Chemically Bad
I know you’re not supposed to write about anything personal in a weblog. Heaven knows, you could end up like this guy. But I’m in an introspective mood today, so you’re going to get a little peek behind the curtain.
I keep it pretty much above the surface here, dear Readers. You hear about the books and things I think, but not a lot of my personal life gets into the weblog. I do have kids to protect. You’ll never read someone’s for-real name here unless I know and am mentioning them professionally, or I have their explicit permission. And even then, sometimes, I use pseudonyms. It’s part courtesy and part defense.
I don’t show many scars here. In the first place, who wants to know? And in the second place, do I really want to give the general public that much ammunition? They’re scars because they hurt, sometimes even when healed over, and there’s no way you want to show everyone those parts.
But like I said, introspective today. It may be watching a lot of Looney Tunes; it reminds me of childhood.
I’ve lost a lot of weight lately. A lot. I’m still nowhere near thin, because I love food so much and I don’t want to give up a lot of my physical placeholder in the world. It’s gotten so marked that people who haven’t seen me in a couple months look shocked when they recognize me. “What have you done?” they ask. “You’ve lost so much weight! What’s your secret?”
To which I’ve taken to replying, with a straight face, “I stopped talking to my mother.”
They laugh. But it’s not a joke. I really have stopped talking to my mother.
She’s not a bad person, my mum. If she was in (God forbid) a car accident tomorrow I would be there at the hospital helping to take care of things. But I just can’t be in anything approximating a normal relationship with her. There’s too much hurt. Too much damage.
There are certain people in your life who you may love, but they are chemically unsafe for you. By which I mean, you are baking soda, they are vinegar, and when you get together froth and explosions result. I think my mum loves me, and I certainly love her. But she’s just so frocking damaging.
The last time I saw her was during the time the DHM was in Seattle dealing with his own mother’s accident and death. She drove for two and a half hours to come down and get me while I was vulnerable, claiming she was concerned about me but wanting to talk about why I wouldn’t talk to her.
Let’s not even look at the fact that she knew the DHM was gone and I was struggling to be his emotional balance while being a single mum for a week or two. Blood in the water. She also chose to show up at ten in the morning, too–knowing full well that our day doesn’t get started until about noon. No, I’m not a lazy bum. The kids sleep as long as they need to and I get up, have breakfast and coffee, blog a bit, and generally get a lot of business out of the way before taking a shower and settling down to work through the rest of the day.
So she knew I was vulnerable and decided to strike.
I refused to rise to the bait, so eventually she left. On her way out the door she tried to lay an emotional landmine–a bloody package of words that wouldn’t explode until later.
That sort of thing usually sent me straight to the fridge, because food doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t mock, and it tries to fill that whistling empty space that opens up whenever someone you try to trust hurts you. Food is a good friend, and so what if it made me fat?
But eating only dulls the pain for a little while, and the damage too much of it does to your body is a huge price to pay.
I leapt instead for the phone and started dialing.
That was one of the hardest things in my life, to go for the phone instead of the icebox. It was an uphill battle, and I actually sobbed once while dialing and getting voicemail as I went through my list of lifelines.
But that’s why you have a list of lifelines. It’s because your friends are your friends but there’s going to be times they’re going to the bathroom or (gasp!) working, or something. If you keep dialing, you’ll get someone. And I did.
By the time I finished talking, the urge to eat had faded. I actually felt strangely liberated, underneath the racing heart and sweating palms. It was a revelation that I didn’t have to eat. I hadn’t realized until just that moment how much I’d been using food as a crutch, and how much I hadn’t eaten since making the agonizing decision to just not engage in a war I couldn’t win.
Women and food have a troubled relationship anyway. In most of the world, we grow most of the food and are constantly engaged in the struggle to feed those we care about. Here in America if it isn’t struggling to feed your kids it’s struggling with the magazines, TV, and the anorexia our culture is steeped in. It’s another form of misogyny–starving women to make their place in the world even smaller. We’re jumped from both ends. No wonder so many of us have problems with food.
Growing up, I was never allowed to leave the table until I finished what was on my plate. Which was a rule just ripe for abuse. “Why are you so pudgy? Look at you, it’s disgusting. Don’t you have any pride in yourself? Now eat everything, or I’ll beat you.”
Yeah. A no-win situation. My family was famous for those. So I had a frocked-up relationship with food from the very beginning.
The damndest thing started happening once I decided to stop engaging in those no-win situations. I started losing weight. And dammitall, if I didn’t start feeling better about myself too. Like, sometimes almost-pretty. Like sometimes almost-worthy of taking up space and breathing.
As Nancy Price remarked in Sleeping With The Enemy, even a dog has sense enough to be happy when nobody’s kicking it.
The next step is being calm enough and clear enough to re-engage, but that might take me years. Right now it’s enough that I’m heading for my lifelines instead of the fridge when I’m stressed. The funniest thing is, I never would have had the courage to do it for myself. I did it for other vulnerable people in my family–my middle sister and my daughter. But that’s another story, for another day.
So, yeah. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you have to hurt yourself/kill yourself over them. Sometimes letting go and grabbing for a lifeline can save you, or at least keep you from drowning long enough to figure out where the shore is. It’s a hazy smear in the distance, but at least I’m treading water now.
And for right now, that’s good enough.
Related posts:
