whitegooseblog-blog

[whitegooseblog-blog]

“I’m slamming my hands on the ground, I’m pressing my forehead against the tiled walls as hard as I can. I’m hyperventilating, I’m sweating, I’m light headed.”

Watching from the stairs as the police drag my drunk mother out of the house, again.

Being forced to sit and watch a DVR’d documentary of a woman who died from her own eating disorder.

Sitting on my oatmeal, floor to floor carpet telling my mom, “You never hug me.”

Asking for Adderall because I needed to not eat, and her giving me a version that kept me up for days.

Telling my mom that her behavior and her words made me want to kill myself sometimes, and then her pretending to call the police.

“Please don’t eat the shrimp if it’s just going to end up in the toilet later, haha.”

Going through my mom’s things and finding print outs from Ana and Mia sites, tips and tricks to make your eating disorder better and how to hide it from your family. Then, going back to those pages on my own.

My mother screaming down a hotel hallway that I was stealing her children, as I took my brothers to my grandfather’s funeral she had been too drunk to get ready for. 

Boyfriends finding hidden empty liquor bottles in the house.

My friends being threatened if they didn’t tell my mom where I was - even if I wasn’t with them.

Not in any particular order. These are a few flashbacks I had Christmas day 2018. It all came swimming back after years of never thinking about them, after years of never needing to -  it all came back and it all connected. It all made sense. 

Rewind to a few months back - when I “realized I had a mental health issue” from my own “chemical imbalance”. My anger and mood swings and disoriented feeling - like I was crazy but I didn't want to be. I was thriving as I worked through my own self-hate - that no longer lingered - my own disordered relationship with food and my own body... I was claiming responsibility for the self-destructive behavior I expressed subtly through my teenage years and more outwardly as a 21 year old. Why did I do these things? I didn't know but i didn't think there was a reason - besides my own self hate that I carried for my whole life. I wasn't pretty, then I was fat, then I was stupid. Then all of it. I was working through it, I didn't feel those things about myself anymore - I loved myself.

Fast forward a few weeks - I am with my mom, I visit my parents often and we have a wonderful relationship. I go over and my brothers hop off their video games and come down from their rooms, my dad turns the volume down on the tv and my mom looks me in the eye. We sit and we laugh and joke and I lose track of time. Its been this way for a few years. I have lived outside my childhood home and dealt with relationship issues that, in retrospect, overshadowed those memories and feelings. A few weeks ago I tell my mom that my boyfriend of a few years makes me a better person, he helps me be happy and has helped pull so many wonderful traits out of me. I tell her - I’m working through some things I didn't know I needed to work through, the reasons for my self destructive behavior in the years passed, my self hate, “my own chemical imbalance” I say. She tells me this is great, I’m right.

Christmas morning, a new tradition rose last year - my parents and brothers come to my apartment and I cook breakfast, we play games and exchange gifts and spend the day doing nothing but appreciating each other’s company. So, at 8am I wake up to clean. My boy and I go to the store, we buy candy neither of us eats and pounds of bacon and bagels. I finish wrapping presents. I finish writing love-sick cards to my parents - thanking them for always sticking around for me and teaching me patience and forgiveness, thanking them for sticking around while I was terrible. Every hour, I call to see where they are. 8:30am, nobody else is awake my mom says, that’s good I have dishes anyways. I don’t want to rush them. 9:30am, I text my dad, “are you guys up yet?”. 10am, my brother answers my mom’s cell - he says we’re opening presents still. That’s okay its still early. Don’t be pushy. 10:30am I turn the oven off - it'll preheat quick when they come soon. Don’t text them again, you’re harassing them. Before 11 I call again, my brother says they are hanging out still, I don’t want to pry. Just before 12 I call again, my mom says one of my brothers is in the shower - I’m frustrated, the day is creeping away, I want my time with them, why are they “getting ready” when we did pjs last year, I haven't showered - all my mother can say to me is “I dont know” over... and over... and over. I am frustrated, hungry, and sad. 1pm rolls around and I finally decide to call my dad - “you still want us to come?” he says to me. Telling me - I yelled at my mother and she said I must not want them over anymore. 

Now I am yelling. 

“We had a rough night here, she’s been sleeping all day” he says to me. She drank too much last night, because now she casually drinks - she can she thinks, he lets her. 

Now I am yelling. 

- How could you? - I just wanted to spend time with you. - I went to all this trouble for you all to blow me off completely. -

I’m spiraling, nothing I’m saying is a sentence anymore, I’m crying and he’s annoyed and calling to my mother across the room “She’s crying” he tells her. I hang up and stumble - my body doesn't work the same, my shoulders slam into the door frames as I run to our bathroom, I can’t accept my boy’s embrace. I can’t accept the touch. Don’t touch me. I lock myself in the bathroom, turn on both faucets, and it floods in. I’m slamming my hands on the ground, I’m pressing my forehead against the tiled walls as hard as I can. I’m hyperventilating, I’m sweating, I’m light headed. The tears come and go but I can’t stop - the noises coming from my throat are foreign and I can’t sit still, I can’t stop gripping my clothes in tight fists. At some point I hear my boy outside the door, “I need you to open this door or I will open it, you can’t be alone”. I lean over, slide the latch, and pass out crumpled into a ball with my head on my fuzzy toilet cover. Seconds later, I’m back - still making the same noises, I can’t catch my breathe. How could she do this to me? How could he let her? How could I fall for this again? I said I wouldn’t ever let them hurt me again but I did because I am so fucking stupid. Emotions and memories flooding back in - and suddenly it all makes sense, it all connects. I am so fucked up, I am so broken - everything I feel now is from everything back then. Its all a reflection. 

Slamming my fists into our furniture and screaming at my boy during fights “why do you keep hurting me? why do you keep doing the same things over and over?”. 

The anxious feeling that still sits in my stomach when I spill or break something, when I need to express a feeling that may not be easy to hear, when I make any mistake.

“I’m not a hugger”, I say as I cringe when people touch me - my whole life.

The heavy weight in my chest.

I can’t look at him in the face. I’m on our couch, gripping the cushions and pillows, rocking and making the connections. Its flooding back and I’m blabbering out small details of scenes playing in my head. 

How could she let me think I was crazy? 

How could he downplay it again? I should’ve known to text him he says... I should’ve known... I shouldn’t have fallen for it again, but I did. I’m so angry.