PICKING UP THE PIECES

Mummy, this post is dedicated to you. I have experienced a life involving many relationships that have wound up with me falling apart at the seams. Though my life with anorexia has been debilitating, hard, and devastating, one thing it has not been is lonely because I have always had my mum. I had my mum to hold me and say ‘you is kind, you is smart, and you is important.’ When anorexia broke me, she had the glue to piece me back together.

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Piece #1

My mum has spent my entire life picking up the pieces from a person who was so afraid of rejection that he became the one who rejected me. From a young age, I was broken by an unpromising and conditional love woven together with strings of abuse: financial and emotional. If it wasn’t aimed towards me, it was directed towards my mother, who became helpless, desperate and unsupported in dealing with his childishness, maliciousness, and selfishness. She experienced it years before I did, and so when it began happening to me, she believed me wholeheartedly and was the one person I had in the world who understood what his abuse felt like… heavy and deep. After just a day with him, it took weeks of her love for me to have the strength to be whole again. She picked up the pieces of me so many times that her arms began to hurt, ache and bruise. But that never stopped those arms from reaching me all the way around and squeezing me as lovingly as she possibly could.

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Piece #2

My grandparents have always loved me so much. My grandpa is the man I trust most in the world. And my grandma has always been the girly person in my life who I did fun things with: shopping, hair, and nails. But when I fell ill with my eating disorder, our relationship became tainted with its mark. Their attempts at offering me support were often received poorly by me. There were times when their comments felt as though they were intended with harm. I can now see that often, my interpretation was the issue due to the presence of the mental illness and the starving brain. There were months in which we would abstain from even talking, and I believe this hurt both parties just as much because right from the beginning of my life, there was always so much love reciprocated both ways. I don't have the ability to determine whose fault it was, and I don't care to determine that even if I could, because whilst turbulence has presented itself, there has always been an underlying love and to me, and I think to them, that is all that matters now that I am in recovery. But before, tears fell, conflict arose, and heartbreak existed. And it only exacerbated when it became increasingly apparent that I was going to die. They all resulted in the relationship falling to pieces, the love being tainted, and the memories never being created. So there our relationship was, on the floor, shattering and triggering the development and destruction of anorexia. And the only person who knew what to do with it was there by my side, sweeping them into the tray... Mum, mummy, mumma. God, I love her so much.

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Piece #3

The second man I trusted and loved most in the world became the same man I realised I'd never known. That truth fractured me into a million fragments of love I didn't have anymore. This man understood, perfectly, how tiny I am, my self-doubt, my insecurity, and my fragility emotionally and physically. He undoubtedly knew of my vulnerability, making me his perfect target.

He took a beautiful flower and crushed it between his fingertips.

When I told my mum who he was, before anything else in her life, she prioritised me, just like she always had. I was her biggest love, and I was the one she needed. That alone began to stitch me back up. Her love has and always will be the thing that saves me from others and from myself. My mum even became extra aware of my eating patterns throughout the aftermath, continuing to provide meal support when she didn't want to eat herself, because her trust had, too, been eroded by the same man. What had always been hard for me became hard for her, because like all beautiful relationships, you feel the things they feel, you hold your hand in theirs, and you absorb their suffering because your empathy, care, and compassion feel infinite. And despite all that she was and is feeling, she continues to dedicate the little hope she has left towards nurturing me, a fact that never ceases to amaze me. Slowly, she will pick up my pieces. Slowly, she is picking up my pieces.

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My whole life, my mum has always had to be so strong. When does she get a break? When will things be peaceful for her? When will her worry get to end? She is the kindest and most generous woman I know, and yet she has had little kindness and generosity shown to her, not in the way she needed or deserved. She has picked up my pieces all along, and I want her to know that now, as an adult, I will be here to pick up hers, too.

Kisses,

COS x