Voices

The girl I used to be
She was confident and free and happy
I don’t recognize myself
Or this person in the mirror
Staring back at me

I’m fighting voices in my head
Voices in my head telling me that I’m not enough
I’m not pretty and I’m broken, I’m not worthy of love
Voices in my head telling me that I should give up
I’m fighting voices in my head

Words, they can cut so deep
Why do I care so much what people think?
I wonder who I’d be if I didn’t have insecurities
I don’t know what to think, I’m losing all control of reality

Stop it, I can’t take another minute
I’m going crazy with these voices that are spinning in my head
Tell my head to listen to my heart
And my heart says

I’m done with voices in my head
Voices in my head, I know that I am enough
I am pretty, I’m not broken, I am worthy of love
Voices in my head I know that it’s time to give up
With all these voices in my head

~Jana Kramer

This evening, I talked with a therapist.

I went to work, this morning. When I closed up, I drove home, and waited for Mikayla to finish getting ready. Her and I had made plans to go do a little shopping. We went to Victoria’s Secret. They’re having their semi annual sale, so that was fun.

I’d scheduled my appointment, days ago. I hadn’t decided for sure whether I’d actually attend. I showed up, though. He wound up spending over 20 minutes past our allotted time, with me. Honestly, he was pretty great. He wants to build on learning some version cognitive behavioral therapy skills as we go forward. He asked me to name 3 things that describe my “safe place”. I did, but for the sake of brutal honesty, I admitted my thought process that followed. But that’s gone. That place doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t exist, that way, anymore. It isn’t that I consciously just “decide” to have those thoughts. They’re the truth, as my mind tells it.

He also helped me to understand why I’m struggling so much to eat. I know it’s not normal or healthy, but I literally go days, sometimes weeks, without eating any real food. It isn’t at all because I’m concerned with my body image. I know I’m too thin. 84 pounds isn’t healthy. I’m almost never hungry. In fact, the very thought of eating usually repulses me. If I attempt to force myself, I instantly gag. The textures, the tastes. I may as well be trying to eat glass. He explained, when our bodies remain in “fight, flight, or freeze” mode for too long, our brains are so focused on that, our mechanisms that control and announce things as basic as hunger simply shut down. Our bodies are so focused on what we continue to perceive as imminent danger, the typical signals we’d be receiving just can’t get through. I like to at least understand why I’m feeling and doing the things I don’t seem able to control on my own. None of this will be magically cured, or fixed, just by knowing. It does at least give me comfort, that this isn’t all only because I’m too weak, or lack the willpower, to control and change on my own.

My “core beliefs”, or the things I tell myself, are things like I’m not worthy. I’m not enough. I don’t deserve to feel better. I’ve failed the people who mattered most. Not because I woke up one day and decided to feel these things. Because nothing else makes sense, to me. Why else would I be here, lonely and miserable? Betrayed and abandoned by so many of the people I loved the most.

I guess, I’m searching for the truth. If I’m not seeing something, show me. If I need to hear something, tell me. I’m looking for some direction. Which way is up? How do I begin to trust that to take even the smallest steps would be to move forward, and not wind up discovering I was once again, in fact, racing further backwards in my clumsy attempts to escape this awful place I’m in? Maybe I’m not good enough. But, is it possible to learn how to be? I used to think I was good, and aspire to be better. Great even. Now, I’d really like to be enough. To be able to give my family something besides these empty plates I keep serving them. It’s as if I’m doing everything I know how to feed my family’s hunger for the things I once was able to so readily serve them. Or, believed I was. No matter what I do, the plates come up empty, though. All I can give them is…nothing. I want more than anything to have something good and right to give to them. I don’t want someone else to do it for me. I want to learn how to do it myself, for them. I will admit, somewhere inside, I’m craving for the deliciousness that life once was for me. First, I need to know my family is fed. Then, I might be able to contemplate how I could satisfy that hunger that still remains deep within me.

I know this journey will be a long one. Fraught with difficult and painful roads I’m going to have to travel through. Mountains and valleys that will require a strength I’m not yet convinced I’ll be able to muster. I do believe I took the first step, tonight. That’s not nothing.