Time Warp
As I was packing, I stumbled across some old photographs. From 2000. Before the eating disorder really kicked in.
I gasped.
That was seven years ago.
The gap.
I have a few photos and a few memories from the in-between time, but not many.
What happened?
What happened?
The time has seemed to evaporate. I saw a genuinely happy Carrie, one who ate with gusto, one who enjoyed spending time with friends, one who had a wide variety of friends at her fingertips.
One who had he world at her feet.
I was in Scotland during the fall of 2000. The fall of 2001, the anorexia tried its damndest to kill me.
I am left breathless. The in-between time...has sublimated like dry ice, carbon dioxide drifting aimlessly into the air. I found some notebooks and homework assignments from the short time I was able to stay in school. I didn't remember the classes I took, the assignments I had (and turned in!), the meticulous class notes.
Memories didn't come rushing back, but feelings did. Despair. Aimlessness. Hunger. Confusion. Desperation- this haunting need to eat less and lose more. Cold. A cold that sent me directly to Dante's Tenth Circle.
And then...nothing.
I almost don't want to remember.
Then I am left wondering: what happened? What happened to me? How bad did things get? I knew how low my weight got. I knew how low my blood pressure was. But I can't remember much else.
How long ago that was. How little happened between then that wasn't the eating disorder. I had a bizarre double life. Yes, I got a graduate degree. But it was my brain that had split off, that could do the statistics and analysis, not me.
It's like time stopped.
No, I think it was more like I stopped and time kept on with its inevitable march.
Now I have all of this catching up to do. I have my time in Scotland, a time of amazing joy and wonder. Then all I know is the black haunt of anorexia. I am emerging from that haunt, and the light still hurts my eyes. I look around, and don't understand or recognize where I am or even who I am.
The reality of my time with my eating disorder it hitting full-force. I'd like to say I'm going to leave it all behind, but I don't know that for sure. I can't leave myself behind- even though sometimes I'd like to.
But that time, that missing time. It hurts. And it scares me. I don't want to miss out like that anymore. I won't.
I won't.
13 comments:
All I can say carrie is that I AM SOOOOO GLAD THE YOU ARE HERE!!!!
Love Lauren
What happened?
You did leave Carrie behind when ED ruled the roost. No more.
This time it's ED that's being left behind.
Who better than you to whoop him into another dimension and start choosing Carrie as the leader of her own life. It does get easier.
You deserve to eat and live and learn and even to have bills in life. Take your place!/*
You can so do this Carrie....keep saying "I think I can, I think I can" /*
No Carrie, you won't. Because you are amazing. You needed the anorexia and you don't need it anymore. You have found new ways to cope. You have found new ways to take care of yourself.
At first when my T said that I should be thanking my ED I thought she was insane. Your ED was there when you needed it. You don't need it anymore and you're not going back. You aren't going to miss a thing.
xo
Faith
I can't say anything better than the others (especially right now)... just know that I am so glad you are here. So glad that you aren't going back.
hugs...
You write so well and movingly about these aspects of EDs beyond the physical...the mind-body split, the weird memory loss, how time dissapears and much of your identity with it, and the shock of those losses. It's the combination of mental, emotional, and physical suffering that makes anorexia so torturous.
ED was a pothole in the road in the dark. You couldn't have avoided it as you didn't know it was there.
I admire the heck out of you, not for getting an ED but for wrestling it. It isn't the time you've lost, it is the time you regained, ahead of you.
You will re-discover yourself and your purpose, but to do that, you must continue leaving the void behind. You'll make it. I know you will. :)
Awwww, thanks everyone. I've been at my laptop working on my lecture notes all day, so my eyes can't take it anymore (the light! the light!). I'll keep this short and sweet:
THANK YOU.
I'm very impressed by your courage Carrie and send you my best wishes. You deserve to have your life back. That and so much more.
Geoffrey
What happened . . . You survived.
I'm so glad.
i think if the carrie from 2000 could take a look at her 2007 self, and see the monumental journey of the past 7 years, she would be bowled over with pride.
way to fight, to refuse to miss out again.
this resonated with me so much:
I think it was more like I stopped and time kept on with its inevitable march.
your writing is so beautiful. anyway, love from,
pav
and by "beautiful" i mean that your writing is: true, honest, real, brave, authentic, sincere. and drop dead gorgeous in armani, i'm sure.
Geoff,
Thanks. Check your email for more. ;)
Sarah,
Damn. That just sums it up.
Pav,
Of course I look good in Armani (not that I've ever had a chance to wear it). Though I do tend to prefer funky chic. I don't know if preppy funky is a style, but that's me.
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