I want to write a self-help book, and I want it to focus on me dying. Twice. Then coming back to life! Or maybe do a series of self-help videos. I just don’t know how funny it would be after one or two shorts. Because, basically, my advice for any situation is to die.
Really. It’s the best thing that happened to me. And I did it twice.
I have suffered from severe depression, anxiety, and body dysmorphia all my life. They all started when I was seven. Coincidentally or not, that was when I realized I was going to die. I became obsessed with death, but in a push/pull kind of way. I did not want to die and yet, I wanted it more than anything. The idea that one day I would just be gone forever repulsed, excited, and terrified me. That’s something I thought about for the following three decades of my life.
As for the trio of mental health issues, well. They crushed me when I was a kid and during my teen years. A defining moment was when my mother put me on a diet when I was seven. When I was seven. I had to repeat that beacuse it’s only in hindsight that I realized just how fukced up that was. I see pics of me when I was that age, and while I was chunky and solid, I was not fat.
Even if I were, I was still a little kid. I was in my growing phase. Telling me I was fat and that I needed to restrict my intake was cruel. I don’t want to argue about whether my mother meant to be cruel or not because in this case, impact matters more than intent. It would have been bad enough if she had put me on a diet and then just left it at that, but, no. She had to nag me about it. She would tell me that I had such a pretty face. If only I wasn’t so fucking fat! No, she didn’t say ‘fucking’, but it was certainly implied in her tone.
We did not have sweets in the house. My mother insisted that we had fruit and veggies at every meal. I know that’s a good thing, but it made me not eat fruit or veggies for several years when I was in my thirty. I wasn’t doing it on purpose–I just could not make myself eat fruits and veggies because of being forced to do it all my life.
Thankfully, I am able to eat them again and I eat five to seven servings a day. Eat and drink. And I love my body now. This is beacuse of dying. Twice. Or rather, because how the nurses treated me with such respect when I came back to life. And I don’t care if this falls under delusional (the delusions I had while in the hospital). I remember that once I was awake, the nurses had to help me to the bathroom. Once I did my business, they wiped my ass for me with medicated baby wipes. Which felt deligthtful, by the way. They were thick with aloe vera and presumably something medicated.
Side note: When I left the hospital, one of the things they put on the list for me to buy at home was the medicated ass wipes. They didn’t say why, but the nurse told me that because they’re not cheap (they’re a buck a wipe), to wipe with regular toilet paper first and then use this for the last wipe. Did I do that? Oh hell no. I was not paying a buck per ass wipe. My brother bought baby wipes from CostCo by the hundreds. Those would be good enough. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the suggestion for the ass wipes was not because of my particular situation, but only to lessen the probability of an infection.
I can’t tell you how vulnerauble a feeling it is to be in that situation. I couldn’t walk on my own, which meant there was no escapse possible. Not that I had anything to escape from, but it’s not a good feeling to not be able to get away.
Think about it. Walking is something many of us take for granted. If you know how to do it, then it becomes involuntary. Not being able to do it, even for a few days, was frightening. It made me feel weak and fragile. The nursese treating me with compassion and respect made all my body issues melt away.
To be clear, the fact that my body took such a beating and kept on ticking without missing a step did the bigger part in making me appreciate my body. To recap: I had walking non-Covid-related pneumonia which triggered two cardiac arrests and an ischemic stroke. I was unconscious for a week. My body took all that, shrugged, and said, “What else ya got, bitch?!”
My body is so fucking rad. After my medical crisis and the nurses treating it with such care, I got completely over my body issues. But how the hell do I tell that to people (mostly women) who are struggling with the same issues? I have hated my body since I was seven. When I started Taiji in my mid-to-late thirties, I still hated my body. After ten or so years of practice, I came to a begrudging detente with my body. I would tell you that I no longer hated it, but I did. The loathing was just quieter. It’s shades of degrees, really. I didn’t hate it like I did whenn I was young, but I still refused to look at it.
I have hated mirrors all my life. I wouldn’t look in them. Plus, I hated having my picture taken. I refused to allow it, which made my mother upset. But in a way, it was her fault. She was the one who harped on my weight since I was sevven and told me implicitly and sometimes even explicitly that I was unbeearably fat. She never said that it was disgusting, but her tone implied it.
It got so bad that I had to put a ban on her mentioning my weight at all. This was when I was in my thirties. She tried to protest that she was just concerned about my health. Which was bullshit. She had not a peep to say when I was anorexic (twice) except to comment in envy that my waist was tinier than hers.
So miss me with the ‘but your health though’ bullshit. It’s clearly not about my health.
I love my body now. I want to tell everyone about it, but ‘try dying; you may feel better after’ is not a viable plan.It’s high-risk, high-reward! That’s how I would sell it, anyway. But considering that I literally cannot find another case like mine, I am loath to hold myself up as a beacon for how to do things.
That’s said sarcastically, but I mean it. I wish I could tell people that they are beautiful the way they are. All the time spent on hating their bodies is wasted. I say that with love because I spent fifty years of my life in that same space. It’s a terrible place to be, and I am glad I am no longer in it.