"And I want to have faith to put away the dagger. But you lie, cheat and steal. And yet I tolerate you?"
Tonight is one of those hot summer nights where I'm lying in bed, sticky and sweating and exhausted but too hot to sleep. All the windows are open but there isn't a breeze and the only way for me to feel cooler is to go and sleep outside naked. So instead I start rifling around my room and I stumble across my old journals. And I mean OLD. From intermediate and high school...from 12 years ago. Makes me feel fucking old.
They also make me feel fucking pained. The old hurt all comes back and I realise that I'm not over it, it's just been long enough ago for me to repress it. I also realised how fucked up I was, even back then. No wonder it is so hard for me to not want to cut, I was cutting myself 12 years ago. It's been 12 years. Okay, so I haven't really cut for the last year or so, and maybe 5 or 6 years ago I had a 2 year gap, but on and off, it's been 12 years now. I still haven't broken my not cutting streak...but for a week or so now I've been going to my box of blades, opening it and just looking at them.
A part of me can't bear to throw them away. I don't even know what it is at this point in time, to be honest it feels more like an addiction that I can't quite kick. Miss Burton, you're right, it is pathetic, and I certainly thought it was during my breaks from cutting. I don't know about Mark, but when the professor found out about it he totally lost the plot. He hasn't mentioned it since then and I'm sure he hasn't forgotten. The fact that he will bring up my eating disorder but not my cutting speaks volumes.
Maybe it's because it's been 12 years of me cutting...and cutting has become the norm. I can no longer imagine a life without it and even though I don't do it, I think about it on a daily basis. It isn't a big deal to me. It's like, get up in the morning, make toast, brush teeth, go to work. Another routine thing to do. It's just not a big deal. So I just don't get it when people make a big deal out of it. But the fact that the professor won't talk about it makes me wonder how big a deal it actually might be.
I have no idea what Mark would think. None at all. I wouldn't dare tell him, not after how the professor reacted to it! Now that I think of it, I have 2 other friends who know about it, but they never mention it to me either. It's one of those things that people find hard to talk about...yeah, it probably is a bigger deal than I think.
But to the crux of this post, and the reason for the title.
I've always thought that my weight has always been stable at around 55kg. I've always told people that's my baseline weight. But I'm so wrong! As my journals prove. See, even at that age I was worried about my weight. My height hasn't changed an inch since 12 years old...isn't that sad, I haven't grown at all for the past 11 years. My height hasn't changed, but my weight has changed 20kg between my lowest weight and my highest weight. I'm stunned.
Apparently, when I was 15 or 16 years old, I weighed 45kg! And within a few months, while I was depressed and comfort eating like mad, I gained 10kg. I mope about it an awful lot in my journals. I'm stunned. I was once 45kg???? Imagine if I hadn't started comfort eating, I might still be that size! Instead I ballooned to 65kg and then worked my way back down to 55kg and just stopped because "oh that's my baseline weight anyway so it's hard for me to get below that".
Well turns out I'm full of bullshit. My baseline weight is 45kg and I've been too much of a fat, lazy pig to try to get back to that. I get to 55kg and start eating again. WTF brain! How could I forget the 10kg of weight I put on in one year at high school?! I'm in utter disbelief that I managed to put on 20kg of weight without even really trying.
My brain feels like it hurts so much. I've got to rethink all my weight goals now. I thought 45kg would be quite skinny...but I remember how I looked at that age, I wasn't skinny at all! Admittedly, yes, I was skinnier than I am now, but 45kg is not a skinny weight on me. Dammit! The curses of being short! So if 45kg won't look good on me, and if when I weighed 45kg I wanted to lose weight, what should my goal weight be? 40kg? 37kg? I don't know anymore! All I know is, damn, I have to get to my baseline weight, not 55kg, but 45kg. So fucking far away. Best start now then.
I've already said this, but please don't cut. It is a big deal, and it really upsets me to think you might do that, even though I don't technically know you.
ReplyDelete45kg sounds tiny. 55kg sounds tiny too. I unfortunately know how you feel, remembering how small you used to be, but you may have gained muscle weight which looks better anyway.
I wish I was a small as you, you're perfect.
xxx
Dude, I know what you mean. It is so fucking scary. Especially the way that the weight creeps up on you and you think you're not doing too badly until you step on the scale. And as for the cutting. Firstly, I think it has taken immense personal strength for you to even have gone one year without cutting and if the knowledge that you have blades close by is comforting to an extent that you don't actually cut, then it isn't bad. It's also not like you couldn't get hold of more if you did throw them out or that you couldn't use something else. As for people knowing about it... I mean, you know as well as I do that it can go either way. Either people freak out because they don't understand, in which case fuck them in the ass. OR people can understand the kind of personal pain that inspires such behavior. Honestly, I think that the people closest to you (or me, us - in general) deserve to be given the opportunity to be supportive of the problems that we have. I think that so much of the shit that EDs and self-harm cause us is because it is all secretive behaviour and if we don't give people the opportunity to help us, then what are doing? Also, if I remember correctly, the prof's reaction to you was one of concern rather than... dismissal or accusations, and you were also in vastly different space in your life when that all went down. I mean, maybe it is safe to tell Mark. I think that sometimes we don't give people enough credit, not only in their ability to be supportive of the fucked-up-ness that is us, but also in their abilities to perceive that there is more than what meets the eye. Know what I mean? From where I'm standing, the Judith from a year ago that was cutting doves into her leg with a scalpel is a very different Judith from who you are at the moment and I think you deserve credit for how far you've come. :) I know, I am certainly very fucking proud. Xo
ReplyDeletei would definitely want to see that. you sleeping naked outside
ReplyDeleteit literally kills me whenever someone starts talking about cutting - i guess it's as addictive as purging 'cause i still want to do that quite a bit
it is a big deal. just because the professor won't mention it doesn't mean anything.
i hate it when people are like that they won't talk about vital things because it's not a pretty topic to discuss well fuck you you're not the one living with it
45kg omg
the lowest i ever was was 65kg. i know this for a fact because when i was 12 i was like 82
im a fatass
my baseline is i don't know but it's not this HUGE EVIL DISGUSTING WEIGHT what is this
-Sam Lupin
I cut throughout my childhood (and I used to pull my hair out in clumps and panic and shut my thumbs in my desk). Now I haven't for a couple of years but I snap elastic bands on my arm, sometimes so hard it leaves dark, warm purple bruises in lines up and down my arms. If you're desperate it staved off the craving that little bit longer.
ReplyDeletex
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