For Me, The First Sign Of Oncoming

I Do Not Remember Very Many Things From The Inside Out. I Do Not Remember What It Felt Like To Touch Things, Or How Bathwater Traveled Over My Skin. I Did Not Like To Be Touched, But It Was A Strange Dislike. I Did Not Like To Be Touched Because I Craved It Too Much. I Wanted To Be Held Very Tight So I Would Not Break. Even Now, When People Lean Down To Touch Me, Or Hug Me, Or Put A Hand On My Shoulder, I Hold My Breath. I Turn My Face. I Want To Cry.

We Know We Need, And So We Acquire And Eat And Eat, Past The Point Of Bodily Fullness, Trying To Sate A Greater Need. Ashamed Of This, We Turn Skeletons Into Goddesses And Look To Them As If They Might Teach Us How To Not-need.

It Is Not A Sudden Leap From Sick To Well. It Is A Slow, Strange Meander From Sick To Mostly Well. The Misconception That Eating Disorders Are A Medical Disease In The Traditional Sense Is Not Helpful Here. There Is No 'cure'. A Pill Will Not Fix It, Though It May Help. Ditto Therapy, Ditto Food, Ditto Endless Support From Family And Friends. You Fix It Yourself. It Is The Hardest Thing That I Have Ever Done, And I Found Myself Stronger For Doing It. Much Stronger.

At Times It May Seem Worse - Harder, At Least - To Live Through The Despair Of This Loss Without The Temporary Comfort Of Our Addictive Behaviour. We Cannot Drown Our Sorrows. We Must Face The Fact That We Don’t Know, Really, Where We Are, How We Got Here, How Long The Pain Will Last, Or How To Move Past It. That Uncertainty May Be The Most Painful Part Of Not Knowing A God: No One Is There To Reassure Us That A God Will Take The Pain And Confusion Away. We Simply Don’t Know. And We Have No Way To Numb Ourselves Or To Forget The Condition We’re In.

In That Six Months, So Much Happened That Death Seemed, Primarily, Inconvenient. The Trial Period Was Extended. I Seem To Keep Extending It. There Are Many Things To Do. There Are Books To Write And Naps To Take. There Are Movies To See And Scrambled Eggs To Eat. Life Is Essentially Trivial. You Either Decide You Will Take The Trite Business Of Life And Give Yourself The Option Of Doing Something Really Cool, Or You Decide You Will Opt For The Grand Epic Of Eating Disorders And Dedicate Your Life To Being Seriously Trivial.