Dazzled

I'd start lamenting and apologizing for being such a terrible blogger and virtual-friend but I seem to do it on every belated post, so it might start to lose meaning and sound insincere. Know that it's a vicious cycle of neglecting you, feeling guilty, avoiding blogger due to said guilt, and continuing to neglect you. It eats me up more than you probably notice my absence ;)

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Recently, I took off the necklace I've worn every single day since the week I started blogging. I never took it off... not even parading around in costume, going to fancy events, getting engaged. It's been there for the whole lot and any sparse pictures that may have gotten snapped. When my collar bones seemed particularly noteworthy a few months ago, I decided to memorialize the necklace's importance via photograph.



The chain has gone from silver to brown but the pendant still retains most of its original spark.

I said I would never take it off. Of course the little fairy dragonfly has obvious symbolic implications (which I will always deny to TR, though he sees right through it) but it would become so much more than a gentle reminder of my dangerous pact with myself and maniacal need to push things further.

It became about remembering everyone there scattered around the globe, thinking the same things I thought. Hating every inch, longing for something better and perfect, if only to compensate for something else. My pendant was my daily struggle and a tangible connection to all my readers I couldn't hope to ever meet.

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I'm trying not to hate myself, but it's hard when you're taken off medication and you know the impulses, the thoughts, and the actions are going to inevitably follow. It's not a sad thing because there's no safety net to catch me here. No one would ever really notice if anything happened to me, and for the first time, that's scary not comforting.

You won't believe how extraordinary it feels to feel less and less of your bones, try and be hopeful at the sight of a 1.5 inch increase on your waist (though you secretly know both triumphantly and defeated that it's almost all bloat and water retention). There's a tinge of sadness walking by women who are thinner than yourself, feeling jealous that you hadn't achieved that kind of tiny and once again reassuring yourself it's not a pretty sight.

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I don't know what will happen with the necklace. If I'll just replace the disgusting chain and put it back on, its comforting wrap reminding me of my shared bondage to a loathing master... or if I'll manage to ignore the pleas of my naked collar and carry on forward.

I have no assumption that recovery is possible for anyone. You can't recover from something like this. Maybe you can change your behavior, maybe you can move beyond the pull of desire that's taken you here in the first place, but you're always addicted. Always unstable. Always eating disordered. It's alcoholism (despite my former attempts to deny this) except it sneaks up on you. You don't have the simplicity of "one drink" to tell you when you've cheated or failed. The voice gently brings you back in before you even know you've slipped, because we're surrounded by propaganda to slenderize, cut back fat/carbs/sugar, rejoice in shedding weight, and without all that what are we? What do we have in our culture to really root onto? If you try and ignore the shouts to lose weight, hate XXXXX about yourself, you become the outsider. More unsettling than it was to be sucked into the ED world. It's black and white world it seems, and we have to fight to stick in whatever gray spot we can find if we want to avoid the beast.

I'm really glad to read over your successes and continued perseverance, but I can't bring myself to individually cheer people on or condemn the practice. I'm a hypocrite either way. My support is always here, and I don't know which way in the spectrum of "fucked up" I'm moving towards. But I suppose I need to figure out what to do about my necklace before I can manage to pick a team to start following.

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I hope my readers can confront their ideals of beauty this new week, whether it is achieving a new goal, reflecting on a current predicament, or moving toward something challenging or unprecedented. Beauty is in everything. I don't really care if that means being comforted by the warmth of consistency or marveling at what lies beyond the safety of routine. Be dazzled either way. There's no point in being stationary because of fickle emotions. Shed that feeling of self-doubt and empty longing--with me--to experience the thrill of pushing yourself for something without judgment or condemnation. Find something that makes you happy and don't feel any guilt that may accompany it.

Sounds absurd, and also a bit unreal, but we don't have to hate ourselves or long for punishment in our desires to achieve these goals. It just seems like a good strategy, in hindsight, to push toward something for which we feel undeserving.