When it comes to my relationship with food and my body, this is the most stable I have felt in a long time, ever since that dreaded “flick of the switch” 4 ½ years ago that began the struggled surveillance of what I never thought to notice before.
Intake. Quantity. Output. Restriction. Shape. Size. Awareness before need. Punishment before pleasure. Consequence before action. War with between the body, mind, and spirit. Today I know they are all one, although I do not pretend that every day I let them be. This cannot be an ongoing struggle for me. It just can’t. All signs point to progression, and that is all I can afford to believe in.
But addiction to control is just like any other… you carry it on a leash day by day, moment by moment, second by second. Sometimes you frolick so far from it, that you forget it is even attached to you. Sometimes you are so aware of it that you tug the leash closer, leaving little slack between you and the animal. And some days, you feel no leash at all, and realize you have become it… as you struggle for breath in your tight collar. “Why not just cut the ties altogether?” I ask myself. But even though I know it is possible, I hold tight to the pleasure that all addiction betrays us with.
I used to keep a photo as a reminder. It was a picture taken of me in Lima, Peru during my semester abroad in college. I was standing on a cliff at a famous outlook point above the ocean. My hair was dry and thinning under my baseball cap, my ribs visible beneath my black tank top, collarbones protruding, eyes sunken, chest flat, smile on my face, but no happiness to be seen. At the time, I didn’t see the physical sickness I had become… I only knew that I had to run around the neighborhood park exactly 16 times that evening in order to offset the sandwich I had eaten that day while I was out with my roommates. And this is at a time I truly thought myself to be improving.
I thought myself to be improving because I was now beginning to binge after restricting, and therefore was “eating better”? Because I was no longer in the comfort of my home gym, where I could run 5 miles on an empty stomach, and buy “safe” foods I had befriended from the local Giant? I was getting better, but I would write poems about death, mutilate my own face, and drink alcohol until I had no more mind to worry with. This was improvement in my sad, sad world at that time. This was the picture I kept around for a while, to remind myself how I didn’t want to hurt again.
Today I awoke to a healthy breakfast…. enough food, and the right nutrition I needed to begin my day, but safe and measured all the same. I remain always vigilant of what IS enough food, and what IS the right nutrition, but do I know to what extent? Today I decided to not do any deliberate exercise, and to rest from what little I did yesterday. But still, my reflection changed in the mirror the moment I decided that. I wonder if I am kidding myself with my idea of stability. I’ve seen the picture, I know how sly false assuredness can be. All I can be sure of today is that I am physically and spiritually healthier than ever. The brain is the one, of this trinity of wholeness, who still needs a babysitter. The mind is not as smart as it is clever. It clings to control. So until my leash is cut, which it will be, I will not let it remain in the dark. That is why I choose to share… because nothing unwanted can survive in the light.
Intake. Quantity. Output. Restriction. Shape. Size. Awareness before need. Punishment before pleasure. Consequence before action. War with between the body, mind, and spirit. Today I know they are all one, although I do not pretend that every day I let them be. This cannot be an ongoing struggle for me. It just can’t. All signs point to progression, and that is all I can afford to believe in.
But addiction to control is just like any other… you carry it on a leash day by day, moment by moment, second by second. Sometimes you frolick so far from it, that you forget it is even attached to you. Sometimes you are so aware of it that you tug the leash closer, leaving little slack between you and the animal. And some days, you feel no leash at all, and realize you have become it… as you struggle for breath in your tight collar. “Why not just cut the ties altogether?” I ask myself. But even though I know it is possible, I hold tight to the pleasure that all addiction betrays us with.
I used to keep a photo as a reminder. It was a picture taken of me in Lima, Peru during my semester abroad in college. I was standing on a cliff at a famous outlook point above the ocean. My hair was dry and thinning under my baseball cap, my ribs visible beneath my black tank top, collarbones protruding, eyes sunken, chest flat, smile on my face, but no happiness to be seen. At the time, I didn’t see the physical sickness I had become… I only knew that I had to run around the neighborhood park exactly 16 times that evening in order to offset the sandwich I had eaten that day while I was out with my roommates. And this is at a time I truly thought myself to be improving.
I thought myself to be improving because I was now beginning to binge after restricting, and therefore was “eating better”? Because I was no longer in the comfort of my home gym, where I could run 5 miles on an empty stomach, and buy “safe” foods I had befriended from the local Giant? I was getting better, but I would write poems about death, mutilate my own face, and drink alcohol until I had no more mind to worry with. This was improvement in my sad, sad world at that time. This was the picture I kept around for a while, to remind myself how I didn’t want to hurt again.
Today I awoke to a healthy breakfast…. enough food, and the right nutrition I needed to begin my day, but safe and measured all the same. I remain always vigilant of what IS enough food, and what IS the right nutrition, but do I know to what extent? Today I decided to not do any deliberate exercise, and to rest from what little I did yesterday. But still, my reflection changed in the mirror the moment I decided that. I wonder if I am kidding myself with my idea of stability. I’ve seen the picture, I know how sly false assuredness can be. All I can be sure of today is that I am physically and spiritually healthier than ever. The brain is the one, of this trinity of wholeness, who still needs a babysitter. The mind is not as smart as it is clever. It clings to control. So until my leash is cut, which it will be, I will not let it remain in the dark. That is why I choose to share… because nothing unwanted can survive in the light.
1 comment:
I believe in you Princess. Write it down and make it HAPPEN!
I'm proud of you for putting this out there. This way...there is NO HIDING from it.
Love,
Monica Mingo
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