My most powerful and humbling reminder:
I see it, I crave it, I eat it, I enjoy it. I am full.
In that simplicity, I am healed.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Hunger, pt 2
Art therapy group. Asked to visualize what's weighing us down, with tissue paper, magazine images, and only the use of our hands to tear it with. I went to town on this one.
My heart, an open tunnel, shadowed tentacles...fear, love, thought, memory, passion...
burrowing in, reaching out...
too much.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Hunger, pt 1
Praise to the poets, my saviors, who have the words to articulate the hunger I feel, that no recipe, no appetizer, no entree, nor dessert could even begin to satiate...
this comfort, courtesy of Pablo Neruda:
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.
this comfort, courtesy of Pablo Neruda:
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.
Girls, Interrupted
I've been meditating hard on how to write about the community of girls and young women that I have met in this program - careful not to generalize, to project, to exploit or turn them into characters in my head which is so easy for me to do. We are a motley crew for sure, riding the spectrum of socio-economic backgrounds, family makeups, histories of trauma, but certain fundamental similarities exist which bond us in a way that I have never experienced with a group of women before - we all give way more than we're comfortable receiving, we all prefer to please others over ourselves, we have the capacity to love to the point of self-depletion, we are all really really hungry for something we can't quite define and, as a result, we are all starving and all in pain.
The median age of the group is 19, which I had both feared and anticipated before coming in. I mean, the reality is that the majority of girls with EDs are young, so I had expected to be one of if not the oldest of the group, but the literal reality of, at 35, having to dive back down the rabbit hole of my adolescence is pretty daunting and surreal. The voices in my head start, You should have kicked it by now, You should have tackled this in your youth like these girls are, nipped it in the bud the first time around in college when you had the chance. I am so envious of these young women, self-interested and unattached, carried by the emotional and financial support of their parents, diving deeply into their disorders without the added complication of a partner or child to factor into the mix. It's all about them, as it should be.
Wound mates. Open hearted and so loving, hugging and cuddling, as giving as they are needy. They are all amazing actors - I know, because I am one, too - smiling, laughing, joking at mealtimes to distract one another from the incredible unease we're all feeling at having to just eat a damn plate of food. Like normal people. But we are not normal people. And as the food on the trays starts to disappear, the lively chatter around our big table starts to die down, our bodies start to sink in our chairs, feet tapping nervously on the floor, eyes start to glaze over and lose focus on any one thing, darting back and forth from the nutritionist, hovering like a hawk, and the carnage of our ravaged trays. Just check my fucking tray and get me the hell out of here. There's an unspoken language between all of us - when we are full, we are vulnerable and in pain. We are weak and unsteady, guilty and undeserving. And that's when we need each other the most.
I watch myself around these girls, feeling kinship but also a need to stay removed and detached, to protect myself from feeling protective over them. In many ways, they actually have more to teach me then I do them. They have a hope and optimism that I've lost somewhere along the way - maybe from already having had 15 years of living with an ED, maybe from having to deal with the practical life burdens of living on my own, maybe from losing a sense of self in the process of segmenting my identity into the roles of wife and mother, or maybe because I have tasted what I'm hungry for and have convinced myself it will never be fully satisfied. I'm not quite sure how it happened. All I know is that the words of encouragement and support that they speak to each other, and to me, hold a weight and a fire that is so potent and untainted. Their eyes sparkle and their voices boom, repeat after me: I am wonderful and beautiful and made on purpose, for a purpose. I am a unique work of art, strong and determined. I am special, I am beautiful and I will recover. For those around me but, mostly, for me.
I listen to their words, read the doodles they leave on their notebooks and the walls in the facility, and I can't help but take it in because it's coming from a place of pure love and truth. And that's something even strong-willed, jaded ole me has a hard time resisting.
I am in utter awe of these girls, choosing to lift themselves out of their lives, their social circles, their schooling, to sit in the gap, in the uncomfortable void where their demons reside, to look into the darkness, both eyes open, and begin to gather the tools to send those demons away. I know I have so much to learn from them if I can just have a seat and get out of my own way.
The median age of the group is 19, which I had both feared and anticipated before coming in. I mean, the reality is that the majority of girls with EDs are young, so I had expected to be one of if not the oldest of the group, but the literal reality of, at 35, having to dive back down the rabbit hole of my adolescence is pretty daunting and surreal. The voices in my head start, You should have kicked it by now, You should have tackled this in your youth like these girls are, nipped it in the bud the first time around in college when you had the chance. I am so envious of these young women, self-interested and unattached, carried by the emotional and financial support of their parents, diving deeply into their disorders without the added complication of a partner or child to factor into the mix. It's all about them, as it should be.
Wound mates. Open hearted and so loving, hugging and cuddling, as giving as they are needy. They are all amazing actors - I know, because I am one, too - smiling, laughing, joking at mealtimes to distract one another from the incredible unease we're all feeling at having to just eat a damn plate of food. Like normal people. But we are not normal people. And as the food on the trays starts to disappear, the lively chatter around our big table starts to die down, our bodies start to sink in our chairs, feet tapping nervously on the floor, eyes start to glaze over and lose focus on any one thing, darting back and forth from the nutritionist, hovering like a hawk, and the carnage of our ravaged trays. Just check my fucking tray and get me the hell out of here. There's an unspoken language between all of us - when we are full, we are vulnerable and in pain. We are weak and unsteady, guilty and undeserving. And that's when we need each other the most.
I watch myself around these girls, feeling kinship but also a need to stay removed and detached, to protect myself from feeling protective over them. In many ways, they actually have more to teach me then I do them. They have a hope and optimism that I've lost somewhere along the way - maybe from already having had 15 years of living with an ED, maybe from having to deal with the practical life burdens of living on my own, maybe from losing a sense of self in the process of segmenting my identity into the roles of wife and mother, or maybe because I have tasted what I'm hungry for and have convinced myself it will never be fully satisfied. I'm not quite sure how it happened. All I know is that the words of encouragement and support that they speak to each other, and to me, hold a weight and a fire that is so potent and untainted. Their eyes sparkle and their voices boom, repeat after me: I am wonderful and beautiful and made on purpose, for a purpose. I am a unique work of art, strong and determined. I am special, I am beautiful and I will recover. For those around me but, mostly, for me.
I listen to their words, read the doodles they leave on their notebooks and the walls in the facility, and I can't help but take it in because it's coming from a place of pure love and truth. And that's something even strong-willed, jaded ole me has a hard time resisting.
I am in utter awe of these girls, choosing to lift themselves out of their lives, their social circles, their schooling, to sit in the gap, in the uncomfortable void where their demons reside, to look into the darkness, both eyes open, and begin to gather the tools to send those demons away. I know I have so much to learn from them if I can just have a seat and get out of my own way.
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