Elvira's 4th Journal
January 20, 2000
Why is this so bloody hard? All along I was craving
food, lusting for sustenance while I starved myself
and now it has become more difficult to eat. I eat a
sandwich and I feel bloated and disgusting, too full.
I told my doctor I would eat. He told me to eat within
reason and enjoy what I was putting in my mouth. Yeah,
right, I wish. Easier said than done at this point.
And then I have to keep talking myself out of going to
the bathroom and sticking my fingers down my throat.
I had to convince myself that starving and purging was
the way to achieve my goals. I talked myself into it.
Now I have to talk myself out of it, leave the food in
my stomach where it's supposed to be and that's
proving harder and harder to do. I don't recognize who
I've become.
I'd like to thank WM for her kind words at the bottom
of my 3rd journal entry, I was very touched. I'd also
like to thank the supportive words of others who have
offered to help. But am I really brave? I keep
thinking I'm more desperate than brave. Maybe I am
brave but I don't feel very strong right now, just
full of uncertainties. It's like in Robert Frost's
poem "The Road Not Taken". I'm standing at a fork in
the path: one path is well-trodden and safe looking
and the other is wilder, covered in brambles and
overgrown forest. The odd thing is that
self-destruction and anorexia has become the "safe"
path. I could wallow in my own self-loathing and it
would feel familiar and comforting. But then there's
the other path, the one that will take more energy to
travel it. It's less appealling because it's going to
be harder to push away the overhanging branches and
climb over fallen trees than it is to just stroll
along a clean path. I feel like my journey towards
recovery, the "right" path (my common sense tells me
it is!), is the wild path. It's going to be hard,
filled with obstacles and pitfalls. Which path do I
take?
I keep thinking that the reason the safe path is so
clean and easy to travel is because the eating
disorder path has been taken by so MANY people that
the dirt on the forest floor has compacted and is now
like solid rock (we've all been down that trail,
haven't we?). The branches on the trees don't dare
grow in the way of the path for fear someone running
down the path will be so consumed, so obsessed with
anorexia that he/she will miss the branch and run
straight into it. The most dangerous parts of the
trail lie at the end of it. In my mind I imagine that
my anorexic's version of "The Road Not Taken" ends not
with a field of wildflowers dancing in the sunshine
but in a cliff with no bottom to its depths and if one
falls into it they either have a hell of a time trying
to scratch and climb their way back to the top or they
die.
And if we're able to climb back out of the void and
get back on the path we see that the path has changed.
The path we came down isn't clear of overgrown forest
like it was when we first tread upon it; now it's
covered in fallen trees, thick brush, and thorns. We
have decided that we don't want to die and we want to
try and get better but now we're faced with the wilder
trail. Now we have to face our demons and admit that
we have some serious problems. The road back has
become more difficult than our climb up out of
desperation and we are in a place that has obstacles
on one side and a downward plummet on the other. I am
in that place right now.
Where do I go from here?
Love,
Elvira
elvira_lives@yahoo.com
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