Detox (Day 01)

Melanie K. Dee
Nov 2 · 7 min read

I recently learned that November is National Novel Writing month, which coincides well with my recent decision to start a 30-day (tea-based) detox cleanse… because my intuition has been telling me that “I have lot of crap to get out of my system”

{cue laugh track}

For real though. More than bad jokes and poorly constructed writing prompts, I’ve been slowly cluing into my body and my subtle needs more-so than ever before in my life. To fully describe the ‘awakening process’ and not sound like a ‘woke generational’ I’d have to ask you to come sit down and shuffle through boxes of haphazard notes, crumbled drawings and painful mementos that serve as benchmarks during a time when I couldn’t bring myself to write or draw. Takes a deep breathe and is astounded at how cathartic just saying that ‘outloud’ to her keyboard feels.

Its’ been a long time since I’ve shared anything publicly. Even privately I can see how my closest family and friends have struggled to understand how my experiences over the last few years had stifled an otherwise very “outgoing and affectionate young woman”…

I’d become increasingly private and reclusive in the wake of a series of events that had retroactively undermined my sense of self, safety and security. It sounds exacerbated, I know. Theres very few ways I can describe what happened without seeming dramatic or ambiguous… the reality is, even now, years later… I have a hard time putting everything into context and knowing where to start.

I’m not the only one. I’m not the only one who’s had things happen to them that shook them apart and left them reeling for a sense of reality to grapple with again. I’m not the only human who’s lost someone they love, or been hurt by someone they love. I’m not the only girl who’s experienced what it’s like to become “just another statistic”.

I remind myself of that often. To give me insight and perspective on otherwise very painful, difficult to acknowledge things. It de-humanizes me. It carves a route in my brain that helps me divert away from actually feeling the impact of those statements and instead, clinically normalizes them. As long as I find myself ‘lost in the many’ I can feel free in the ambiguity and fuzziness that has become my memory over the last few years.

Hmm. Are my fancy words working? Am I diverting the attention away from the subject at hand long enough to fill the “2,500 words per day” or “20 minute writing challenge” I presented myself with for the month of November…

{a timer goes off in the distance}

Ha. Yup, it worked. I shuffle over to an online word counter hoping that I’d at least come close to my goal… “435 words”. Damn. Not half bad, but only 1/5th of what I knew it would take if I wanted to come close to my month end goal of 50,000 words. Takes another deep breath and rolls her eyes

Okay, Buckle Up Buttercup. This isn’t going to be pretty. This probably isn’t going to be easy to read either (not just for the literary style but for the eventual content as well). But for anyone who is, I guess I just have to say… “sorry”.

Sorry this is not going to be easy for me to share. Sorry this is going to feel like it’s going in circles dozens of times before we get any real traction. Sorry I’m treating you like an open mic and actively avoiding the task at hand. Takes another deep breath and covers her face with her hand.

I wish I knew where to start, to help give you context. I’m not writing this with the intent of it making sense or being chronological. I’m writing this stuff because I’m taking baby steps ‘away from the shadows’ of shame and humility. It seems funny to say it like that. God I hope that eventually I catch my stride here and I can start to relay what I’m actually talking about….

I’m dizzy now. That head-rushy feeling that most people probably feel before it’s time to give a presentation or speak publicly. I have no problem with that forte… put me up in front of a bunch of people and my natural “Leo the leader” vibe shines through. People are my forte… I feel comfortable around them, I see the best in them and want the best for them.

I also want to be perceived as strong and confident when I’m around other people, so rarely do I put much emphasis or attention on my own insecurities. Years of being an extrovert had self-trained me to focus on my “controllable, charismatic” qualities and cleverly divert away from anything that shone a light on the fact that I was anything but on the inside. I mean, thats clearly no shocker. It’s 2019, we all know that the most genial and confidence inspiring humans have deep dark corners in their psyche too… they’re just not advertised.

I’ve never tried to hide any of it. I’ve just not advertised it either.

Oi. There I go again. Talking pragmatically about “the topic at hand” rather than just bluntly addressing the herd of elephants, mammoths and what felt like their entire ancestral lineage in the room. At this point divergence had become an artform in my life.

The way a junkie will hide their substance and tools of choice… I felt I had spent years exhaustively stepping around interviews and points of concern while trying to conceal “where I’d been and what happened”. God I’m being so ambigous it’s frustrating me at this point.

Fuck I wish I could just tell you. I wish I could just say it. Say what happened out loud without feeling this suffocating sense of panic that once I tell you (or anyone that’s not someone I trust)… what will happen afterwards?

Probably nothing. I’ll probably end up being just another girl who’s treating the internet like her diary and get shuffled up in millions of publications on related subjects. I’d be totally okay with that. Then I’d still be just another number.

Then I wouldn’t have to worry about what happens if someone in my town found out. Or starting putting two and two together and fueled up the local gossip mill. Fuck, at this point it shouldn’t even matter. It’s been years. But still… it’s just not something I want other people to know happened.

Here’s why I don’t want other people (around me) to know:

Because I hate the pity. I hate the stupid 45-degree head tilt that people take on when they’re talking to me and I can tell someone else has shared my story with them. I’m not broken. I’m not fucked up. I’m not too fragile to do things on my own. Woah. I’ve never shared it like that before, but reading it back I can see how silly it must seem that I feel that way.

I don’t like feeling “less than”. I don’t like feeling like something that was out of my control somehow defines me. And who’s to say it does I guess. This “2,500 word count” goal is honestly tasting more and more like therapy with every statement I feel myself squeezing out.

{checks her word count so she can put a fork in it}

— -before she does. She admits to herself that a large portion of why she doesn’t want people to know is because of shame.

Shame that it happened. Shame that it happened again. Shame that it went onto set a chain of events in motion that couldn’t be understood or appreciated until long after it had gotten too bad to handle or cope with.

Shame that she let her family down. Shame that she let parts of herself die because she didn’t know enough to draw boundaries and stop sacrificing her own sanity for the sake of protecting someone else from the consequences of their actions.

{feels incredibly dizzy. like shes drunk or about to pass out}

I’m not drunk. I’m not high. I’m not anything other than remarkably honest with myself for the first time in… I don’t know. It’s hard to give this stuff context when your head feels like it’s in a vacuum.

Things start to feel like hyperboles. Exaggerations because of the influential gravity and weight the words and terms carry with them. At least thats how it feels in my own head. Constant second guessing. Constant reluctance and apprehension to form basic sentences that would otherwise clearly communicate what she was struggling to say.

Benchmark. I didn’t think going into this {writing challenge} tonight that I’d manage to bypass the major hurdle in one foul swoop. You know, the one that accounts for how I can write nearly 1000 words and still not tell you what actually happened at all…

{rolls her eyes and laughs}

I came into this with the baseline of “just start. Just show up.” And I’ve done just that, so…

{deafening silence follows}

So thanks. Thanks for holding space for me while I start showing up for myself again. See you again soon?

[Footnote. Day: 001 | WordCount: 1,536]

Melanie K. Dee
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