Body Terror

I can’t get up.

It’s been five hours since I woke up and I find myself not moving an inch away from my bed. My stomach grumbles but I don’t find the appetite to eat. I need to go to the bathroom, but my legs won’t move out of my sheets. My body has demands I can’t seem to meet. It has needs I can’t seem to give, and it gets mad at me for the lack of treatment I give it. Our goals are different: it needs food, I need to stay in bed. We constantly fight like this, we’re both stubborn and I can’t ignore it always, because long enough it will bring me pain. It will give me unnecessary pain to give it its needs, it will make me get out of bed to go eat. But I don’t want to eat, food sounds disgusting at this kind of moment, and whatever I choose to feed it with won’t be enough to satisfy the demand of food, nor can I keep avoiding it for much more. 

My impotent body brings me down with it.

My brain hates me as much as my body, they both hate their host and they let me know. We’re supposed to be one, yet each seems like a different person. If I am my brain and I am my body, then why doesn’t it feel like it? Why do I have to deal with my brain’s lack of chemicals? Can’t it just fix itself? My brain haunts me, its chemicals give me irrelevant emotion, its thoughts bring me down like everyone else, all with fascinating imagination. 

I’m filled with infection, and the weakness my body goes through is something else I have to deal with. They give me all of their pain and I’m responsible for them, but they’re not responsible for me. The demand for food comes again but this time I feel I might throw up, and the disgusting fluids out of my body would help it, but I don’t want to go through that process. Medicine is not enough to help, it takes the pain away but it will always come back. Why does my body wastes time in something as stupid as this? Doesn’t my body get better than me that we don’t have enough energy for this? It feels so weak I can’t even stand up, this monthly thing is getting old. I don’t want it anymore. It sickens me, both physically and mentally, and I just want to get rid of it. I can’t get rid of it. 

Sitting down at the table with my family, something about the good smell makes my stomach revolt, isn’t my stomach supposed to want it? Why now is it driving me away from it? I don’t get it. 

“Sara, how’s your day been?”

“It’s been good, not much to do in online school” I shrugged. It was my mom and that would always bring a smile to my face, I miss her even when she’s there. “Can I just drop out? It’s all too stupid for me” 

“Yeah? Then how do you get to college?” 

“I don’t.” 

“No no no no no, if you don’t go to college I’ll kick you out of my house” My dad never seems to get the joke. 

“Dad,” I smiled

“Yes?”

“It’s a joke” 

The food is served and the meat in front of me looks so good, it smells so good. Both me and my body agree on it. I slice the food on my plate and bring the fork up to my mouth, but the moment it touches my tongue something feels… wrong. Chewing suddenly felt disgusting and I can’t swallow the piece in my mouth until I force myself to, and the only thing I can do after is to chug some water down my throat. Everything was great, why am I now feeling this disgust? After a few more pieces of meat, I can’t seem to eat anymore.

I’m expected to be naturally strong, I am naturally strong. It would show more if I exercised and trained my body to be more powerful then this would be a much easier task. Why do I have to go through that process of building it all up to just lift things? I don’t want help, I don’t need help, I just want my body to be able to do this, why can’t it help me do it? Why does my body have to be so ridiculously weak? The only one that ends up dealing with this is me. I’m responsible for my body, I know that. It just makes me feel like I’m incapable of anything, like I’m just good for nothing, and my body drags me through it. I lack the strength I need, and too much effort just brings pain to my under-used muscles. I can’t get anything done because of it. My impotent body brings me down with it. 

Every time my brain has the chance, it reminds me. It reminds me in my dreams, in my thoughts, in my memories, and in my emotions. It reminds me of how I was never good enough, I can’t make anyone stay. At this point, I don’t want them to stay. But why does it keep thinking about it? Why, at the smallest chance, my brain just goes over the last two years? I’m tired of it, I’m tired in general. The reminder that everyone is better than me makes me want to give up. There will always be someone better and I’ll never be good enough at anything. My brain loves the idea of that. It’s a contradiction. Because I know I’m better than most, I know that, they even show it, but then why are there others who surpass me? In the end, am I better or worse than everyone else? 

The inconvenience of having a body and living in one is endless: It’s painful, it’s fearful, it’s failure, it’s filled with scars, it’s uncomfortable, it’s emotional, and it’s called living.  

I carry my body with me just as much as it drags me with it.