Poison

Last night was the third night in a row. I tried to fall asleep and didn’t notice the ache in my stomach until after midnight. Yesterday I told a friend I wasn’t going to ignore my hunger anymore. And yet, there I was, wide awake and hungry in the middle of the night, not having eaten enough for dinner. It didn’t help that the chronic pain in my hip was gnawing on my nerves, everything that touched my face and neck felt abrasive, and I couldn’t lay still long enough to drift into dreamland.

Then I felt it. The deep prickling in my chest and stomach that had been my lifelong companion. It expanded into a horribly familiar ache. The kind that makes me want to crawl out of my skin. There would be no shoving it down now, so I leaned in. The flood of memories rushed to fill every corner of my mind. It’s not like they hadn't been seeping through the cracks in my foundation for days now anyway… The man I cheated on and lied to, the man who made false promises and abandoned me, my mother’s rage and broken heart, and, of course, my part in it all. The floodgates were open. Pain, guilt, anger, fear, grief, shame, regret, hate. The feelings bubbled up from deep inside and spilled out in uncontrollable, sickening waves. They were like poison in me. I retched my feelings and wept. If I’d thought it would help I would have made myself throw up just to get it all out.

This poison is still in me. My body can’t digest it and it comes out in one of two ways: grieving and letting go, or retching and purging. Last night I retched and purged. I am living the biggest, longest hangover of my life. I shove down the bubbling up to stave off my sickness, hoping it will go away if I just hold it down long enough… It never does. I may feel better for a while but the prickling ach always returns. 

I have been breathing poison for 25 years; since I arrived in this world and took my first breath. Before I was born this poison was pumped into my veins through my mother’s blood. It was embedded in my body, and as I grew it grew into me. Now I can’t imagine life without it. I still choose to breathe it in sometimes. Other times it feels forced upon me without my consent like being frozen to a bench down-wind of someone who just lit another cigarette. Mostly, it’s just what I’m used to. It’s familiar, easy, even comforting at times. It’s everywhere, and my friends and family are breathing it too. 

I may never fully recover. I may always have poison in me, but I can learn to transmute that poison into healing by making different choices. I can be in recovery. In recovery I take care of myself. I avoid poisonous air and keep a safe distance between me and others who are still breathing it. I wear a protective mask when I see those I love who generously share their poisoned air with me. When I do breathe in poison I call on the support of my recovery friends to help me stop and take care of myself again. When I wretch and cough up my poisoned insides I choose not to shower the people I love with the poison I am purging. Instead, I get a bucket and a friend who knows the suffering of my sickness, and will hold my hair back and comfort me while I purge the pain. 

This is not pretty. This is not tidy. This is messy and uncomfortable. This is me; a messy, beautiful, courageous, perfect, recovering codependent.