Beautifully Broken Minds

Nightmares

     I wake up in a panic. My heart races and my teeth clench together, locking my jaw tight. I can taste something like copper in my mouth and it takes me a moment to realize that it is blood.
     Just blood.
      I must have bit the inside of my cheek in my sleep again.
     I press both my hands to my chest and close my eyes, while trying to control my breathing. I take slow, deep breaths and tell myself that everything is alright. Although the feeling of fear persists, I know now that it was just a dream.
     I am not there. I am not there. I am present. I am recovered. I am fine.
     I recite to myself the same mantra that I always have to tell myself to get me to calm down. The reminder that I am not where I was is what keeps me sane.
     In my mind a soar of images flash across my eyelids that I saw in my nightmare. My frail body--ribs sticking out and scaling up my body like a ladder, my pelvic bones like two perfect half-bowls, and my eyes and cheeks like sunken, empty craters. I can still feel the emptiness that accompanies a life filled with loneliness and despair--a neverending night. It was a neverending night during those times of my life that I was like this--a shell of my former self--but now, at least, it is only when I sleep. At least the neverending night is contained within the times when I sleep.
     I open my eyes and swing my legs off of the side of the bed and let them dangle. I rub the sleep out of my eyes for a moment before standing and walking to my bathroom to look in the mirror.
     The person in the mirror is not what I saw in my nightmare. I check all the key places on my body so I am certain of my existence. My ribs only stick out when I lean backwards or to the side, my pelvic bones are only slightly visible but can be made more evident only when I suck in my relatively normal stomach, and my eyes and cheeks, where they appeared sunken in my dream, are filled and full of color. All of this is unlike what I saw. This is enough to ground me--to keep me from thinking that I am still living in the time when I really was like the monster I saw in my nightmare.
     2018. That was the year when I felt the most alone and also the most unstable from striving towards my neverending goal towards thinness. This was not when I was first diagnosed but it was the worst year of my existence to date. Nothing was worse than the year 2018.
     I still remember the feelings so well. They are sometimes reflected in my dreams as they did tonight. If only I could make them go away. Maybe then I wouldn't be reminded of the time that I lost starving myself instead of going out and having fun with friends (if I had of had the time and energy to have made any).
     I rest my hands on the edge of the bathroom counter and count to ten, focusing on my breathing once more. I let the picture of my present self that I just saw in the mirror--the one that my past self would have loathed--sink in and envelop my mind, reassuring me that I am okay.
     I am absolutely and most assuredly not okay.
     I walk out of the bathroom and to my closet. I pull out a fuzzy, black sweater and a pair of jeans and put them on, leaving my feet bare. I exit my bedroom and enter the living room. From the living room, I can see directly into the kitchen, where there is a large window--the focal point of the room. It is entirely dark out. I walk into the kitchen and look at the clock on the stove that reads 4:05 am. I feeling of dread rushes from the center of my chest to the tip of my spine as I realize how long I will have to wait til sunrise.
     I sigh and walk over my coffee pot, fill it with the appropriate amounts of water and coffee grains, set my mug that I selected out of the overhead cabinet beneathe the spout, and turn it on. While I wait for my coffee to finish, I lean against the kitchen counter and try not to think about the nightmare that I had earlier. When it finishes, I grab a hold of the body of the mug rather than the handle, letting the heat burn the bare skin of my hand, and sit down at the kitchen table.
     I take a sip and let it burn my tongue.
     It tastes good.
     It also does not taste like something my eating disorder would have found unacceptable.
     I sit at the edge of my chair, one foot propped up on the other chair across from me. I rest my elbows on the table and grip my coffee mug hard, taking the occasional sip.
     When my mind once again starts wandering towards thoughts about my nightmare, I immediately try thinking of other things. Other things such as the grief seminar.
     About a month ago, I started attending meetings with a grief support group. I thought it would help with the feelings that I have towards my "anorexic" self, and it has worked somewhat but not enough to make the feelings and nightmares I have go away. It does not help rid me of the grief I feel over the loss of time and loss of energy and even loss of self due to those seven years of being completely consumed by my eating disorder. The grief couseling group meets once a week and often differs in structure from week to week. As in, one week it may be a seminar or lecture, where we just simply listen to a chosen speaker, whereas the next week we may gather in a circle and actually discuss our problems and support each other.
     I hate the weeks when we have to discuss our problems, but I make myself go anyway. I just never talk about my problems since no one would ever understand why someone like me would belong in a group like this.
     I recall one girl saying, "You belong in the eating disorder support group. Not in grief support. This is not a place for people with mental illnesses." She was already a very rude individual and left not long after she said that to me, but it still stung enough to make me keep my problems to myself. I'm sure that is the opposite of what I need, but I feel that I must. Last thing I need to do is hand over my innermost feelings and problems to a flock that have some wolves in their midst. No thank you. I would rather not have what little self-esteem I have be ripped to shreds.
     As I think about the grief seminar, I let my mind wander wherever it may (except my nightmare) as I slowly sip my coffee. When my leg gets tired from being propped up for so long, I curl both of my legs beneathe me and rest my head on my arms on the table.
     My life for so long has been solely focused on my eating disorder. I know no life without it. Now that I am "free" from it, I grieve over it. I mourn for it. I also, at the same time, hate it and regret ever giving into it. It has been my friend, my lover, my bane, my poison,...my life. I keep hoping that maybe going to grief counseling will help trigger something in me that will rid me of these feelings that I feel and the longing that I have for something I don't understand but won't let myself have.
     I just don't know what that something is.
     As I think and dwell on this, I find my eyelids closing and suddently, without my realizing it, I drift off to sleep.