#tl;dr- i throw my yearly trauma anniversary tantrum

[such-an-almighty-sound]

once again it is 2am and i am finishing writing this up. all of my usual content warnings apply. sorry if you’re on mobile, i’ve put this behind a readmore but it’s fucking long

you should probably read this post first

you have a nightmare. 

it is somewhere in traumasummer before you began treatment. it is late at night and your mother has been trying to force feed you herself. there is a plate on the table between you that you two have been fighting over for hours. 

it occurs to you that you are not in your body. you are a spectator standing behind your mother’s chair, facing your younger self. there is a deadening between you two, as though she is merely a tracing. a kind of offcenter transparency that doesn’t overlay your body. not completely. 

she has broken down and is eating. a violent snarling mess of tears, making the violent most of her production so she can go to sleep. coughing and choking and spitting. she is having trouble swallowing, her saliva pooling in her jaw. hands and hair and angry angry bones. the ac chugs indifferently in the corner.

your mother has turned her head just a little away, just for a moment and your younger self notices and retaliates, shoving the plate and utensils aside.

you know what, your younger self snarls. it’s not like this really matters in the end. this WON’T FIX ME. i just haven’t found my exit yet-

her victory is finite as your mother grabs her by the wrist and yanks her forward and says what the fuck does that mean are you puking [SHAKE] is that a threat ANSWER ME! [BIRTH NAME]! [SHAKE]

there is a moment stretched taut and then the vindictive façade on her (your) face shatters and you hear your mother saying i’m sorry! i’m so sorry did i hurt you, let me go get you some ice her voice cracking as younger self begins to scream

I DON’T WANT ANY ICE, I WANT TO GO TO BED

the scene changes and solidifies: several months have gone by and you are watching yourself curled up in an angry ball, slamming her head repeatedly into the floorlevel kitchen cabinets. her eyes are foggy, unfocused, but her motion is unflinching. 

you are sitting on a metal table in a paper gown and a doctor is pushing your arms against the wall and saying my you’re still quite strong aren’t you

you are in the hospital pissing with the bathroom door open and a nurse, tasked with watching you, tapping his pen impatiently against your wheelchair. you stare at him unblinking and throw your heart monitor into the wall.

you have been in the hospital for over a week and for the first time have to eat with someone else. his name is t****** and he is eleven. he is here for the same reason you are. he’s very nervous doctor m is saying. but you will be nice to him, no? she peers unflinchingly at your face and says no you wouldn’t hurt a fly, would you? 

you are in the clinic and are being made to drink your salad dressing for the first time. the nine other patients at the table are studiously not looking at you and in every line of their profiles you read a mixture of embarrassment and dread and thank god thank god it’s not me.

you are in the dtu and everyone is silent except for one girl who is sobbing and rocking back and forth as the doctors explain that they cannot help her and she will be transferred to a residential care facility three states away within 24 hours. it is that girl’s fifteenth birthday.

you are kneeling on the floor of the bathroom and there is blood on your hands and between your legs and in your socks and your shoes and on the floor and through the door you can hear laurie saying talk to me, talk to me, [birthname] this is gonna be okay, talk to me

you are showering with the light turned off and it is quiet and dark and there is nothing but warm water raining down on you

you are

you are on your hands and knees in the fog. you are alone, for once. silent mist in every direction, unaltering and unspecific.

you begin to walk, stumbling a little. although you know you are not awake, this dimension feels unarguably real. the fog has dampened your shirt, teases fuzzy loops out of your hair. your legs hurt. if you close your eyes and focus on these sensations then this could just be one of your many walks on the coast. the scenery is often quite similar to this, there are many days when you cannot see ten paces ahead of yourself.

you walk and walk. blindly, thinking about times in your youth when you would rise before dawn and walk in a frigid low tide, trawling through driftwood and shells and stones, and when you got home your grandmother would be waiting with tea and jambar cookies, or hot chocolate sometimes and you would wrap up and slowly draw the blueness from your bones

when your foot strikes solid, you do not immediately open your eyes thinking: this golden light could be the golden light of that kitchen, i will open my eyes and there will be a warm sweater and a fire being laid and chai cooking on the back of the stove

you open your eyes and see a square foot of doormat complete with backdoor which opens and florence who says hello bucky why don’t you come in

the solid doorway is residing in an infrastructure of fog, so much so that you expect it to bend under your weight as you carefully step inside. florence snaps the stormdoor shut behind you 

and you are in that kitchen, the kitchen of your childhood summers, all white speckled linoleum and worn-clean fixtures. but it is strangely bare and austere, the counters empty, smelling of cleaner and hot water. although you just stepped in from featureless fog, it appears to be night as you look out of the kitchen windows.

won’t you sit with me? water’s boiling.

you follow her through into the main room; as you look around it is not completely as you remember, a facsimile with details clumsily blurred out: a gap where a door should be replaced by slubbed shadow, picture frames that hang empty on the shadowy walls. 

two of the restaurant-wear mugs your grandmother uses for teatime wait on the table. 

were you expecting me here?

you were already thinking about somewhere you’d like to be, and it’s easier to build off of that than to have to come up with a location all on my own and convince you that you want to be there.

okay, you say, but i don’t really want to be here. 

florence gives you a tolerant look. you’re overdue for this, my darling. can you tell me anything about how you’re feeling after talking to the orthopedist?

there is a stack of photographs on the empty mantlepiece. why are these here? you ask instead of answering, rifling through them with uncherishing haste.

bucky…

no! why are these here? you are beginning to feel angry instead of merely annoyed, your fingers growing rougher and rougher

i don’t know. i don’t come up with everything that’s in here. show me which ones they are. florence is tilting her head as though she doesn’t know what you hold. you turn and slap the pictures on the table, splaying them out. she looks through them calmly, smoothing corners you have bent.

maybe you’re thinking about them, too? why don’t you tell me? her voice is soft, coaxing

you know what, don’t bother. i’ll just get myself some water and leave. in the kitchen, the tap water is warm and while waiting for it to cool you stare out the dark windows, remembering the photos being taken. 

florence follows you in, leans against the doorframe. it can’t have been easy information to receive in remission, she says. it is okay to need to revisit some things. tell me why those pictures?

they never show how sick i was.

i’m sorry? she says.

i wanted to check because the damage was, is so extensive and yet- it doesn’t show. i wanted to see if i looked as sick as that has made me. and they don’t look like /anything/. i remember them being taken, i remember what i was thinking! you take a breath, try to calm yourself. your next words waver coming out

i was jumping compulsively on the beach and my dad started taking photos of me. and my parents used them on their christmas cards that year! one hung on the wall of my house until i took it down.. i couldn’t stop jumping! i snuck out of the house to compulsively run that night. and it doesn’t show! my parents took so many photos of me when i was sick and they saved them all and in all of them it doesn’t look that bad! not as bad as i remember, not as bad as ‘almost killed you!’

you can drown, florence says, in less than three inches of water.

strength does not matter. endurance does not matter. you can look and look and look at that water, and you can call it whatever you want. but there are still things that the body cannot withstand.

i just wasn’t that far gone. it wasn’t that fucking hard

bucky, she says and you turn and fumble the wet mug which smashes to pieces on the linoleum between your feet.

you stand there shaking with your hands over your face, willing yourself not to cry.

it’s alright. florence bends down and begins scooping the shards together. you stare at her bent head and listen to your breaths shudder in out in out and in a moment’s decision you cannot explain you grab her mug from the counter and throw it across the room

china shards and tea splatter over the floor.

florence freezes, bent, and you shout at her: stop being so calm! i know you can be angry, i’ve seen it! i’ve seen it!

i fucking hate sitting here and having you talk me down, pretending it’s gonna be the same when i wake up, that the rest of the world will have adjusted to not seeing me as an idiot girl

bucky, she says again, moving nearer to you and you yank the cabinet open and begin throwing out dishes from your childhood: milk glasses bowls plates every single tea mug shattering on the floor and amid the colossal noise you are screaming

i know you’re in my way, i know you can let me get to her!

bucky, florence says, angry now, you do not get to harm your younger self. 

i want to put her eyes out with my hands! you scream. what do i wait for? when does this end? what further chance do i give? i get no relief! there is nothing else i want!

i know it’s not fair! florence is insistent, angry, pleading: believe me, i am abundantly acquainted with unfairness- you have a very limited scope where you can make things better but you have AMPLE room in which to make them worse. PLEASE take that into account- 

she is eyeing you up as though to grab you and you begin throwing out drawers, spilling silverware in great jangling arcs in her path

please WHAT? you interrupt. i have paid- i AM paying out the nose for the decisions of a person i don’t remember being. FOUR YEARS since “physical remission” and i’m STILL discovering the extent of the damage of something that i was supposed to heal from. my muscular system’s fucked. i live with pain day in and day out and i’m fucking tired. 

as you look for the next thing to throw florence steps across the mess and plucks your hands out of the air, holding your wrists like a vice. you can be as angry as you want but you will not break me down into a form that does not care.

oh you always take her side! you spit. you are backed into the counter, florence too close in your face. my past already belongs to her, i suppose my future should too?

you have divided yourself apart. and i care for every bit of it. there is no self you can break into that is undefendable

i’m sure that here is. you pull hard but she is using her height against you and you cannot get your wrists free

you don’t get to make these decisions about who i care for! that is not why i am here! florence says and you shove her; she stumbles and you yank free and throw the dish soap at her. she bats it aside and it cracks against the counter. you flinch; she is stronger than you.

you scream in frustration; florence slams her hands down on the countertop making the saucers in the cabinet shake and screams back. the sound shudders in her throat, guttural and aching. 

you know what it is? you miss her! florence grabs you by the biceps and pulls you forward, too close again. your feet skid on china shards. you miss that girl and you are too prideful to admit it!

no! you spit. i miss not being caught in this loop! i miss not collecting damage from years ago. i miss not being able to move on.

i don’t believe you. she is steely,  so close and so angry that there is nowhere else for you to look.

oh, you don’t? you gasp

this stigma is eating me alive!

i was never taught in inpatient that ano/rexia was a chronic illness and now that i’m out it’s seen as a vanity diagnosis in the only community available to me! i was hoping, no I WANTED something else to be wrong so i could have something to back up against. it’s one thing when abled people think you’re lying and ANOTHER thing when everyone else does too! where is my community? where is my support? with the proanas and the thins/po blogs?

i second guess myself every time i try to talk about what happened to me. my recovery is not mine.

i bet you someday i am gonna die and i am gonna die from this. i’ve been symptomatic since i was twelve, long before diagnosis and hospitals and therapy. there is no clean slate. there is no reset and someday i am going to die from it. endocrine damage, brain damage, muscular damage. damage to my teeth, scars that won’t heal! i don’t know how to be an adult and not be sick. i don’t remember what it feels like to not have this in my head! there is nothing i am anymore that is not built on sickness! and yet, it is not enough. there is nowhere i can be. this disease has turned me inhuman. i feel no cold, i feel no hunger, and every moment of it purgatory so forgive me if i am angry.

florence narrows her eyes, her mouth a mean hard line. fine. she drops her hands from you

fine? you echo.

then i want to grieve with you. or mourn, whatever it is that you come to, if reconciliation is not an option. this decision is violent and ugly and it must hurt. and as with things that hurt, it must be mourned.

you glare at her with your chin up. the whole kitchen seems to be shaking, the walls bulging and shifting with your distress.

but listen to me, she says, softly. you have another choice. you can make another choice. she touches the side of your face gently, so gently that you relax into it, look her dead in the eyes 

ha!

you rip away from her, too late- she lets her hand fall and leans against the counter, smirking.

you are so full of hurt you are aching with it! how could you cut off your love? you could no more cut her off than you could cut off your own leg! you were formed from her trauma, there is no one without the other!  you know what i think the hardest thing is? she was no pirahna. she hurt, yes. you, she, was scared and angry and mean perhaps. but human. human and sick and under a undue, undeserved amount of pain for a young person. that is the hard and soft of it. it is ACTIVELY more difficult for you to pretend otherwise, and yet, you do!

i don’t understand you. love is a wonderful nourishing thing but you do not love her and you do not love yourself! you have a diagnosis, make it worth something!

she is not mine! you gasp

i am sorry this upsets you so much. she shakes her head. but bucky- you have always been terrible at lying. 

you have begun to sob angrily. i have shed names i have shed selves i have dumped and drowned and run away and there is nothing i can do. i have failed over and over and i have nothing to offer. florence i don’t- i don’t-

i just want to be in my body and feel like i am home.

florence sighs gustily, her anger receding into a kind of frustrated tiredness. she holds you at arms length and tugs down your hands so she can see your naked face.

okay. bucky, do you remember the feeling you would get when you were little- being locked in the basement for some disobedience? you would be so scared, it was dark and creaked and smelled like mildew, and the light switch was right there above you on the wall, if you stood up and reached you could turn it on, but no matter how long you were in there or how many times you hd been before, you just couldn’t. couldn’t will yourself to. you could’t even touch the doorknob. and so you would sit there frozen in the dark.

if you are so angry, so resolute, why do still feel as though you were in that basement? you know it and i do.

there is so much desolation you have come back from. it will resolve.

you cry so hard you can’t focus. everything floods away, like a strange tide, like closing your eyes while swinging: there is nothing at all for a moment and then you go back and the sound and the muffled darkness resumes around you. you keep going away.

somewhere florence is singing to you.

she’s holding onto you, rocking from foot to foot, your face in her front.

the noise you are making feels like it surrounds you and goes on forever, but you perceive it as somehow separate, as though you have relinquished control on your lungs and mouth and diaphragm. how many times has this been, you wonder, with her hand on the back of your neck and her holding you- but you don’t ever hold onto her back. uncoordinatedly, you fling your arms around her waist and she makes a heavy noise and rocks back on her feet. but her hand presses more firmly into your back and her hair falls over you.

you turn over and open your eyes; you are still in the house in the other place, but the light is pale and the morning feels softer. you can feel her jeans against your cheek and the worn-plush upholstery of the couch and the smell of the skin on the inside of her arm

your head in the crook of her arm your head in the crook of her arm your head in the crook of her arm

you meet florence’s eyes somewhat guiltily and she smiles crookedly. you know, at first i thought i would just wrap you up in the duvet cover and sit on the floor, but i was worried you would hurt yourself. you were very upset. and this turned out to be just fine. the clink of setting a mug down; her eyes intent on you. her fingers follow a tangled lock of your hair and smooth it. she is excruciatingly gentle.

i think it is important to make up for the pain. especially with this new insight to your diagnosis

it’s like when you’re a baby- and no, my darling, I don’t mean that pejoratively -your mind shrinks down to this tiny pinpoint as you panic and you can’t see anything outside of that filter. all you can do is scream and lash out and so you need to be soothed on that primal level as well-  on another topic, i think that is why casual touch bothers you so. it reminds you of that loss of control, rather than the soothing out of it. something still worth working on.

she pauses, looks down at you. you know, it’s not all carnage and wasted days. you did regain things, many of which you continue to retain. such as, you’re wonderfully warm. you smell different now. your hair and nails have grown back and are strong. and you’re taller. and still very stubborn.

she winks, stretches her legs. come. i want to make you something to drink and have you enjoy it this time.

it is as though your tantrum of the previous night had never happened. the rooms are still and chock full of a dense gold light. the kitchen floor is clean, linoleum absent of pottery shards. the counters gleam. and as you open the cabinet: rows of ironstone restaurant-wear mugs, unchipped and soothingly stained.

florence pours hot water into a mug, makes you tea and stirs the honey in herself, her long fingers wrapped deftly around the spoon while your own aching hands lie as heavy and dextrous on the table as two clenched stones. 

clink of cup on wood. there. it’s all alright. 

she puts your hand between her own and squeezes it.

you punish yourself far too much for not having done something wrong. you aren’t naughty. there’s no morality to being sick. it’s disease. and there’s no way but through it.