I have been attempting to share more about this whole disordered eating mess with the therapist. I was talking about River and myself seemingly become less and less dissociated from each other, thus causing me to feel some of the intense emotions around food and body image that she regularly experiences.
But then I admitted that the body image issues aren’t entirely River’s fault. Yes, I do experience some of the very thoughts I know she sorta “sends” to me, but my relationship with this body has been complex since the beginning. Sharing a body with other Parts is in itself a strange and complicated way to live. But, also, as I’ve received more and more information about our collective history, it makes it very hard to feel comfortable or safe in this body.
I’ve always known that “I” was abused and raped by more than one person at various points throughout this life. I understood that on a factual level since the moment I came into existence around 2009 as the shiny new host of a System I didn’t even understand existed yet. What I didn’t initially have, however, was any emotional attachment to that fact.
But throughout the last several years that has changed. As the internal walls start to come down, I feel more and more integrated with the memories and emotional experiences that are shared with me. There are moments where I feel completely overwhelmed – as if I’m drowning in the reality of that truth.
I get these memories…these images and sensations and feelings that come to me, either in dreams or flashbacks or thoughts. As I piece them together, I get a clearer idea of what, exactly, was done to me. Most of the time I try to keep it far away from me. I create distance by reinforcing that this happened to another Part.
Not me. Not Andi.
But I am them and they are me and we are all this body.
So in reality, those things did happen to me. I AM that little girl. I AM that teenager. I AM the person who was hurt so many times. We all are.
And that information – the awareness of what was done to me and to this body is what makes it sometimes unbearable to exist inside it. It makes me hate it, hate myself, hate to look in the mirror, hate to exist at all. It makes me want to scream and cry and rip off all my skin. It makes me feel insane.
And, admittedly, it makes me want to starve until I disappear into nothingness.
A nothing that no one can hurt ever again.
Things I Learned In Therapy 