Tuesday, December 22, 2009

French Philosophy

Me: "Why are you afraid of the hospital?"
Holly: "Because it has a weird smell..."
Me: "It really does have a distinctive smell. Offputting..."
Holly: "It's because people go there to die."

I have to go to the hospital tomorrow to try and convince a new doctor to take me seriously. Honestly though, I've kind of reached that inevitable point I get to every now and again where I'm like, "There's NOTHING wrong with me! The problem lies within society! FOUCAULT BITCHES!"

But eventually I'll take like a sheet of sleeping pills for a "headache" or start throwing plates against the wall and I have to rethink this philosophy.

The hospital freaks me out in a number of different ways (hello deadly bacteria on elevator buttons!?) and I always feel like my clothes I've worn there aren't really clean until 3-4 washes/I've forgotten I wore those particular ones. But there's something comforting about it too. It's like, "Hello this is the one chance you get at a real vacation. All you have to do is sacrifice order, basic hygiene, and control over your destiny..."

Maybe what is so appealing is that relinquishing of control. Knowing everything is futile and just lying there while you get poked and prodded by bad-cop and coo'd over by good-cop.

I suppose it's why you can't really ever "recover" from an eating disorder. Something hard wired within you made that particular disease an outlet. You can take away the behavior, but your personality, the gears that wind your inner clock, still remain.

Oftentimes I say that despite my destructive behaviors, suicidal tendencies, all I really want to do is escape. I'm usually thinking the external burdens upon me that I feel are to overwhelming to control. But now and again, I wonder if I just want to escape being stuck with the broken parts of me. The parts of me that are my weakness and my strength.

Then again, where does the problem lie? Within one's mind or amidst one's cultural entrapping?

---

"Death left its old tragic heaven and became the lyrical core of man: his invisible truth, his visible secret."
- Michel Foucault (The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception)

4 comments:

Liz Anatasia said...

As usual, brilliant post. Sitting in the train station, so I avoided laughing out loud. I was a pretty stubborn 16 year old and did not allow inpatient treatment despite constant insistence. I really was never convinced it was a real solution for anyone. My brothers went for depression and it did not help, at all. But then again, with this disease, what can be a solution? As my mom says, "You got your anorexia from me"...like it was a bad back or something. The cards are just not in our favor.
But seriously, your blog is stunning.

Anonymous said...

good luck at the doctors. dont try to prove how crazy you are, prove just how ration and measured you are in your reasonings about why you need them.
hope it goes better for you than the great crumbling british national health service, envy of millions and general pain in the ass nonetheless...

hope home is treating you marvellously schweetie, and that your slightly healthier weight recently gets them all off your back for a bit.
merry christmas! xx

Ana's Girl said...

I hate hospitals too... They're totally scary. Good luck there, hunny.
"I suppose it's why you can't really ever "recover" from an eating disorder. Something hard wired within you made that particular disease an outlet. You can take away the behavior, but your personality, the gears that wind your inner clock, still remain." -Will you please tell that to my boyfriend?! Goodness, you have such a way with words...

The Elsewhere Girl said...

How did it go munchkin? Did they take you seriously like you wanted?

HAPPY CHRISTMAS enjoy tomorrow xx hope the food isnt too much of a nightmare x

 
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