Pain binds us together in healing

I try to watch her without getting emotionally involved.

The teal armchair cannot contain her emotion. Her over sized, stuffed animal twists in her fists. She has no idea that she's even in this room.

She's with her mom. She's 10 again. She's hurt.

It goes something like, "Look at what I did in school."

No response.

Just dark.

Emptiness.

She may as well have been talking to the flowers in the wallpaper. It has more life.

She tries again, "I made up this new dance--want to see?"

Nothing.

Something in me stirs. 

No. I don't want to. Please. Not today. It has been a good day.

We're back in the present. 

Words smack against the walls. Words that haven't dare been spoken in 26 years.

"Just acknowledge me. Just tell me you love me. Mom just let me know you see me."

I crack.

This isn't fair.

My eyes tear from the girl in the teal chair to my left. I see my rock, my role model with tears streaming down her face.

Neither of these girls ever had a mother. No one there to love them. To tell them their art projects were good. To make them a lunch. To tell them they were ok.

I see myself in them.

I'm taken back.

I hear her words.

And I hear his silence.

I'm in the office, I'm 14, 12, 18, pick an age, I'm overcome with anger. I'm overcome with depression. With anxiety. With hate. 

I'm trying to put the words together. To tell the people who are supposed to love me unconditionally that I need help. That I don't know what's going on. That I'm not ok.

"You're so selfish."
"Stop talking about yourself."

"You're so self-centered."

"I have been dealing with you all your life, I can't do it anymore."

Next thing I know I'm next to the teal chair.
My hand is on the girl's, her's on mine. Another palm on my back. 

I'm heaving.
Each breath leaves me lighter.

I understand.

I have had the hardest time with knowing what it is I'm feeling.

I have had the hardest time with figuring out why it is I am so damn angry.

I have had the hardest time figuring out why I have always felt alone.

Until now.

Until this moment where these girls who are as 'broken' as me hold each other.

Pain binds us together in healing.

I have had this hole that was never filled, rather dug deeper-suppressed.
I was told I was wrong for having such emotions.

I was told I was a burden for feeling such ways.

I was told to get over it.

To go elsewhere.

To deal with it.

And since I did not know how, I turned to my eating disorder.

I ate my feelings.

I starved my feelings.
I numbed.
I suppressed.
I denied.

For so fucking long that it made me into what I'm unraveling today.

But in that moment huddled on the floor I understand. I get it. 

I have a bit of peace knowing why I am so angry, why that hole is still there, why I do not know how to deal with the day-to-day, because I was never taught how.

I look into the girl's eyes. There's an understanding there. A peace.

I feel a wholeness that I have never experienced.

I will be ok.