I am afraid to write of it. I am afraid to speak of it. Because the whisper has only just recently become a voice. And I'm afraid that if I write or speak of it, I will prevent that voice from becoming a roar.
I am feeling old sensations quivering like a waiting bullet in the chamber of my veins. For I am feeling the rustlings of my eating disorder's return; a playing around of behaviors.
Physically: I feel the occasional pricks of cold penetrate my skin. I see the blue and purple veins peeking at me from beneath the flesh of my feet. I see the narrowing of my fingers. I sense the swimming of my head come lunch and the shallow pricks of hunger inflicted upon a gurgling stomach. I notice the familiar way my eyes have of distorting colors, shapes, and dimensions during conversations. I sense the silk of my work pants brush the points of my hips as the excess fabric 'round my wasit shuffles side-to-side as I walk. Side-to-side. Swish, swish.
Psychologically: I feel the fear of weighing in due to the disapointment that will follow if I don't lose weight. Or worse yet, if I gain weight. I feel the anxiety of needing to know the number. I think tonight of tomorrow morning's weigh in and how I hope to have lost. I sense the dread of certain calories and foods for the foreboding risk that they may stall my losing. I feel the fleeting sense of excitment when I notice I've lost four pounds and the setting in of the determination to keep going. I feel the pride that maybe, just maybe, I do have what it takes to get skinny again.
Because, although the excitement of weight loss is rapidly replaced by a drive to achieve better, higher numbers, to Ace my eating disorder's entrance exam on the topic: how to starve yourself successfully, there is a persistent sense of control and a constreat dread of losing it. It as though the eating disorder is Jane clutched in the hands of King Kong, anticipating the moment when she will be crushed and killed; constant anxiety. There is a sense of wonder and amazaement, of superiority, when you realize you don't have to eat. Don't want to eat. And you fear becoming "normal" once more. Of being average and dreadfully human. Where's the excitement in that? Much more interesting to be super-human. To have your own little life drama play out on the big screen!
Such a fragile brute she is.
