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.