Pressure

Last night, I had one of those dreams to wake a person buried in even the deepest denial.  It was deep and disorienting, and though it kept waking me, it only returned stronger each time I would drift back to sleep. The alarm had gone off several times over before I could finally wake for good.

I remember it seemed to begin in Phoenix's family home.  We had just found out his uncles were coming to visit for the day, so I quickly made excuses about needing to work and made my exit before they could arrive.  Then at work, Phoenix gave me a phone-call to let me know they just wanted to have a meal with us, and if it was less pressure, we could have dinner out with them and Phoenix's parents that evening after work.  I agreed hesitantly, but when I stepped from the office to leave, his uncles were waiting on me. They began chasing me up and down the road, through the gardens, and the office car-park. I was begging for them to go away and leave me alone but they wouldn't. Finally, they cornered me between two cars and demanded to know why I was hiding, why I didn't like them, why I was taking Phoenix away from his home country, and how I could be so selfish and horrible.  I was in tears, and I ran back into the office to hide in the toilet for a little bit.  They followed and sat through in the waiting room which (for some reason) had a clear wall between it and the toilet, so when the uncles seemingly cajoled a child into bumping whatever was covering the wall, the whole waiting room could see me on the toilet.  I fled the office again in tears, and retreated to what looked like my own family home, but somehow one of his uncles found me.  I hid in the shop and then in the den until Phoenix appeared and began trying to comfort me, but just as we were getting anywhere, his mother arrived and started questioning me as well.  It was disguised as small talk but every remark was loaded to the point I angrily asked her too to leave us alone, at which she was terribly hurt and Phoenix was upset I had offended her.

I don't remember much after that.  The interrogation by his uncles just keeps going around and around my head as I sit here and try to distract myself with emails or Cheezeburger or even my 2011 tax forms.  The anger has worn off now that Phoenix and I went over it again, and he understands just why it upset me so much, but it doesn't lessen the tension within me whenever his uncles' "requested" visit comes up.  He wants to see them before we move. They want to see us before we move. I want to move and help Phoenix to find his feet and prove to his family that he is a capable, responsible, intelligent adult. I'm just not sure his family would allow us that without hurt feelings, and that's not what I want for them or Phoenix.

Is it selfish to say I just want to find a way to make everyone happy without feeling such terrible pressure myself? I keep asking myself that, and I keep coming back to it being nothing but childish and cowardly, because it would probably mean either (a) putting any family get-together off until we come back to visit or (b) courteously avoiding any family get-together set up beforehand.  I just don't feel strong enough to deal with the pressure at the moment.

It's hard enough when people little better than strangers assume it's because I've been unhappy here that Phoenix decided to move.  As if Phoenix could never want to relocate or see something he wanted elsewhere!  I know it's a huge move and I won't argue that my unhappiness has played a part in our decision, but would it be different if we were moving from Phoenix's home country to a entirely foreign country rather than the my home country? Would that be more acceptable? Would that be an adult decision rather than somehow being my fault? I don't think people realize how much it's tearing me up inside, taking Phoenix away from the place he was born and raised.  I'm not doing it out of any desire to monopolize or harm him. In fact, if Phoenix had at any point before or during our visa processing said that he didn't want to move, I would've tried to stick it out here. This has been Phoenix's decision as much as (if not more than) mine.

I've grown up being judged at family get-togethers, for one reason or another.  When I was stronger, I could deal with the emotional turmoil and anger mixed with familial pity, but these people aren't my family. They are Phoenix's family, and all they've ever known me as is some figment of their imagination - not myself.  I'm not me around them and they don't even realize it. They just judge that person... and I can hardly bear thinking about it at all.

I want to move with Phoenix, find our paths and our feet, and then come back to visit as ourselves. At least then if his family don't always approve of us, we can at least be secure in ourselves.  The pressure would melt away and we could just be.... That, I would love.

From the Ground

Dear Glados,

It's a tad unorthodox to talk to you this way, I know.  By now, you've probably gotten used to being blamed and feared but never truly confronted. I suppose in a way I've been afraid to because once your existence is confronted and acknowledged, I'm responsible from there. No one can silence you for me. You're my demon, and you've done a fantastic job convincing me I'm too weak, too exhausted to stand up to someone like you.  I believe it a lot of the times - especially when you're telling me to binge or starve or exercise, exercise, exercise. But you know what? I am tired. I'm tired of you!

You've set me up for today all week, haven't you? When I nearly binged several times and only tearful prayers kept me from giving in, it was you. When I was walking back from work and angrily thinking of whether it would make up for having been sat at a desk all day, it was you. When I ate those fries I didn't even want, when I deliberated over having a banana last night, when I didn't eat anything extra for exercising more, it was you, wasn't it? You wanted me to be weak for today when so many of my triggers would come at once. You know me so well... and you wanted me to binge today.

I think it frightened you when I went for 5 days without you. After all, if I don't listen to you, who will? You only exist because I do. It's not me who is nothing without you. It's you who's nothing without me! Even now when I feel little more than a shell for your hard, angry existence, you need me. But I don't need you. Not anymore. Not now.

For over a year now, you've hidden behind whatever mask necessary to keep yourself in my life. First you were my friend, then a substitute mother, and finally a prison warden. What began as healthy eating became an ever restricting regiment. I lost my energy and my focus. My knees groan when I crouch or kneel now.  It has become increasingly harder to sit or stand up straight. I can't eat anything without mentally weighing it, and I can't even go about the house without trying to figure out how to make the most exercise of it. The foods I used to love terrify me now. You made my own family look at me like a stranger! You drove my husband to do the same to himself! You took me away from myself and everything I wanted to be!

I thought you were my guardian above all else, and that was my first mistake. That's what gave you this power, I think, because when everything you do is "for me" and always "in my best interest", I close my eyes and trust you. That's how you justify keeping me face down on the ground, isn't it? Whenever I'm doing fine without you, you just whisper about how you're only trying to help, only trying to make me beautiful, and in my guilt, I binge. Because if you're my friend... what a monster I am for not listening.

Well, the truth is out, Glados. I'm not the monster. You are. And as I sit here in the aftermath of today's victory you had over my better judgement, I can feel your lies crumbling. You'll build them back up, I'm sure. I know this won't be your last attack. You probably still have a lot of fight left in you, but... I'm hoping that from today I'll have a heck of a lot more fight in me than I have until now. 

You're sick, Glados, and I don't want to be sick with you anymore. There's no place for someone like you in the life I want to build and the person I want to be. Cry and shout and scream all you want. Nothing will stop me from hearing you, but I don't have to listen. I don't have to act on it. What I do is my choice, and you're just an infection of it. I'm determined to be healed of you.

This was but a battle today. The war still rages on.

Knowing My Name

(Originally posted on July 2, 2011)

Since I was a child, I have had many names: the nerd, the socially-inept, the disappointment; but also the crafter, the student, and (my personal favorite) the ever aspiring author.  For better or worse, they are all names I can’t help but feel I have known only as memories for nearly two years now.  I don’t know who I am.  I barely even know who I was, because she just wasn’t the sort I ever expected to allow our childhood depression back in.  She had conquered it, I’m sure. She knew herself with all her names and roles, hopes and fears.  But me… she wouldn’t know me at all.  She wouldn’t even know my name.

I have other things to fill my time
You take what is yours and I’ll take mine

See the world hanging upside down.
You can understand dependence.

It’s been about a year since I moved for just the second time in my life. The year before that was one of great confusion and restlessness as I began to doubt how well-suited I was to the traditional college routes I had undertaken.  I think something in me was expecting the move to somehow clear my head and make clear how I was to live my life from then on.  But it didn’t, and just a couple months in, I was miserable and faking my way through social engagements so my husband and his family wouldn’t catch on.  I smiled when I wanted to cry and laughed instead of screaming, and as I came to hate myself more and more, I finally made the unconscious decision that if I were to be nothing more than a shell, then I could at least make up for the void inside with a pretty exterior.

It was May or June of 2010 when I began dieting. It was innocent at first – cutting down on fats and refined carbohydrates, and trying to eat more “whole” foods.  Then the portions began to creep down.  My attempts to exercise daily ballooned from just a few minutes worth to over an hour.  The weight I had put on for the first few months after the move began to fall off.  When I looked in the mirror at night, I still felt hollow but I couldn’t help but hope and tell myself again and again that if I kept it up, if I could make myself beautiful, no one would look deep enough to find out all of my substance had faded away.

Now let me at the truth
Which will refresh my broken mind
So tie me to a post and block my ears
I know my call despite my faults
And despite my growing fears

My mood deteriorated completely. I had no hope or drive, and even the desire to write or craft (let alone the energy) disappeared completely.  I stopped speaking with friends and only maintained contact with my family for how much I missed them. My relationship with my husband began to suffer too as I became angrier and angrier with this situation I was sure had robbed me of my stubborn strength.

Months passed this way until finally in October, I collapsed after several weeks trying to completely eliminate carbohydrates from my diet. We visited my family for several weeks shortly thereafter, and when we returned, we decided there was no choice but to contact a local counsellor for advice.  We could think of no where else to turn.

It’s empty in the valley of your heart
The sun, it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears
And all the faults you’ve left behind

Time has a funny way of passing when your focus is on internal mechanisms and not the world outside.  It feels like years ago that we last saw our counsellor and yet the months that we saw her still seem so recent, it pains me every time I think back to her asking to stop our sessions so that we could afford to have me see a specialist in eating disorders.  It hurts because I know she’s right.  Even with all the time she spent with us, I still careen from angry to aimlessly sad several times in any given day.  I still try to get away with eating as little as possible so that my physical body will make up for my perceived lack of personality, and then when I’m stressed or bored, I respond with a binge on any food I can find – anything to keep from examining the feelings and emotions that hurt. If I’m to be honest, this post is an example of just such behavior.  For lunch, I fixed a tuna teriyaki salad with a pita and hummus on the side.  I’ve been quite comfortable with this meal on several occasions, but I was so keyed up about returning to finish this post that I leant over to our “pantry” and proceeded to eat an oat and hazelnut Nature Valley bar, 1 hard-boiled egg, a handful of stale peanuts, half a kit-kat, half a Hershey’s chocolate bar, a pack of Japanese panda biscuits, a mint chocolate button, a snack-sized Mars bar, 3 Nairn’s chocolate oat biscuits, a frozen brownie, 2 Smarties tablets, and the remainders of a bag of pretzels.  I felt (and still feel) sick and disgusting, but that dark void within me kept crying out that if I just kept occupied, I wouldn’t have to face these feelings.

You cannibal, you meat-eater, you see
But I have seen the same
I know the shame in your defeat

I tell myself I don’t want the counsellor to have been right and that if she was, I’ve strayed so far from who I used to be, I don’t know how I’ll ever get back.  But sitting here now… I wonder if that’s just the void talking, trying to save itself, and keep me weak enough it can survive.  I named her Glados, if you can believe it.  The void trying to hollow me out, her name is Glados.  I, meanwhile,  was and (I hope still am somewhere inside) Sparky, the Steamstress. I’m Glados’ adversary, and it’s very nice to meet you.

So make your siren’s call
And sing all you want
I will not hear what you have to say

Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it’s meant to be

Glados is my siren, I think. She calls to lead me astray onto the shoals or shore, away from the sea.  I’ve been in the cave with her for some time now, and my legs are weak.  Most days, I even feel as though I’ve forgotten my name completely – that all I am is the shell Glados takes such pride in disparaging and nothing more.  But today… I can almost feel Sparky there, crawling back from the shadows to the cave mouth because today… today, I’ve written for the first time in what must be months now.  It was honest and it was painful and it took a lot of Glee, Adele, and Mumford and Sons to help coax it out of me, but it wasn’t stuffed down even by a binge.  And you know what? I think I’m going to do right by the counsellor and my husband and write this eating disorder specialist, because if it feels this good just to see the light in the mouth of the cave, I want to find my way back to the beach and set sail once more – not as Glados’ shell, but as Sparky in her entirety.

And I will hold on hope.
And I won’t let you choke.
And I’ll find strength in pain.
And I will change my ways.
I’ll know my name as it’s called again.

All lyrics Copyright Mumford and Sons. I claim no ownership whatsoever.