Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fiction, flash fiction, nature, short story
Sand is soft. I like the softness and the smoothness and the whiteness of it. When it trickles in it seems to fill the spaces that seem empty and in need of filling.
First it filled my toes. It rushed down my legs, and I wondered what could be more sweet than a gradual seduction? In my imagination I saw it creeping up and up and grain by grain creating a model of myself in sand. A sand woman was what I would become, more transient perhaps, but also less demanding than the sharp glass of my exterior. I welcomed the cool trickle of the grains inside me. A trickle that threatened to become a rush that would engulf my torso and my shoulders. Once it reached my shoulders I knew I couldn’t stop it, but I was content, believing I had invited my own defacement.
The sand filled up my mouth so that I could no longer speak. What use had I for words, though, really? I struggled not to sneeze as it overtook my nose. A sneeze from a sand woman would seem so undignified. Before it could fill up my eyes I looked around and saw a desert and I felt at peace. I was becoming one with my environs. Then I saw a cactus.
In the small shade of the cactus was a lizard, and beside it were sagebrush and desert flowers. I felt my eyes well up in tears as I realized sand woman would have no eyes to see the desert stars, no mind to make up poetry and stories to comfort the night and foretell the morning. If they could I hoped my tears might wash away the sand and free the sharp glass edges I had been denying were a part of me. I’d wanted freedom and what I’d done was make myself a prison.
Filed under: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorders | Tags: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders
the internet went out in the apartment complex where i was staying, which is why you haven’t seen me around the past couple days. the good news is: i’m out! i’m freeeeeeee, baby!
discharged today, to stay with my younger sister in miami for the next 2 weeks while continuing treatment on an intensive outpatient basis. i’m glad and scared and relieved and freaked out and all those things. but i know if i have too much trouble i can go back into the centre and then work on transitioning in a more gradual way. otherwise it’s important to learn i can stand on my own two feet and not postpone re-entry into reality.
wish me luck, blown kisses all around loves.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fiction, flash fiction, short story, spirituality
All I remember is that it was beautiful.
I was a child atheist in that peculiar certain way that children will believe things. In my case it was a certainty, an insistent certainness of unbelieving. Santa Claus existed, but God didn’t. Then the day came and most of the believers lost their faith, and I happened to find it. Perhaps it speaks to a basic contrariness of my own nature, I don’t know. All I know is wonder. And beauty- always beauty.
I looked up into the morning sky and saw the pale translucent disc of the moon, no different from all the other times I’d seen a moon in morning, yet somehow it was entirely different. We lived inland enough so that the disruption of the tides, all the devastation we later learned was wrought by that day didn’t effect us. The disc that had been the moon began to drift about the sky. Gradually I began to discern tentacles and subtle changes in shape, now round, now oval, now round again. A fantastic giant made the sky its home for an hour, bringing wonder to children and devastation to low lying coastal areas.
How can destruction and beauty be one and the same? Well, in that instant I became aware that God was in this. Since that day I have become an adult and I’m told the world has changed completely. No longer are people truly sure of anything. Most of those that believed the world to be solid and reliable were shaken to their roots and below, so even after all these years that life has gone on as usual we don’t find the same sort of rock solid knowledge of what is true and false, or right or real or unreal that I’m told existed previously.
I wouldn’t presume to argue with those of you who lost their faith that day but it’s occurred to me that perhaps that lack of knowningness could be God, also.
Filed under: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorders, overeaters anonymous | Tags: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders, overeaters anonymous, pro-ana, proana
sometimes i feel better, sometimes worse. i don’t know where this is headed. i’m still not feeling the super optimism, so beware if you respond to this on a positive note, you may end up making me feel worse since i can’t feel it myself and you probably won’t get a response.
i still don’t know if i want to do this recovery thing once i leave. i still don’t believe i can do it, that if i try my hardest i’ll get any good result out of it. i’ve done it before and all i did was rise up a ways and fall all the harder. i have years to wait before i’m even as far as i already got before much less going further.
i try to believe my therapist because she tells me she doesn’t believe my negative words because my actions contradict them. i take every suggestion, i go above and beyond to challenge myself and move forward rather than fighting and holding back and trying to manipulate. she says people who don’t want it don’t act this way. she’s smart, and it helps to be told that. to be reminded of all the ways i’ve proven that i’m in this all the way for as long as i am here.
i’ve been doing variety hard since friday. all different meals, new snacks, new breakfasts. yesterday i did a restaraunt with my sister and i did really well. no repeat of the last time at all. i’ve been cooking more, trying to actually make edible food rather than just eat whatever. it’s not fun, but it’s gotten a little easier. i figured if i push myself hard instead of holding back and taking baby steps this will all go a lot faster, as far as being freaked out and hating every meal goes anyway.
it doesn’t change how i feel though. and how i feel directly contradicts what i do, because i feel like this is all bullshit and i just want to go back to my eating disorder as soon as possible.
Filed under: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorders, overeaters anonymous | Tags: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders, overeaters anonymous, pro-ana, proana
today was family conference call day.
i think it would be entirely accurate to say that it was disastrous.
i can’t go back there. i came close to just taking off- leave the center, find someplace to crash for the night, figure out some sort of a room to rent here or something, and just have that be it. i can do ed and isolation just as well here as i can in the condo my parents own.
i don’t really want to get a job and pay for a place to live and cut off most contact with my parents for the time being, but i think it may be necessary. it is very clear that going back to living in the condo that they own is not ok and i don’t think it’s going to be ok anytime soon. i never wanted to let them buy it for me. i told them it would just be something for them to have on me and hold over me. i knew i shouldn’t go for the easy way but i figured just this one time it would be ok.
big mistake. huge. living there will be impossible. and i can’t stay at a treatment centre forever. i can buy some time by transitioning to outpatient treatment while staying with my sister (hell- i could easily buy a whole other month of residential because they’d happily pay for it). but the point is, i have to leave sometime. the sooner the better in many ways so as not to get too comfortable in a fake place. but now after talking to them it seems clear that i don’t have anything to go back to.
i wish i had never come. this is looking like it’s going to be a lot more involved and a lot more difficult than i bargained for. i can’t go back and stay in recovery. i could go back and relapse, obviously. or i could stay here and relapse which seems the best option right this second. otherwise i’m pretty much up against it- here or in boston i’m going to have to live someplace i can afford and nothing is going to be safe or easy again.
sucks to be me and btw all my lovely supportive friends you are definitely not understanding where i’m at in my recovery if you think i’m going to cut the tags off my clothes. i’m not even agreeing not to weigh myself the second i’m out of this treatment centre, much less deface my clothing.
Filed under: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorders | Tags: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders
yesterday wasn’t so fun. i had a new meal i had to try eating, a big change from my old standby foods. i was very freaked out and uncomfortable by it, didn’t want to go through with it, and felt horrible after. i have another new meal tonight, and then another and another, all week pretty much. i must have been crazy to agree to it.
after lunch i went out to the little local mall with a group of the others. we went to barnes and noble and old navy. i enjoyed the bookstore (of course) and bought a couple sci fi novels that i’m going to love reading. the clothing store was not as fabulous.
i really knew i could use some short sleeved shirts and a pair of pants that wasn’t jeans. my packing job was laughable and i could probably use quite a bit more than that, but that was the bare minimum. so, with some anxiety, i entered olf navy.
i did everything i knew i wasn’t supposed to. i got a pair of navy blue capris i felt could be worn but also double as work-out gear (what i’ve been needing) and a yellow tee, but i also got pairs of jeans in different sizes. then i went straight to the fitting room to begin the madness.
i don’t think my perceptions are distorted. that said, i get very confused and anxious in fitting rooms. its no fun at all to find you’re squeezing into a small size and have to decide to get a bigger one, but i think its even worse to find you’re in need of smaller sizes. the small capris i bought had room in them. the size 2 jeans, also. the size 1s fit. i hadn’t been able to find a zero, but i figured those would have fit me.
i went out, traded my S for an XS, and by the way picked up a couple pairs of kids’ size jean shorts. size 14 and size 12. then it was back to the fitting room. the XS fit, still with some room in them, even. i’m wearing them now. they definitely aren’t too small. the 14 was snug, but fit. then i squeezed myself into the 12. how fucking ridiculous is it for a 30 year old woman to be forcing herself into way-to-small childrens’ clothing? shockingly, i managed to get them on though.
then the fear started hitting. it is terrifying to me that i fit the sizes that i do. my anorexic pride wants me to fit the girls’ 12, but another part of me looks at size 12s and thinks they ought to fit and looks at smaller sizes and cannot understand how they are fitting my body. having to go back for an XS is insanity. i simply cannot be that small. same to fitting a size 1 or 0. i flat out can’t believe it which makes the fact that the objective truth of the universe seems to be disagreeing with what i percieve as reality very uncomfortable.
i’ve been a size 22. i’m not a size 22 now, i can see that. so i fall into a trap of thinking i am not experiencing distorted perceptions. if i look in the mirror and know i’m smaller than i was when i was fat what could i be missing? then something like this happens and i just get stuck in this place of not knowing how i could be right and not really believing i could be wrong either. i ought to be fitting a 12, maybe an 8 or something. instead i’m trading S for XS. INSANITY!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fantasy, fiction, flash fiction, short story
i heard from the girl with one eye again recently. it’s not a full story, just a fragment, but i thought i’d share it with you all anyway.
What are you still doing here? You want a happy ending, don’t you? The angry one-eyed girl puts on a pink prom dress and realizes that she isn’t all that different. She gets herself an orange and black glass catseye so she can show her individuality without offending people’s delicate sensibilities by showcasing her disability so blatantly. What do you think? Do you like that story?
The sooner you leave off trying to read your story, the sooner this will all make sense to you. It isn’t yours at all. It’s my story.
I was walking back from CVS when I saw the centaur. A man-horse is supposed to be noble, but not this one. He was disgusting. His greased out hair made him look more like a bum doing something unspeakable with a horse’s rear end. I stared at him with my good eye and with my empty socket. I did my best to communicate with a look that I saw mangy old centaurs every day and the reason for my stare was how unkempt and disheveled he was looking.
The centaur grinned at me and winked when our eyes met. Then he winked again, real slow, in such a way that made it clear that he was mocking my one-eyed condition. So I smiled back faking a curtsey. Two monsters in on the same joke, invisible to ordinary people.
It wasn’t till I’d made it home that it occured to me to wonder what a centaur might be doing here in Boston. Centaurs come from Greece or something, don’t they?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fiction, flash fiction, short story, spirituality
God came to me without a word and He gave me a box with a seed and a candle. I opened it and I thanked Him and praised Him, and as He left the wick flared and I had light to see the world with.
I saw the slums and the houses of the politicians and I knew what I must do. To set things right I took the flame and lit the slums ablaze. The light of God spread through the slums and it flew up to the hills where the politicians lived. It lit up the offices and the homes of the workers and the dockyards and the suburbs and then it roared out into the countryside. Flame spread throughout the land, the farms and the parks and the wild country. They burned cities and towns, states and countries. The nations of the world were brought to ashes as I stood and watched and waited for the flames to die leaving blackened earth and nothing more behind them.
Into this wasteland I walked and I stood on the spot of my birth and I took the tiny seed from my pocket where it had been waiting. I put it in the earth and the rains came and the black soil fed it as it grew into a beautiful garden. I picked oranges and and mangos and papaya and bananas and as I knew it would the garden grew peacefully, filling itself with rare birds and flowers all in harmony with one another. This was the garden of my dreams and it could cover the world now that I had made the space for it. I turned to see if God was watching and there stood the Dream King, admiring my garden of wonders.
With pride in my voice I asked him “Well, was this about what He was thinking?”
“Not… exactly.” said the Dream King. Then I woke up.
Beside my bed there sat a seed. Behind it flickers a candle. Now I sit here thanking Him for second chances and I wonder if, perhaps, it may be best to let Him handle them.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: children, fiction, flash fiction, short story
big rock.
4 boys are here.
the fat One. the skinny One. the One with the hat. the One with the gun.
they found something.
“kill it.” So says the skinny One. “I want to dissect it.” the One with the hat is holding it. protecting it. it is a Lizard. I know Him. I live above Him in the hotter times. sometimes at night I live below him.
the One with the gun shoots him with water. the One with the hat squeaks when the skinny One severs his head with a piece of wood. the 4 say “ew” when the guts come out.
now they play a game on Me. they climb Me and they push each other off of Me. they laugh. when they are gone I wonder. when will come another lizard?
Filed under: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorders | Tags: anorexia, bulimia, eating disorder recovery, eating disorder treatment, eating disorders
the lunch out at the restaraunt went poorly, but i think it’s okay now, mostly.
first the bad news- i didn’t make it through lunch well. after what felt like forever i ordered fish and baked potato (they had no corn or peas). then i sat there frozen unable to eat a bite. everyone ate and talked and i just sat there, stuck. at the very end the nutritionist came over and we decided i’d have a few bites of each, and then i could pack it and we’d go. i felt so awful.
afterwards we were walking over to the grocery store and the nutritionist acted normally (in other words, not making me feel like i’d fucked up or was bad) so after grocery shopping i got up my courage and went and asked her if there was anything she’d suggest i do to make up for what had happened. she gave a general suggestion of my adding one carb and one protein to a later meal or snack and i came up with a plan of how to do that, adding one to my next snack and the other to dinner. she was very genuinely pleased that i’d been willing to ask and able to come up with those suggestions.
she said i didn’t have to add the food if i felt it would be too difficult, that the most important thing was to just return to the plan as usual. in the end i didn’t actually make the changes, but my day was no where near as bad after lunch as it was beforehand.
