Wednesday, 4 January 2012

A Letter To My Oppressor


Dear Problem,

Would you be so kind as to take a step back, look in the mirror and regard yourself for what you truly are?

Beneath your façade of protection and comfort can be found a layer of lies, and through your veneer of friendship shines an aura of contempt.

You have misguided me for God knows how long - only you can tell when I first fell into your mammoth trap - whether it was three years ago, or ten. Was my anxiousness about trains, planes and petrol stations and my obsession with order as a child a misinterpreted forewarning of your gloomy arrival?
Yet although I know all of this, I still can't seem to shake you off. After at least eighteen months of being fully in your grasp I am at last beginning to find the chinks in your armour,  although were it not for the others rallying around me I feel that I should still be cocooned with you in our own cotton wool padded world of ignorance.

I get the feeling that you have been loitering  in the background of my life for so long, casting your incantations and spells, that I will never be able to fully shake you off. Will your rules and guidelines always plague me, niggling away at the back of my mind - an unwanted reminder of an unhappy past?
I hope with all of my might that this will not be the case, for I want to lead a happy life, free of lies. I understand that there will always be problems with weight and body image associated with the female kind, but I will do my best to only look back at you as a victor does, reflecting on a past triumph - the time I overpowered the eating disorder! The time I burst free of my oppressor and grabbed the bull by the horns.

Now, have I helped you to see what I see? What the others around me see in you? Have I given you something to think about? Knocked your confidence? Taken away the spring in your step?

I hope so,
G x

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