WBB ESSAYS
Defining "I" During the Recovery Process
- Willow
Who am I? Not the name, not the image, but who am "I"? Does anyone actually know the answer to that? I am so confused. Anorexia used to be my image. It used to be who I was. Everyone whispered that I was the sick one, the fragile one, the scared one, the skinny one. I embraced it. I was it. Since I gained weight, I am... no one. My thoughts are jumbled, my writing is... bland, my mind just as bland. I have no passion. When I was sick I was passionate about it. Passionate about my bones. Passionate about never wanting to recover.
Now? I am passionate about nothing. Life is raw, jagged, and bitter-tasting. Sometimes there are glimpses of beauty, but it's not the way I thought it would be when I romanticized this recovery. Each day is a struggle, each day is painful, each day the choices wear me down and I feel like Alice; Wandering alone through my very own wonderland, where everything screams "eat me" in a shrill and angry voice...
I've been labeled and compartmented my whole life. From the age of 12 I was anorexic and would die before I was 16. Once I hit 16 I became COE and 'fat' and it was then I was diagnosed as borderline, psychotic, schizoid, all these things which said there was something intrinsically wrong with me. The longer I lived the more diagnoses I received. By the time I was 20 I was labeled a "chronic case" who'd "never recover". The best I could hope for was some sort of 'remission' that allowed my body a respite.
Still, this doesn't answer who...
or maybe all these things define 'who' as well as 'what'...
So I was talking to my therapist about labels and about defining self through psychiatric terms. "I'm anorexic". This is not who I am, but again what I am. Then I got to thinking, what if the terms who and what are simply more labels? Perhaps the true nature of "me" is impossible to define in words... unless it becomes an opera or a novel or a work of art. Something more than single items. I am not a single item, but rather a collection of works--like a gallery or a museum. There is more to me than one Picasso or Woolf. There is more to me than a name alone. There is more to me than the label "anorexic" or "eating disordered".
All my experiences have created this... being. But those experiences are impossible to reiterate time and again so that people see me. I need people to understand that I have come so so far.
When I first came to WBB I wasn't underweight. I wasn't even almost underweight. I wanted desperately to get back there. I believed that 'anorexic' was my career goal, my life choice, my decision of what I wanted to be. In fact, I think I believed it was all I could be. I dabbled in all sorts of other ventures, but nothing has grabbed me and yelled "you are ___". So, I keep floundering, feeling like I'm missing something, missing some huge bullet point in the manual of life. Missing something that other "normal" people see without trying.
I watch others as they walk down the side walk, or hustle through the grocery store, and I wonder what they're thinking, how they're feeling. I wonder if they know who they are, or if it even matters. I wonder if they have dreams or aspirations or if their lives are just.. fine.
I just .. wonder. So much... I wonder if I'm on the right track, I wonder what will become of me. I wonder if I can be the person I want to be. I wonder if I can help people like I want to.
I just... wonder.
