It’s amazing what form destruction can take.
It could be a boyfriend; building up your hopes and dreams, only to rip them away from you.
It could be a university; putting pressure on you, the tension mounting until you finally collapse in a defeated pile of flesh and bones.
It could be a cake; hidden away at the back of the cupboard, for that moment that you need ‘comfort’.
It could be a friend; someone you thought who was different – amazing even – but he turns out to be the worst of them all.
It’s amazing how pure destruction doesn’t just touch your flesh but it sinks right through your bones – to the very core of your being – to your soul. There it sits, creating a black hole and sucking away all the happiness, leaving you with nothing. No happiness, no sadness, no regret, no anger – just nothing.
I thought it was the weather that made me feel this awful. It wasn’t until this afternoon that I realized it was him. He is at the center of everything. The ‘friend’ I thought I had found. He is the reason for everything.
Day after day, I take snide comment after snide comment and I pretend not to care. I pretend that it doesn’t hurt. I’m constantly pretending when I’m in his presence. I used to be myself, I used to be open around him but I can feel the wall building up, getting higher and higher by the day. Soon, he won’t be able to see me at all. I will laugh, I will smile and I will act like everything is alright but he will see the facade; not a shadow of the truth will be shown on my face.
He compliments me and insults my intelligence in the same breath. He asks me for help and insults my writing style in the same breath. He says he’ll be there for me if I need him then makes me feel sick to my stomach. I didn’t know I was friends with someone who has such a twisted sense of friendship. I’m beginning to dread going to university, for I know that I’ll be in his presence. I’m beginning to dread going to lunch because he’ll be there, questioning everything I eat. I’m beginning to dread getting results, for he’ll be there, analyzing everything.
I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it on this blog before but I guess there’s no time like the present. Right?
A couple of years ago I had a twisted relationship with food. I would simply refuse. I was surviving on a diet of apples, coffee and egg whites, mostly. I was barely eating over five or six hundred calories and burning at least half of that per day. I dropped weight quickly. Too quickly. I lost ten kilograms within a month and more after that. My face got the haunted look. I was constantly sick. I was always tired. I was always cold. I never had enough energy to do anything. I had to have a nap after school. I would stay up past midnight, doing crunches in the darkness and safety of my bedroom. My life took on an obsessive quality; everything had to be done exactly right and if not, I would be punished for it.
I’m not sure how long this lasted; six months or maybe more but it was pure hell. It was pure destruction; my own personal hell that I carved with my own hands. With the help of my {then} boyfriend, I managed to claw myself out of the darkness that grasped me and things got better – slowly but surely. I started taking supplements I added more foods to my ‘safe list’. I stopped compulsively exercising into the wee hours of the morning. It took a long, long time but I finally got to a place where I was {relatively} happy with my appearance. I could eat more than six hundred calories and I wouldn’t beat myself up over it. I could feel my energy coming back. Life was beginning to feel like it was turning around again.
Well, I can feel it slipping away again. The black hole is opening in my chest again but this time it’s bigger; stronger; more dangerous. The voices are coming back. The ones I fought so hard against the first time. I don’t know if I have the heart this time. It would be so easy to just let them win. To stop fighting. To just drift.
I’m just so tired. Pure destruction is knocking on my door again; this time it’s in the disguise of a friend. The question is simple: do I let him in or do I slam the door in his face?
For the first time in a long time, I can say that I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to happen this time.
