Im fine, I promise.
Im fine, a phrase I must use over 10 times a day. A phrase
that means the polar opposite of what it says. But that doesn’t matter. People
ask questions, how are you, are you safe, have you hurt yourself, are you going
to hurt yourself, how are you feeling, whats your mood like, are you okay?
Yes, im fine. Im always fine. Im fine a 3am when tears are
poruing from my eyes and im forcing a pillow over my mouth to stop myself
gasping for air, stopping myself from making a noise as to alert people to how
I truly am.
Im fine as I sit down for six meals a day and fight through
the intrusive anorexic thoughts of don’t
eat, don’t eat, don’t eat. Bad, fat, ugly, worthless.
Im fine as I take my dog for a walk and pretend that I love
it, when in reality, its just another compulsion that I have to carry out,
anything to ease the anxiety.
What is ‘fine’? I don’t know whats considered normal
anymore, I don’t recognise that its not normal to stay awake all night planning
overdoses or how to run away, I don’t see it as abnormal to sit at my desk with
suicidal thoughts bubbling away.
I guess that’s the problem with these illnesses. They take
away your sense of knowledge, its been so many years now, I don’t know what is normal. I feel an almost panic if I
have a good day, what do I do with
myself? Im so used to conditioning myself to walk past shops without buying
all their paracetamol in stock, or binging on alcohol to just get these voices to stop.
Maybe its selfish. Maybe im selfish. Maybe this illness has
made me this way, I probably deserve it. Maybe the doctors are right when they
tell me im lazy, that im not trying. Maybe im beyond caring anymore. Maybe, ive
given up, maybe when im smashing my head into a wall trying to stop myself from
shoving those pills down my throat or cutting my wrists, its too little too
late.
Maybe I am already dead, maybe I died all those years ago
when it happened. Maybe the second it started, Fiona died and I became a shell
of a human trying to survive in a world that seemed to want me out.
Maybe I wasted all those years in therapy, all those meals I
powered through and the promises I made. Every hospital trip ending with ‘I
really am going to try now, it wont happen again, promise’. Maybe, it really is futile. You cant resuscitate a person
who has been gone for so long. There is only so many times you can hospitalize
a person to keep them alive. There is only so many phone calls that can be
made, so many emails of desperation, so many police and ambulance visits before
you realise its just not going to get
better.
Maybe this hospital visit really will be the last.
But I promise, im
fine.
