A seething feeling awoke in the pit of my stomach. I knew I couldn’t fix my hair because if I made eye contact with the traitor in the mirror I would break something so I kept my head down.
“You disgust me.” Myself whispered to myself.
I felt my fingers curl into my palms and my jaw set.
“You’re despicable.”
I tried to ignore it. I tried to take a deep breath and count to ten.
“You know you’re going to fail.” The voice, no longer a whisper, now taunted boldly.
I felt my blood boiling but I stood silent and unmoved, head down.
“Let’s just call this what it is. We already know you will not make it long term, so go ahead and mess up now.”
My fist clinched so tightly into my palms that I could feel my finger nails digging into my skin. My heart was pumping fast.
“Shut. Up.” I tried in my sternest tone but my voice cracked and gave me away.
“You will never actually recover, you know that right? You were addicted for too long. This is your life now.”
A single hot bitter tear escaped from my eye and I slowly looked up in the mirror. I saw myself. I saw who I was. I saw what I did. I made eye contact with myself. In a millisecond of rage and adrenaline I pulled back my fist and punched the glass with as much strength as I could muster.
The shatter was loud and satisfying and then deafening. The blood from my knuckles dripped into the sink.
In a frenzy I screeched like a wild animal being attacked in the forest and grabbed fistfuls of glass and squeezed them as tightly as I could until my hands were so full of blood I could not see my fingernails. I felt no pain, only anger. Only hatred. I kept squeezing glass until my fingers went numb.
One long slender shard twinkled on the counter top, catching my eye and presenting itself to me as if to allure me in, knowing full well what I would do. I gave in willingly and grabbed the glass, using my bloody hand to pull up my shirt and expose unharmed skin. I watched the glass pierce my stomach and the most wretched redemption song shook my body.
I only love pain. I only love failure.
My body crumpled on the rug, spattered red with blood. I laid my head on the cold bathroom floor and watched a fresh puddle on the rug slowly soak into the threads. My stained red arms tingled beside me. I briefly wondered how many towels I would stain trying to clean this mess.
I felt dizzy and faint. How could I be tormented any further? How could addiction possibly be any worse than recovery? I can’t decide which is worse. I debated with myself until I gave up deciding and closed my eyes.
********************
Can I please go live somewhere until the withdrawals pass? Is there some sort of detox drug I can take to ease this unrelenting torment?
Is this the hardest part? Does it get easier? Someone tell me it gets easier. Will I always feel this much self-hatred? The anger and the regret and the guilt, how long does it take to go away? It’s all consuming. Does it ever go away? It’s swallowing me, I can’t see anything but red. What if I live the rest of my life with this much hatred?
The shakes. The headaches. The nausea. The anxiety.
This is not hard. I refuse to admit that it’s hard. I refuse to admit I want the drug. I refuse to admit I was addicted. The hard part is ME. The hardest person to fight is ME. The determination in me to self sabotage is relentless and unyielding.
I want myself to fail. Not because I’m tempted by the drug, no, I’m way further tempted to watch myself crumple on the floor in defeat and mourning, desperately begging for love and acceptance without success.
Knowing that it’s forever, that’s the hardest to wrap my brain around. Knowing there is no end.
I coddle myself. I am the queen enabler to my own self. “It’s okay,” I coo “You poor thing, you don’t have to suffer forever, just for now,” I tell myself. Anytime I start a diet, anytime I’m in a sucky job, anytime I’m running long distances...anytime anything sucks. “This will be over soon,” I reassure myself.
And it works! I make it through long and miserable things because I know it’s over soon. I make it because I know this isn’t forever, it’s only for now.
But now when I begin to feel a panic in my gut, a deep overwhelming loss, I instinctively comfort myself. “It’s okay, you are only giving this up until...” wait. Until when? WHEN?! THERE IS NO END. You are giving this up until...until all eternity.
This isn’t just for now. This is forever. The shock is terrifying. How could I possibly make it forever? I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
Someone tell me it gets better because I cannot bear the finality. It feels like death.
Oh.
My.
Gosh.
It’s a death!
Death. Oh. My. Gosh. It died.
Can you grieve your own sin? Can you miss it like it died? How wretched can you be to grieve it?
The cutting had gotten better but now it’s worse. It was so much better for years and thought I was cured. I thought I was done forever. But now I’ve failed in that too. What’s the difference between relapse and recovery? Can I ever fully recover from everything? That seems too impossible.
I can only solve one problem at a time. Life is so overwhelming and when you work on one problem, the others flare. I fear that if I switch my focus, the other problems will rise up so the question is -- really which drug do you fear the most? Which addiction is scariest?
I do not think I could ever tell enough people to stop feeling alone. I am alone. Recovery options are not options. I have to make up my own system and I am not that strong. I cannot handle this all on my own and yet I have to. It feels desperately alone.
The most hopeful thing of all is that for some reason my heart’s desire was to name this post “part one” which means that somewhere deep inside of me I must believe there is another step to this. I must believe somehow that I will proceed forward through this journey and that there will be another phase, a "part two."
