This past Christmas, my sister and I watched the entire Lord of the Rings series again. I hadn't seen it in years, and I'd forgotten about this quote at the end that Frodo says, that makes me cry every time I hear it:
"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand - there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend, some hurts that go too deep - that have taken hold."
My friend Katie and I have discussed this so many times - can we ever really be "normal" again? Can we ever really go back to being fully functional human beings? I realize there is no such thing as "normal"; I've been told this ad nauseum, whenever I've discussed this with anyone else. But I think there are levels of normal that people who dismiss normality take for granted. Things like waking up without wanting to die; breathing without having to focus on slowing every intake; communicating with others without having a panic attack; eating the appropriate amount of food to survive. When I say I want to me normal, I don't mean in an existential, socially bounded manner; I mean that I want to be able to function, on a daily basis, without simple necessary tasks taking up every ounce of energy I have.
This quote can apply to so many situations, many much more serious than mine. War, genocide, abuse and violence. What has always struck me about Frodo, though, is that in a sense, he failed. Without Gollum (another character I will need to write about, another time), Frodo would've kept the ring. I think, in the end, it wasn't what was done
to him that haunted him, but the choices that
he made. The others could heal, despite the travesties of war, because war was done
to them. Frodo made his own bad decisions - heavily influenced by the ring, of course, but still in the end his own warped choices.
This, I think, is why it's so hard for people to feel sympathy for those with many mental illnesses. Because in the end, we do this to ourselves. We make the decision not to eat, to purge, to slash our wrists. To sit in bed and do absolutely nothing. To those outside, it seems so horribly selfish. And we see it ourselves. We know we shouldn't do the things we do; we wish we could be more appreciative, more capable,
better.
It's a very fine line, between taking responsibility for your actions and blaming yourself for your disease. This is one of the things that still sticks out most strongly in my brain from treatment, that one of my favorite therapists (S) used to say to me over and over (from anyone else, I'd've gone bitchface on them. From her, it was hard to ignore.) It's so easy to say that you "just can't ____". Can't eat, can't get up, can't stop. "You can," she'd always say to me. "You choose not to." I hated her, every time, for saying this. Because so often it feels incredibly, absolutely impossible to do these things. But physically, I could put food in my mouth. My jaw could chew it. My legs could carry me out of bed. I am physically capable of these things; it's my mind telling me that I can't.*
*There are points where this logic breaks down. There are points you sink to, when your body is so malnourished, when you are so fucking hungry that the need to eat is entirely
overwhelming. And I say this as someone who starved herself for 10
years, and controlled it most of the time. There is a point where that
control breaks down.
"But
at some point, the body will essentially eat of its own accord in order
to save itself. Mine began to do that. The passivity with which I speak
here is intentional. It feels very much as if you are possessed, as if
you have no will of your own but are in constant battle with your body,
and are losing.
It wants to live.
You want to die.
You cannot both have your way." ~ Marya Hornbacher (Wasted)
I'm
not sure S would agree with this. I'm sure many professionals wouldn't,
and maybe even some people who have had eating disorders. Maybe it's
something you have to experience. But I can tell you that the body will do things all on its own, when necessary for survival. It's a bitch like that.
This is important. It's empowering. It's also incredibly disheartening and shameful. It's something I still struggle with, every day; how much of this is my fault? How much of this could I turn around if I
just tried harder? My current therapist has reached the end of her rope. She doesn't know what else to say to me to get me to move on with my life. Let me tell you how awesome it feels, to have a therapist give up on you. Not that she'd ever say it in so many words, but we're down to the "You just have to
do it" argument. (Try telling someone with an eating disorder to
just eat, I dare you.) I feel like I'm defending my depression to her, like I'm making excuses for myself. (I have this written in big letters across my binder from my first inpatient stay - EATING DISORDERS ARE AN EXCUSE. Because they are; they're an excuse not to function, not to grow up, not to participate in life. They're an excuse to feel miserable.)
Mental illnesses are so, so hard. Because there is no cure, no single treatment that works. Because sometimes someone needs to be told that their behavior isn't their fault, and sometimes they need to be told that this exact same behavior is them making excuses - and both these things will be true. Because mental illness is, in the end, a paradox, a conundrum, an incongruous juxtaposition of states of being.
It wants to live, you want to die. You cannot both have your way. The illness becomes it's own demon, one you want so desperately to destroy - but one you cater to. One you keep alive with your actions. How much of this is my fault? I feel like so much of it is hardwired into my brain, like these
are the threads of my old life; they were always there, just not yet woven together completely. Maybe I can unravel part of this tapestry, maybe I can tear it to pieces, but I still have those same threads to work with when I try to put myself back together.
At the end of the movie, when Frodo leaves Middle Earth with the last of the elves, my sister turned to me and said: "I still don't get why he had to go. Why didn't he just stay?"
I was quite literally speechless. I knew that if I opened my mouth, I'd start bawling. And I had no clue how to answer her, because it had never occurred to me that someone might think that way. To me, Frodo's leaving was always a blissful, peaceful end for him. The scene where he says goodbye to Sam and the others broke me more than any other in the film, but I
understood. He smiles, on that boat, for the first time in so long. He was
free.
I can tell you this much for certain; if I were Frodo, I'd've run onto that boat and never looked back.
February 17th:
(normal trigger warnings )
