I wish
the pain
would fall out
this way
or
weighted words
unspoken expulsion
from hot heart pounding darkness.


Desperation

is flecked with orange

tomato skin.

Memorial

I have to admit that my blood ran a little colder as I drove back to the gym and heard this report on the radio...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100928/tuk-eating-disorder-victims-are-remember-45dbed5.html

I guess it is silly to get worried. After all, my choice right?

But the girl who died was six and a half stone.

I have fallen below six that there's nobody to scrutinise me.

My fear of a heart attack doesn't seem quite as strong as my horrible determination to lose weight.
Until I'm alone in the dead of the night, that is.
Then the fear of death at least matches the will to risk it.

Razors and Release.

I have so many words but feel overwhelmed at the idea of trying to piece them together. They swell and tumble, a disparate wave of words and feeling. The wave itself a spectrum of sensation, utterly numb at the base, raw at the breaking crest.

If I could somehow figure out what is going on to cause this level of desperation I might have a hope in hell of controlling it.
These last few days, well... weeks really... I have been fighting (and, shamefully, frequently losing) a battle against the urges and the desires I have to hurt myself in whatever way I can.
Yes.
Self harm.
Controversial. Taboo. Disgusting. Shameful. Painful. Desperate.
And yet, comforting. Releasing. Soothing. Calming. Cleansing.

A paradox and a half.

There are so many different perspectives on self harm that it's hard to keep up.
"Attention seeking" is the label that is possibly the most damning and the most hurtful to those who have to exert such incredible control by resisting the urge to just let rip on themselves. Instead they have to confine the screaming of their stories to such small areas of the body, the most hidden parts.

Tonight, just as many nights this week and the week before that, I stand on the brink of my own desperation to destroy. I fight from a part whose objections I repeatedly overrule, even as it reminds me and warns me of the physical pain I will be faced with when I trample over its defeated form in the rush to reach the razor.

People self harm for a wide variety of reasons and certainly, nowadays with the youth heavily influenced by 'emo' culture and the like, it is quite common; a disturbing trend borne, it would seem, out of a search for identity. Whatever happened to clothing being the defining feature in "teen stereotypes"? It's no defined by the number and depth of the cuts on a wrist.
I digress.
For me as an adult, it's primarily either a release of anger, a punishment if I feel let down, a purging of feelings that I can't hold in, or a response to uncontainable self hatred.

True, I started cutting as a teenager. I was fourteen and unable to speak about the fact that my sister was starving herself to death. Faced with the reactionless faces of my parents, the point blank denials that anything was wrong, and the stinging discipline that met she who dared to contradict; the pain started to spill out in secret ways using a different language. A language of pain which doesn't need to be heard to bring relief, only to be spoken.

At first, it wasn't as good as being able to talk to a grown up, but it made the clamour inside me quieter, and came to be far more effective, and practical, than needing anyone.

Great, you think.
So...
That was THEN. This is NOW.
My past is not my present.

And yet, something died in me back then that I miss in my present.
It wasn't my sister, although I no longer know her, so in some ways, perhaps she was the greatest loss of all. But something in me died and I can't revive it.
Maybe that is what therapy is for. To resurrect what is dead.

I am ashamed to admit that my mind feels invaded with fantasies of what I will do to hurt myself.
Goodness knows if you knew me in real life you wouldn't see a shadow of a ghost of a trace of the truth that I am someone who would ever imagine such fantasies, let alone indulge them.

I sound vaguely like a psycho but you'll just have to take my word for it that I'm the smiley girl you pass on the way to work. I'm your kid's favourite teacher. I'm the one who you come to when you need someone to listen and understand. I'm the one who you can count on to write a list of your problems and work out how you can tackle them in a way that feels manageable and is realistic.

It defies my own understanding then, that that same smiley, logical, responsible empathic, problem solver who is relied on by so many can be so consumed by such a desperate desire to violate her own body.
I'll spare you the details.

First Therapy Break

My therapist is on a break; a two week break which means that I miss four sessions.The last session I had with her was... a difficult place to just 'drop therapy' for two weeks.

I've been informed by her that I have a "disorganised attachment disorder", and in all honesty, given the lack of organisation I practice generally, I'd say that there may be a fair chance this is true.
(Ok. So I am deliberately choosing to misunderstand her).
I don't know much about attachment disorder, other than it is to do with the way a child attaches to its mother during infanthood.
Having little more than a 2 gig memory, it's a strain to recall memories of events that happened 3 years ago, let alone memories of what it may have been like 30 odd years ago, so you'll forgive me if I am slightly cynical. A disorganised attachment though, is allegedly the result of having a mother who cannot (for whatever reason) meet the needs of her baby.

Anyway.
I always thought it was a sign of being incredibly well adjusted if you never really missed anyone while they were away.

Apparently not.

It's amazing how negative a spin the mental health profession can put on everything.
Like... washing your hands a lot can't just be 'a penchant for cleanliness'. Oh no. It has to be 'an OCD'.

Weary sigh.

I'm talking crap and I know it.

Just wanted to let the bricks in my walls have a few words so they feel like they are still important.

Thoughtful of me huh?