The Girl in the Mirror
There’s so much darkness. Sometimes it feels like it might swallow me whole. Sometimes it does. This ache to go back. To hit pause, then rewind on life and return to a happier time when I felt more in control, when I felt more like myself.
The person I see in the mirror is no longer me. Her hair is a darker brown and her body a different size. The hand that instinctively wipes away tears is not my own, its foreign and unknown, the hand of a traitor.
At a certain point it became easier to change those things I could control to account for the dissociation I felt from the reflection I got used to seeing everyday. Minimal resemblance was easier than greater flashes.
I move through the day hoping to go unnoticed, hoping to not be seen or worst of all recognized for who I once was. Shame sits in my shadow as I walk down the sidewalk.
My eating disorder tells me stories. It tells me stories about what my life could be like again if I looked a certain way, listened to its judgmental hissing, and gave in to its sweet beckoning. It’s both my worst critic and my best friend. It’s been with me in dark and light. It has a flare for nostalgia and sets me adrift in happy memories of laughter, love, and acceptance.
But it also shuns realities of the present and keeps me fumbling blindly in the now, caught in perpetuating cycles of self-hatred, shame, and despair.
I feel a shift. As a I stare at the girl in the mirror, still unrecognizable, I see her pain and it resonates deep within me. Her internal torture manifests in the contortion of her face, knuckles and teeth clenched, she listens to the voice inside that, knowing her better than anyone, betrays with each verbal lashing.
There’s a part of me that want’s it to stop. That having shared other’s pain can distantly feel my own torture and recognize that like them, I don’t deserve it. That can remove myself from my mind and body just long enough to acknowledge the violence I am responsible for and the pain I have suffered as a result.
I’m tired from hating myself. I’m exhausted from living in a body that feels at war with itself. But most of all, of feeling unable to trust myself. I’m twenty-five and already live in so much fear of regret. These are my reasons for seeking treatment and for getting help. Hopefully, I can inspire someone else on their own journey to recovery to do the same.
“The old must be released so the new can enter.” —Kali
