Over and Over
So many emotions swirling around. So many thoughts, feelings, unrealized actions. I miss him. I love him. At this point I’m not sure I’ll ever get to have a relationship with him beyond six hours every other week. I am trying to be grateful for the glimpse of what could be, but it feels like looking into a warm cozy living room from the outside.
I haven’t had a drop of alcohol for 31 days now. I really don’t feel all that different. If I drink enough, I can finally succumb to the numb nothingness. The problem is, I’m also capable of doing some very stupid shit while feeling numb. I’m debating whether I’ll have a drink tomorrow. I don’t know. Maybe. I also thought not drinking would help me shed some weight, but I’ve simply replaced alcohol’s calories with chips, fries, and burgers. I stuff fistfull after fistfull of gummy bears, donuts, and doritos down my gullet.
I had a phase once. Must be about eight years ago. I wanted to lose weight then too. Only that time, I was able to do it. I had yogurt for breakfast, then skipped lunch, and binged something to the tune of 1200 to 1500 calories in the evening. This usually amounted to eating something like 1800 calories a day. The weight came off. Now it won’t. For aforementioned reasons. I am still plagued by magical thinking. Unrelenting intrusive thoughts pound against the foreground of my existence:
“You’ll just keep getting fatter until you’re honest”
“You need to confess”
“Unless people know every bad thing you’ve ever done, you are lying to them and you are a terrible person”
“confess…confess….CONFESS!!”
“Remember that thing you did in 7th grade? Yeah, you are still terrible for it. It’s one of the many reasons your life is the way it is.”
“CONFESS!!”
“Remember THAT lie you told? And THAT ONE? AND THAT ONE??? You are your brother! Only worse, because you hide it!”
The “thing I need to confess” changes periodically, at least every few years. I really do think I have OCD that targets various themes at the whims of my brain. Then again, one of the hardest parts of dealing with all of this is knowing whether or not the newest thing to confess™ is part of my possible OCD or something someone close to me really deserves to know. Something they need to know. A piece of information so crucial that my withholding it amounts to living a constant lie.
I’ve only ever had one person see almost the full extent of this part of me. Almost every time we’d meet up, I would feel the need to confess some bad thing™ that I had done in the past. He was patient. Every time, after I confessed, I would feel warm and fuzzy inside as he accepted me despite what I had told him. I would ride this high for the rest of the day, perhaps for several days. Until suddenly out of nowhere a memory would come crashing into my mind, coupled with an immediate sinking feeling of dread.
“Oh no, I did X and forgot to tell him about it. Once he finds out, he will reject me and expel me from his life.” This thought would repeat until the dread morphed into despair. The rumination would be so intense as for me to seek any available distraction. I would measure time between the repeating thought. Was it coming every few seconds? Minutes? Hours? Had I managed to exist a day without it? Was it the first thing that I thought about when I woke up? Did the incessant gnawing repetition keep me up last night? Finally, I would tell him, and the cycle would complete with a warm fuzzy feeling as he showed me acceptance.
Eventually, he told me that he didn’t need to know every bad thing I’ve ever done for me to be in his life. That eased my mind, silencing the ruminations in my head. For a while, my repeating thoughts all but disappeared. Of course, eventually they came back. Only the themes were new and the relationships were different. The feelings of dread and despair were and are the same. I ought to go find a therapist. I have looked a few times, but not very hard.
I’m terrified. Terrified of being told that no, there is in fact nothing wrong with me, I have just done bad things and it is human nature for those bad things to hold our minds in a vice grip until we have confessed every last one.
Because I do, in fact, lie.
I have, in fact, done things I am ashamed of.
How do you know when it’s your mind?
How do you know when it’s real?