Martyr

Sometimes, it's hard to remember that you can't save everyone. There's nothing heroic about yourself when you don't give up on an individual, rather it just means you have great endurance and patience. It's really the strength of the individual that's heroic when they finally pull themselves out of the shit they've buried themselves in.

I think the most heroic thing I've done is try to pull myself out of the crap I was born into. As I look back over my shoulder, I see where I have come from, and what I'm leaving behind.

I can't take anyone from there with me.

When I was a child, I thought the strongest woman in the entire world was my stepmom. She was all about independence, never accepting help from anyone and just getting by on your wit and cunning. She was more a mother to me than my own mother was. I loved her with all my heart.

After she left, she broke all ties with me and I'd only speak to her maybe a few times a year. She asked me to call her a few days ago, so I did.

Her position now is farther from anything I would have imagined as a child. She lives in the south with an older man she is only with because she's sick of being alone. He is madly in love with her. She doesn't care for him, save for the companionship and the dogs they had rescued together. I can't imagine what it must be like to lay back for a person who doesn't even arouse you.

She's miserable, really. A drunk. I tell her how I'm doing, my philosophies. This time, she is the one in awe and I feel as though I am the adult trying to lead her by the hand. But... to where? There is no place she wants to be. No adventure she had ever been on where she didn't try to simply end it. See, the child in me wants back whatever disappeared inside of her, but the adult knows that nothing has disappeared, I'm just old enough to see the whole picture.

She's more paranoid than I am. She lives her life under the umbrella of being safe and surviving. That is not how I want to live.

Sometimes, I wish I could just snag her bottles away and tell her to get a haircut because she looks like a mess. But she's more stubborn than I am. The only woman I've ever met who is self destructively more stubborn than I am. She will win battles just to win them, even if it means she loses the war.

But you can't save everyone.

My father has an eating disorder. His goal weight will put him 2 lbs under what would be classified as anorexia. He's only a few pounds away.

My mother relies too much on people and tries to manipulate them for her own purposes because she is sickeningly selfish.

None of my parents fight for themselves.

And then, there's me.

You can't save everyone. I tell that to all my friends who've cried over people they felt obligated to help, but I'm a bit hypocritical sometimes. I used to fold myself into a step-stool if only it would elevate others. I know I could probably do it all over again.

But I know this time, I need to save my energy for myself.

My stepmother told me over the phone as she was drunk that every season comes to an end, and that people stay for only a season. She told me she relieved her childhood through me and that she loved me. She asked if she could tell people about me.

There is a light snow on the ground. But even that will melt and soon, the spring will arrive.

When I hung up the phone, I hadn't even cried. Wasn't even shocked by the fact that I had no mother.

Crazy Motherfucker.

I woke up this morning around 7 like always. It's like when my body just decides to wake up, no matter how late I go to bed. My 7 o'clock used to be 4 o'clock (no joke or pun intended) so I suppose this is an improvement.

As usual, I laid in bed and day dreamed. My girlfriend is usually on my mind, so I can just relax and think of her and how close to Canada I am. And then I dozed and that's when shit went down.

I was half awake, half asleep. I saw her next to me and at first I didn't complain because this is a dream and there's nothing wrong with being sexed in your dreams. But my mattress started moving. And I felt warmth and her actual weight against my leg and all of a sudden I was coming. I always wake up when I orgasm, always.

But I couldn't wake up this time, though the orgasm was so intense that I thought I would wake up my entire dorm with screams, and soon it was round two and my mind gets fuzzy around then but my entire experience was as though I was a part of a surrealist's painting. And then, it stopped.

I laid on my back. The sun was streaming through the windows and the dust falling from the ceiling was sparkling like rainbows. She asked me what I was looking at, I replied with the question "Did you ever notice how dust glows every which colour when in the sunlight?" And all of a sudden, bubbles began to fall. I would like to point out that at this time, I was completely awake. Lazy, laying in bed, but completely awake. I could feel everything, there was no waking up.

The bubbles fell and I felt as though someone was... asking me if I was happy with the bubbles. There were no words, only.... an intuition of my own. I whispered that they were beautiful and I blew at them, watching a few pop at the force of my breath and smiled happily when more fell.

I wondered if there were faeries nearby and looking up to the ceiling to see a large blue and white swirl lollipop stuck to it without a stick. I thought "I must be dreaming" and realizing this, I pieced together that in this dream, my girlfriend was not my girlfriend but someone from my dreamworld-mind disguised as her. Dreams, could never be reality and I knew that, so I decided to wake up.

I focused on the ceiling and slowly, it started to fade into my dim room, hardly lit because of the curtains drawn against the cloudy sky outside, but then it faded back.

My room was dark. There were no bubbles. No dust. Hardly any light.

I focused on the lollipop stuck above my roomie's bed and tried to figure how I would wake up. It took more effort than it should have, but I rolled over, onto my stomach trying to wiggle my fingers and toes. When all of a sudden, I saw, felt and heard the covers below me move, as though someone was pushing me from the bed. I couldn't move to hold onto anything. I begged whatever was doing this to stop, and it did. I heard a scurrying, like a scamper of a medium sized creature, and soon it started doing that to my roomie's bed.

I watched in horror, moving my fingers and toes as fast as I could, trying to get away from whatever creature was at the foot of our beds, pulling off the bed sheets. I wanted to wake up. I NEEDED to wake up.

There were drawings on my roomie's bed. They spoke to one another. They were loud, so loud, it hurt. The inside of my head hurt. They were all I could hear and soon they were arguing and they were screaming at one another and I was inwardly screaming back at them to shut up, but they only got louder and I swear, if I had eardrums inside my mind, they would have popped right then.

I never woke up.

As soon as I could somehow lift my heavy figure from the bed, I did, and threw myself at the curtains and lifted them so that some light poured in. Then, I grabbed my computer so I wouldn't lay down again and looked at my roomie's bed.

Stripes.

Just plain sheets. Plain striped sheets. I'm... afraid to leave my bed. To find something.

I don't even have the excuse of "I was heavily medicated" to explain why I experienced these things. I just keep surprising myself.

I don't know what's happening to me.

Food.

I'm beginning to feel helpless these days. I've stopped cutting, but in turn another form of self injury has taken hold of me and in some ways, I feel as though this is worse. Cutting can't kill you. Not if you know what you're doing.

My goal has been... to gain weight back. Secretly, I was prideful, felt victorious over my ribs showing through my skin, each meal skipped and each time my stomach grumbled, it was proof that we were being victorious. But I don't want to have to look like those girls, sickeningly thin who's stomach's concave rather that stay flat. Flat, that's all I want. Flat.

The girls I'm attracted to generally have a bit of extra on them. Not obese, but very Renaissance and Roman. I was so happy with my body weight before I realized I had an eating disorder. I was so thin. When I sat, there were no folds in my stomach, I was model perfection. If I wanted to get a part time job as a retro pin-up model down the street, I could have.

But I know it's wrong.

My father always told me that it wouldn't hurt to lose some weight. That I wasn't thin. That I had pudge. Everyone else tells me I'm so skinny and praises me, as if being underweight is something I should feel proud of. Then the mind kicks in and calculates all the information to equal "Stay Thin at All Costs."

My weight has been returning. I'm not 105 pounds anymore, rather, I think I may be more than 110. Whenever I look in the mirror, what should feel like victory only looks to me like failure. My roomie is thinner than me again and whenever I see her walk across the room, the envy that pulses through my mouth only generates shame.

I want this to stop. Just like how the hunger takes away my urge to start cutting again I fear what will take away my urge to starve and how much worse it is going to be. Tara Hardy once said "Do you know how many compliments I've gotten on my collarbones since I started dying?" And it's true.

When you stop cutting, the urge is still there like a thirst that will not be quenched, but at least you can look at your arms and see Victory. But when I look in the mirror and I see that my "Victory" means becoming what I now interpret as "Fat" my only urge is to lock myself in my room and come out maybe once a day for apple sauce and salad. I don't even like fries anymore.

But I force myself. Mind over matter, if I give up I will lose the things that are most important to me. I'm afraid of eating too much and weighing more than I ever have.

My father is 5'9" and he weighs 130 pounds. He tells me he wants to lose just another 5 or 10 and then he'll be content. Last year, he was supposed to be content with 140. His diet? No breakfast. A slice of bread for lunch and vegis for dinner.

I don't want to be just a product of a man's self criticism. I wish I could gain just five more pounds and still feel beautiful.

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I think the worst part is how people react when you tell them. I've told maybe five close people and only one has been supportive. The rest act as though what I do is strange or that it's my fault. That all this rests on me and like a switch I can turn it off. I've been made to feel more ashamed of myself by the words of OTHER PEOPLE than by my own thoughts.

I feel like I was more understood back when my poison of choice was cutting.

"I'm not going to help you through this" she said.