Tuesday, July 03, 2007

The Frightening Things Women Do To Themselves

Was talking to a friend over dinner last night.

And she mentioned something that got me to thinking.

She says that when she's unhappy or depressed, or is having a particularly low self-esteem day, she'd not eat. Just to punish herself.

i.e.:
"You're not good enough. You don't deserve to eat..."

Ouch! I know....

That's very bad...

But when I look at my own patterns of behaviour, I realise that I do that to myself, too. Deliberately punishing myself when I feel lousy. Deliberately hurting myself.

Getting up and putting on my ugliest outfit.

"You're not good enough. You don't deserve to look pretty."

Going out with the wrong types of men.

"You're not good enough. You don't deserve a kind, caring, loving man who loves you for you."

Considering the fact that I HAVE to eat, and that I have a frightening appetite, I can't NOT eat, on normal days.

But I notice too, a while back, when I couldn't eat.

That's when I'm at an all-time low.

I won't even get out of bed on weekends unless I absolutely MUST. I refuse to shower. I refuse to eat.

That's when I'm saying to myself:

"You're not good enough for anything. Go DIE."

I make myself sick from pure will. I reckon I could will myself to death, too.

"DIE DIE DIE."

"You're ugly. You're rubbish. You're pure crap. You're nothing. You don't deserve food. You don't deserve clothes. You don't deserve anything. Just DIE."

I have had very black moments in my life. Those moments are frighteningly dark. Those are moments I wish I could forget. Those are moments I never want to recall.

But we never could forget what happens to us. Having a trigger-memory, I definitely cannot forget. Little things remind me of what I've gone through, what I'm still going through.

But it's frightening what women do to themselves out of self-hatred. It's like self-annihilation.

It's frightening how the mind works.

How it could take you to the very depths of crushing despair and loss, and yet how it could pull you right out of that vortex of swirling, churling darkness.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i don't think it's purely a female thing, though it happens more often to us because we are more sensitive and tend to wallow in our feelings a lot more than men. I know a number of guys who have been thru the same vicious cycle and don't eat, shower or sleep because they became so depressed over chicks (who cheated on them even!!).

i think there's a part of us that equates inflicting pain on ourselves as therapy? That if we cause ourselves enough pain it'll help erase the original cause of it? doesn't make sense but we do it anyway...