IN THE LIGHT

I keep trying to find a life, on my own, apart from you. I am the [Queen] of excuses – I’ve got one for every selfish thing I do. The disease of self runs through my blood – It’s a cancer fatal to my soul. Every attempt on my behalf has failed, to bring this sickness under control. Tell me, what’s going on inside of me? I despise my own behavior. This only serves to confirm my suspicions that I’m still a girl in need of a Savior. {D.C. Talk}

This song is my mantra, yet how many times have I listened to it? Over and over and over again, but I can’t actually swallow the words. Instead, I just swallow every bit of rage and sadness that is hiding within me, then release it into a dark and obscured oblivion that I cannot find my way out of.

My “disease of self” has overtaken my life. My teeth are rotting, my throat is raw, there’s a permanent scar etched across my knuckle, and oh, yah, I think I’ve given myself cancer. My heart is arrhythmic, I feel dizzy when I stand too fast, and I’ve cracked open some blood vessels in my eye. I’m seeing a doctor tomorrow and I think I may have to cop to my little secret for the first time in my life. Dear GOD, please give me the courage to tell the truth! I’ve been locked inside my bathroom every night while my precious daughter sleeps peacefully just footsteps away from the door with this slow and steady process of suicide.

I never thought I would be one of those women who let an eating disorder control every aspect of their lives, and I don’t believe in “statistics”. I’ve known long well that this was never about the food, but rather, some pathetic attempt to continually purge myself of a lifetime of guilt, shame, and rage. It was the sick sense of order I thought I was maintaining over the contradiction which had become my existence: My Rules; My Choices; My Food; My Control!

I’ve worked so hard to plan my days carefully and carve away my quiet time with her. For more than half my life she’s been the keeper of my deepest and darkest secrets. I’ve trusted her unconditionally with the most painful of my feelings that I could let to the surface, yet somehow, she has betrayed me. My lifelong confidant brought me a comfort and safety that I’d somehow forgotten to know and satiated the emptiest places inside my body and soul with a satisfaction of fullness and order. We were euphoric together, and sometimes almost magical, but that calm, quiet happiness we shared never lasted for more than a moment, and all too quickly brought the continual shame and self-loathing which is all I can see in a mirror. My euphoria would end, so we’d begin the dance again, to the most hypnotic rhythm of them all.