The Proverbial Road

I sometimes wonder what would happen if I just gave into all of this and let my mind take me where it would. What lies at the end of this road that we call a disorder? For some, it may be death. Pushing and pushing until your body can't go anymore. Obeying the drill sergeant in your head so meticulously that your body finally has to throw it's hands up and say "I'm done." And in a sense, isn't death what we all desire? To come as close to living death as we can until the real thing finally consumes us. I know I've always wanted to look like a skeleton. It was never my goal to be "thin and pretty." I needed to see bones. I wanted to be unattractive, to a point of looking haunted, to show God the sort of tormented creature he brought onto this earth. I came close a couple times, but I never quite reached that goal.

I think for some it's the point right before death that is commonly known in our world as "perfection." The face that mocks us with every emaciated thinspiration picture we see. Being as close to death as possible, but still stalling in the world of the living. Viewing the world through knowing sunken eyes. Seeing the pretty girl who is 5'4" and 115 and thinking "she's pretty, but I'm perfect."

I think for me at this point in time, the end of the road is peace. The trouble is, I don't know how to get there. Do I continue with recovery and live every meal, every fast, every binge, every purge, and every workout as the hell it is? Or do I embrace who I am and what I have become and let myself fall until I reach a weight where I can say "enough is enough. Now I can rest."

I just want that peace. I want the chatter in my head to stop; I want it to shut up. The drill sergeant has been in control for too long. But as I move through recovery, it doesn't get quieter. It gets louder. Cacophonous. Strident. Discordant. It screams at me and tells me what a worthless bitch I am and how I'm pathetic and meaningless and selfish and a burden to those around me and how I will never be loved.

But then I look in the eyes of people like my best friends, my boyfriend, my sister, etc... And I see how much I hurt them. My mom and dad are struggling with me off at college. They call two or three times a week to ask how I'm doing. They ask if I'm eating. My two best friends don't know what to say. I heard my best girlfriend say once that she "never wants to lose [her] best friend again." I just went AWOL for a period of time, and that's hard on her (I've known her since 3rd grade, and now we're both in college and we're still best friends. I'd say we're pretty much set for life.)

My boyfriend is the one that breaks my heart the most. He tries so hard to understand. And every time he finds out that I didn't eat that day or that I worked out for 4 hours, you can see his heart sink. You can see the frustration mirrored in his eyes. He made me promise to never attempt suicide again. He begged me not to go anywhere. He says I help him just as much as he helps me. I asked him once if he could change anything about me, what would it be? I thought he would say something about my hair or my stomach or my boobs, but he said "I would have you not be anorexic anymore."

Where is the end of the road? What is recovery? What is perfection? What is peace? What is normal? What is best for me and the people around me who I care about? I wish I knew.