Your Body Is Not Your Voice

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I know that I'm headed for nowhere good when I start lying about food that I've eaten, and making up meals that I know I haven't had. It's only a fabricated sandwich here or a make believe bowl of cereal there, right? I want you to see, and yet, please don't look too close. I want you to silently take note that my clothes are fitting more loosely, but please don't ask me if I've eaten. It's the dance I know so well. It has taken me awhile to figure out that when I start to pirouette, the routine is already coming to an end. I don't quite know when to take a bow. I do feel confused by the fact that even at my most happy, I find myself waltzing with the enemy. The beloved pair of toe shoes cripple my feet when the satin ribbons are undone, and yet I continue to dance in them time and again. "Your body is not your voice," she often tells me. I have somehow always found a way to let my body do the talking for me. After the rape, it was through the wheezing, gasping sounds of my breath, and the consecutive trips to the ER in the middle of the night for asthma attacks. I wanted to tell, I did. I wanted to tell...
"Your body is not your voice."

Comments

Anonymous said…
sometimes it feels like because i was so often left in the dark or the too bright burning lights or the blood and horrors that my words can not speak for me since even the destruction seemed not to phase the people around me as a little girl. sometimes it feels like i have no voice at all, only silent words i can hear but can not heal alone. this is why sometimes i think i need this body to speak when truly i need to let it heal and stop having to work so hard when i have words and people who are willing to hear. the unlearning seems a long process yet i try to remember that just because i can dance in pain doesn't mean i can never dance in joy.
holding you in peace and sending you comfort...
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Eve said…
Angela, this is so beautiful. I am sending you hugs or love and acceptance today. I love you.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
AngieR said…
But it's so much easier to say my body is not my voice than it is to feel it. And sometimes so much easier to hope that someone will 'hear' the silent scream than it is to whisper the words aloud.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
I Hate to Weight said…
remember that this is all cyclical. you can and will feel better again. each time, i believe, will be easier.

you've recently known what it's like to feel some better. you will again.

and lean, lean, lean on your wonderful therapist.

you're in my prayers, Angela.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Missy said…
This is a beautifully written post and I love the dance metaphor...YET perhaps we need to illuminate it for what it is...not a dance. Not anything that we can prettify. It's just sick. Death.
And when your body is dead you have no voice.
I feel like I am sort of on a slippery path now, too. Thanks for sharing the timely quote.
Why do I want my body to say "I'm sorry?" I just feel like anorexia is an apology of some sort.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Serena said…
This really is beautiful. Keep on fighting, girl <3
Monday, June 27, 2011
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