Broken

I'm broken. And I'm sad. And everyday I wonder why. Some days it seems clear to me; it seems clear that it's because of the house or because my brother quit the family or because I wasn't allowed to go to my favorite aunt's funeral when I was 12.

I'm broken.

And sad.

And I don't know why.

I've been to the counselor, but I never felt like she could really hear me. The other day I fought with my mother. She couldn't hear me either. Sometimes I think no one can hear me. There is so much that I'm saying everyday and no one hears me.

I'm broken.

I'm sad.

I wish that I could just be broken and sad out loud in a way where I could make sense to the people who I want to have understand me. At the same time I don't want to be heard. At the same time I want to be alone with my sad, broken, pathetic self. I  want to go a day with no fears of the dark things that are within me. I want to go a day without the fear that someone with notice the darkness within me. I want to eat without shame or not eat without shame. I don't want to say 'no' or 'later' every time I'm offered a chocolate or a pastry. I want to say 'never.' I want to say 'yes, please!'

I'm broken.

And sad.

I want to look at a cookie in the store window without even thinking about wanting it. I want...- It's funny because when I was less broken, when I ate all the time, I wouldn't even notice a cookie in the store window because I wasn't worried about it. I had cookies at home that I didn't even have to think about, I ate them with out a worry or a care. And now that I'm fat, sad, broken, and scared I just want the cookies to leave me alone. I want the left over pizza in the fridge to stop calling my name, to not jump out of the box and out of the fridge and into my hands. But these days pizza seems to have a mind of it's own, a way to find my hands and my mouth.

There was a time when prowling for food in the middle of the night was just a normal and expected thing for me to do; I didn't fight it, and I didn't care. Now when the sun goes down I have to tell myself 'you don't need it' 'you don't want it' and my thought begin to race....

....Just one. Just none! Just one more. Just one bite. Just one more bite, I'm still hungry. I don't need it, I had enough. I had too much. I have to eat more. I can't eat any more. I'm just going to eat this. Just this once. No more. You're bad. No good. Pig. I have to eat something. I haven't had enough calories today. You had too many calories you stupid fat slob! I'm not a slob, I'm just fluffy, I just have a little extra... I can feel the bones under the fat, so maybe... You don't feel bones. You feel fat, you feel the places where there would be bones if you weren't wearing a dead whale under your skin. You're weak. You deserve to suffocate under 100s of extra pounds of blubber. Only 100 extra. Lose 30 this month. Lose it next month, eat that now, and lose it next month. I could really hurt myself. You're just a weak cow until you do. You can't be happy till you do. That will not be happiness. This will not be happiness either......

It goes on and on in my head... I try to tune it out, I try to make it stop, but as soon as it goes I need it back because... Because I don't remember how to function with out them.

I'm broken...

How did I get so broken? And why is it that when ever I have a break through, the ah-ha moment in which I suddenly understand my brokenness, I am suddenly swallowed by grief and guilt and the realization that I can never face my brokenness out loud to the people that I need to... the people that it would hurt... the people that are at the roots... the people that I don't know how to impress or at the least just please.

I heard a particular sound... an ordinary everyday sound. A sound that would otherwise be plain and ordinary and of no consequence to you... but the sound was broken in a way, and although I can't say it, can't say what the sound was or how it was broken, I can say that it triggered some thoughts for me. I thought about my childhood, the part of my childhood where ordinary broke, and brokenness became ordinary. I realized that I did express my feelings of guilt to my mother, and she blew it off as ordinary. I did express my needs, in my own way which ought to have conveyed that I felt guilty and embarrassed. I did speak up, and I did try to tell my mom... so it can't be on me anymore. I shouldn't blame myself anymore... except that I have no one to blame but me, because my efforts were broken... hidden, disguised as ordinary. I played it off. I brushed it off. I made it less then it was. I set myself up for failure when I was eight years old.

But why? How? What for?