An Anniversary

Tomorrow marks a significant anniversary for me in my recovery: two months. It seems like such a ridiculously short time. Yet, I’ve never gotten past two months. It feels ridiculous to talk about in a blog post, very self-indulgent. But I want to speak it; in silence we hide what exists. Keeping our silence is part of upholding oppression. And, this is a  fucking huge deal for me. To have gotten this far - regardless of everything - and know that I will continuously make the decision each day to continue. I want to know this moment - and these feelings - and why they exist and how they function - and when I look in the mirror, understand who they’ve formed and form. Even though nearly every particle in my body is screaming for me to give up and indulge in the blissful numbness that is my reality through bingeing and purging. I’m not the same person I was, and I know that I won’t retrace those steps. It’s a very navel-gazing process. But, as I consistently ramble on about - the great feminist meme: the personal is political. For the first time, I actually feel ready to engage with what I created this forum for in the beginning. To research and analyze, from a feminist perspective, the makings of eating disorders; and not solely just the way we relate to food - but what eating disorders represent. The smothering of ourselves and how we practice through fear - an epic way society (and ourselves - implicitly) keeps us from living, speaking, and trying. I’ve been thinking about what it means to be radical and suffer from an eating disorder for years now - as well as how my eating disorder (and numerous other issues) function in my world; yet, for the first time I feel as if my brain is finally wrapping around the details. And so I wonder, what makes it, that in a life lived through addiction and self-imposed imprisonment - what makes it so  that we finally begin to choose differently? For me it’s been a diversity of reasons and incitements - years of getting to this point - and then a series of final catalysts. But, it still exists- my eating disorder. It was only ever just a function of me and my brain. It is simply processing divergingly these days. I don’t want to ramble anymore about myself. But I think there is value in knowing when you’ve reached a significant crossing. And I want to understand this intentional change in paths - and what it symbolizes - and what it symbolizes to go beyond it. So, it begins, the search I’ve been meaning to do in serious deliberateness for years. I promise that it will be more analysis than personal navel-gazing. But, I realized the other day that no one but me knows how hard this process has been - and I needed to tell someone that two months - the longest I’ve ever gone without symptoms - is a fucking big deal. I needed to tell someone. As self-indulgent as it may be-- I’m telling you, blog blog world. And now to understand why we societally and individually create these oppressions: eating disorders and things that function similarly. Now is to begin to see the paths that I/we forge.

To The Womyn in My Life

I never really forgot about this project just didn't make time for it for awhile as I made time for other things. But, I'm prioritizing it now as this project is now surfacing as one of my most important realities. So, I know no one is really reading this stuff right now ;-) but, I need a place to sift through what I'm working on... here we go!

And, for a rebeginning- a poem I wrote about going home for Thanksgiving this year:

To You the Womyn in My Life

-or most specifically to those at that holiday table.

I went home.by bus.

Falling alseep as the miles counted by.

Leaving behind a kiss that was almost.

With a space between.

Of things unsaid within my hands.

And emotions etched in those veins

that do not belong to me

But to you. Dear lady.

You remind me

in unknown ways

of powers I have hidden in these strokes of ours.

Dear womyn.

We sat at the table.

And I felt my skin swell and bloom.

History in those walls.

You spoke of bodies and sizes.

And being full to the brim

Of what?

These words dip empty.

You fix yourself a plate.

And compare your stomachs and sizes.

One time. Twice. Three times. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.... Twenty.

At some point I lost count

tallying in my brain.

What happened when I didnt keep track.

Images without filters.

These shoulders. These womyn. Four generations. Five wombs. Same shoulders.

Same smiles.

Is this how we muffle what we could scream?

Is this how we stifle when we could dance?

Aware of the swelling and the food on my plate.

Shaking my brain to knock in sense.

Measuring to enforce our silence.

Lying on this sofa. Legs stretched across. My fingers feel where once ribs pricked through skin... Where I had plunged so many times.Bones feel each calorie and
.listen.
these echoes.

Dear womyn. You sit across from me. And beside.

And walk beside and you talk of burning away for coming pie.

I leave feeling these etchings – these rings around my neck – and the swelling of my waist.

Dear womyn. 

?

Singing for this sorrow that we have laced in our blood,

eradicating our potential by concentrating our fears.

Balancing on unforgiving scales that say nothing of our strength.

I come home. I see your faces and hear your thoughts. 

I take a bite of leftover Thanksgiving food.

how does history heal?

To Start

I'm at the beginning of the biggest study I've ever attempted: Mental Health in Social Movements.

To begin the study, I'm starting at a place I know. Feminism and Eating Disorders.

I'm a self-identified anarcha-feminist. I'm twenty-five. Twenty-six in September. I've struggled with some form of an eating disorder since I was twelve. I can't really remember not having an eating disorder. Most of my adult life, and currently, I've been/am in an all-out war with bulimia.

The first post on this blog, is a poem I wrote about bulimia this past winter. I think I wrote it when I was going on two months without any symptoms, the longest I have gone in about six years without symptoms. I remember crying when I wrote that poem, as if I were in the midst of a traumatic break-up. And I was, we just happened to get back together, bulimia-and-I, shortly after I wrote that poem.

My mental state right now: I'm at the heaviest I've ever been- due to trying to end my symptoms by refusing to let myself purge after I binge... self-imposing a breaking point.
A point where my eating disordered urges: one to be thin, and the other to lose myself in a binge-- implode on each other...
I realize that it'll only half-work as there is an extreme amount of brain/emotional/behavioral shit I need to deal with, but... I'm into things half-working... better than not working at all.
Though this tactic is causing waves upon waves of self-hatred and making me crawl into a reclusive hole (due to not wanting folks to see me like this)-- I think it might be working... maybe... it is hard to say with these things...

If I recover- and I have to believe in recovery-- it'll be the hardest thing I've ever done. Damn, I sound like a Lifetime movie- but, meh, maybe sometimes ya gotta do it- sound all corny and shit...


But, I feel aware in a way I never have before. And I hate writing about this in public view- and I strive not to be addicted to staring at my own navel.... but, I believe that as feminists, we amplify the stigmas against talking about eating disorders --our body images -- our we relations to dominant culture via our realities -- by pretending that because we hold these 'ideals' we don't have these wide myriad of issues/dealings.
One of my friends called it 'hypocritical feminism'- and she's right... and that's what I'm researching---

If we, as feminists, say that we understand that the patriarchy/the hegemony tries to control us/limit us by saying that we are only of worth if we are other than what we are naturally -- but, we still fall prey to these ideas that we must be other than- whether that is through removing our body hair, refusing to be seen without make-up, fryin' your hair, wearing certain clothes, hating your body-developing distorted body image, dieting, developing eating disorders... the list goes on and on... I believe that everyone who 'the female experience' resonates with on some level, has had to grapple with these issues of being only of worth if other than what you are...

And I think as feminists, we're often even more terrified to admit that we are affected by these issues, because we openly acknowledge the oppression.

And, I think we have to talk about it....

So, that's what I'm aiming to do here. I've always been afraid of blogging because it feels so narcissistic-- but I need a place to catalog this information (that is not the ramblings on my journal) - my thoughts on the matter- hear public responses (this is assuming anyone ever reads my blog) --> and begin my more formal writings on the subject. (Goals: Make zine on issue/ write at least one essay on issue, potentially a series)

I'm probably going to put up a questionnaire here in the nearish future that I'd love for folks to fill out-- if so willing.

First, real blog post--- here we go-- I mean I figure, why have an experience, that is so deeply intimate to my identity and life thus far, and not try to think super critically about it, right?

Nothing Compares

Here we are.
    The teetering point.
Feet postured
             Edge glaring

We hold each other's hand
    Shivering. Gloves unraveling.
                 Pray in solemn
                 agnostic embrace.
                       To know.

The choice.
          Notes gleaming
                       through processed syllables.

On the back porch.
Creaking floorboards.

Your arms have been around me.
Shoulders indented with their romance.

              Extracting.
             Invertebrate
            tenacle-y creature.

Carnivorous devouring.

Desperate indulgence of the drain.

Drip. Drip. Drink. Slurp. Slurp.


To have needed the clasp.

Fingers dig into the space
    beneath your shoulder blades.


To lose you.

How many words for lose?

deplete.
surrender.
sacrifice.


lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost


forfeit.
relinquish.
dissipate.

lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost lost


To not understand this water substance

dripping down cheeks.

lonely.


sitting on this back porch.


.Seize.
.Subsume.


Pretend what you told me.


                   The teetering point.
                         Grab a cliff.
              Hiking gear.
throw a pick
pick?

into the mountain


scale upon rocks

slicing your side

                              The teetering point.

To lose you.

                    We hold hands.
                       close eyes.
     Drift into unaccompanied chambers.

To dance down street posts.



             TO LOSE YOU.
to lose you
to lose you
to lose you
to lose you
to lose you
to lose you
to lose you
to lose you
to lose you
to lose you
to lose you
to lose you
to lose you
to lose
you
to
lose
you
t
o
l
o
s
e
y
o
u



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It's Snowing.